I’m not sure I ever wore a dunce cap. But I remember them. They came to a point, like a Conehead, and teachers made you wear them if you did something stupid.

I also remember “Go stand in the corner,” another form of student punishment. You could sense the eyes of your classmates on your back as you wiggled with the hot flush of embarrassment. Sometimes you stood there for an hour. At least it felt like an hour.

These were ways, even for kids, to be publicly humiliated. If you trace the idea back, you’ll find a time when we put people in stocks in the public square. The idea was if you shame someone in front of their peers, they’ll think twice about repeating the offending behavior.

Today, we are much more “enlightened.” We have no stocks. We would never make kids wear a dunce cap. Even standing in the corner is frowned upon. We are more sensitive to others. Bullying is a preeminent issue. Making people feel bad about who they are is taboo.

So it intrigued me to watch the recent public shaming of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House Press Secretary, who went to a restaurant called the Red Hen in Virginia and was asked to leave by the owner, who was offended by Sanders’ politics.

We also recently saw a Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, exhorting her supporters at a rally in Los Angeles, telling them, “If you see anybody from that (Trump) Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and create a crowd…And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

Public shaming. All that’s missing is the dunce cap. Except this time, the dumb behavior is from the people who think they’re being smart.

Source: Mitch Albom: Ricochet effect of public shaming on full display