https://thinkprogress.org/appalachia-used-to-be-a-democratic...
"Shame" is defined as "a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior." Teaching people to feel shame for conduct like lying, cheating, and stealing is an important tool societies use to enforce social norms in situations (such as with young people), where resort to legal action would be excessive and harmful.
It works at a macro level too. Consider this article: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25947984 ("Child Labor: India's Hidden Shame"). The word succinctly captures the international community's disapproval of certain practices that are common in certain places, with the implication that continuation of those practices will meet with continued disapproval from international peers. Again, that's an important social tool at the international level.
It'd be similarly ignorant to praise murdering your enemies. Sure no doubt about it, it's really effective. Doesn't mean it's legal or ethical.
These things are brute force hammers. If you really think shaming has value, read the Scarlet Letter.
And we all live in a "reptilian brain context". I'm not sure what other context there is. It makes no sense to reason about society as if we weren't all half a chromosome away from a chimpanzee.
Find an on par opponent and you'll get escalation of shaming, get your ass handed back to you with wit, or the person will just ignore you.
So I refuse that it's effective. It's perhaps been effective for you, self selective bias. You probably don't shame people you've sized up who won't respond to shaming the way you want.
But yeah, I totally only believe this because I'm a successful bully (◔_◔)
If you're living off of government assistance and vote Republican while Republicans are constantly talking about stripping away said assistance programs, you absolutely deserve whatever happens to you. I have zero sympathy for you. You made your bed, now you get to sleep in it.
The only people I will have sympathy for are the children who have parents that are too dumb to see through the bullshit spewed by Fox, InfoWars, Breitbart, etc, and people that vote Democrat because they know better, but end up getting screwed by the Republicans that don't.
If the residents refuse that sort of help and instead demand that the government somehow make the old mines profitable again, then one may indulge in some exasperated eyeball-rolling and mockery, but I'm trying not to do that preemptively.