"The sense of 'otherness' results from isolation from those with similar feelings and from messages that homoerotic feelings are
shameworthy" (Rivers & D'Augelli, 2001, p.
If community members have reason to shame only the shameworthy, they will take both their own limited information and the reliability of the enforcer into account as they respond to the shaming sanction.
For example, when Denny's, and later Texaco, were sued for alleged discrimination, the fact that the lawsuits were civil rather than criminal in nature seems unlikely to have diminished the damage to the firms' reputations.(75) The key issue in these cases was whether the relevant audience believed that the behavior in question truly was shameworthy.
That which is "wrong" with our world view, in his eyes, points back to ourselves--to something small or inadequate in our vision, which he finds
shameworthy. A more recent writer claims that the question of objective knowledge in science is more ethical than epistemological (Montgomery x).
Thus, Thomas can cheerfully acknowledge his uncertainty about his perception of things, not as something flawed or
shameworthy, but as an opportunity for greater understanding.