Nobody expects this to convince anyone. That’s why I don’t like the term “ad hominem”, which implies that shamers are idiots who are too stupid to realize that calling someone names doesn’t refute their point. That’s not the problem. People who use this strategy know exactly what they’re doing and are often quite successful. The goal is not to convince their opponents, or even to hurt their opponent’s feelings, but to demonstrate social norms to bystanders. “Ad hominem” has the wrong implications. “Social shaming” gets it right.
Anecdata: my own experience is depending on who the audience is looking past the shaming; ignoring the effects of the signals they’re trying to send; and engaging them as if social shaming were just part of the debate can work. Social shaming is meant to send a signal, but by standing up to shaming and showing it’s not going to work jams the signal. That Jordan B. Peterson was able to do this to in very sensational ways to social justice activists like nobody else seemed able to is in large part why he became so popular. I find rebuking an attempt at social shaming works better if the space it’s taking place in isn’t polarized to one side of the debate, and it values epistemic hygiene. If it’s a space where everyone is shaming each other all the time, and they’re already on the same side of a meme war anyway, going in there and standing up to they’re shaming to prove some kind of point will almost certainly accomplish nothing.
Anecdata: my own experience is depending on who the audience is looking past the shaming; ignoring the effects of the signals they’re trying to send; and engaging them as if social shaming were just part of the debate can work. Social shaming is meant to send a signal, but by standing up to shaming and showing it’s not going to work jams the signal. That Jordan B. Peterson was able to do this to in very sensational ways to social justice activists like nobody else seemed able to is in large part why he became so popular. I find rebuking an attempt at social shaming works better if the space it’s taking place in isn’t polarized to one side of the debate, and it values epistemic hygiene. If it’s a space where everyone is shaming each other all the time, and they’re already on the same side of a meme war anyway, going in there and standing up to they’re shaming to prove some kind of point will almost certainly accomplish nothing.