Shame as Sprout: Some other Vignettes from the History of Philosophy

Concluding The Architects of Dignity, Kevin D. Pham observes that "some Vietnamese intellectuals today [] are using shame in new ways to motivate contemporary Vietnamese to construct new forms of national dignity" and turning to "these six thinkers for ideas and guidance in making sense of Vietnam's past" (Pham 2024, 182).Pham, as a Vietnamese-American intellectual himself, presents through his book a genealogy that seeks to guide readers in making sense of Vietnam's political-theoretic history -offering them as architects with varying blueprints for constructing human dignity in their specific contexts.I understand this work to be, as Pham mentions at several points in the book, primarily addressed to "[us] (citizens in Western liberal democracies)" -many of whom would be likely unfamiliar with ideas of the quote unquote 'the East,' much less the hybrid worlds of Southeast Asian political thought (ibid., 77).The contemporary, even cosmopolitan Euro-American audience is also clear from the comparatist touchpoints with thinkers assimilated into the global academic-industrial complex throughout the chapters.