The Moralization of Discomfort: A Conceptual Analysis of Discomfort, Criticism, and Self-Justification

This working paper conceptually examines the moralization of discomfort — the process by which discomfort is directly converted into moral judgment without critical examination — and formulates self-centered affective processing as a five-element model. The paper further connects this framework to issues of metacognition, perspective-taking, and ego development, and discusses its application to Parasocial Proxy Punishment Mode (PPPM) in fan communities. Related work: PPPM v4.1 — https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20805462 This paper is prepared with AI assistance.