


There was a break for me last weekend in all the earthly murk and doom of our times when shame finally reappeared like a golden spotlight on the global stage. Andy Byron, the chief executive of Astronomer, a previously obscure data infrastructure company, quit his job. It’s not that I get pleasure out of anyone feeling forced to resign, but there was something refreshing about learning that someone somewhere was taking responsibility for his actions, even if he probably had no choice.
For those of you who generally mind your own business, the kiss-cam at a Coldplay concert last week caught Mr. Byron blissfully embracing the company’s head of human resources, Kristin Cabot, from behind. Mr. Byron is married but not to Ms. Cabot. Not that this is any of our beeswax — they are consenting adults and the common wisdom of the world I grew up in was that stuff like this really should just be between the people in question and their families.
Unless, well, it sort of is our business, or certainly Astronomer’s, as C.E.O.s and H.R. heads are not supposed to be clandestinely romantically involved by the rules of the game and apparently of their very own company.
I had thought that the toxic sludge of shamelessness — that love child of Donald Trump and the internet — had wiped out the old-fashioned notion of humiliation, but I was wrong. Kind of like when I thought we’d wiped out measles when the World Health Organization declared the disease eliminated in the United States in the year 2000.
I never thought I’d be glad to see shame as a concept, at least, brought back from the dead.
But in the age of Trump, it’s a strange relief to watch as two fellow citizens come to realize they have done something reckless and inappropriate, and not pretend they had nothing to hide. Instead, they did their best to disappear. (Ms. Cabot put her hands over her face, after all.)
I hope they will become sort of folk heroes in this age of utter shamelessness, when the House and the Senate vote for things that most Americans know are wrong, like cutting funding for Medicaid and food assistance programs. These leaders evidently don’t care. Why? Because they are afraid of the president, or they just don’t want to give up their tiny piece of power? (Although I’ll ask you, just how powerful is a person who shamelessly follows Mr. Trump?)