To understand the norm as normative is part of what it is to be a member of the group; the collective is constituted, in part, by an agreement to regard one another as accountable, and to hold one another accountable, to (among other things) obeying those same norms

This points to a potential epistemic benefit of awkwardness: by keeping us from expressing judgment or acting in morally awkward problems, it may prevent us from prematurely reaching a moral consensus on these issues.

By denying people the conceptual resources to make sense of their own experience, and erecting social barriers to the exchange and dissemination of resources, awkwardness inhibits the development of epistemic resources and the exercise of epistemic agency.

awkwardness arises not because of conflicting norms, but because of conflicts within or between scripts: it feels impossible to perform one role without excluding the other.

Shifting our reaction from shame to awkwardness, or understanding that our shame is caused by awkwardness, corrects the impression of personal failure. It allows us to understand the case in terms of having been ill-served by our social resources.

To be physically misattuned is to experience many of these same feelings of alienation and insecurity; just as our emotional well-being and our physical well-being are linked, so are our emotional attunement and our physical attunement.

making progress can reveal the insufficiency of our existing social scripts.

silence is ambiguous, and can lead to false perceptions of consensus.

Engaging in moral critique offloads some of this epistemic burden onto others. If I know that my friends will step in and redirect me if I make a poor choice, or an ill-informed one, I can be more selective about where I direct my own epistemic and personal resources, investigating some goods but not others, and focusing my energy on particular pro