
The Death of Embarrassment - rglovejoy
http://incharacter.org/features/the-death-of-embarrassment/
======
potatolicious
Old news is old?

The author laments that couples behave as if the public is their motel room -
yet this is merely a continuation of a pattern that has been there for ages.
It used to be that making out in public is scandalous and lewd; it also used
to be that baring your ankles in public is similarly scandalous and lewd.

This is nothing new - we've been becoming "less embarrassed" (to put in the
author's terminology) for years and years, well before the social
media/reality show craze, and it will continue well after social media and
reality shows have gone.

Social acceptability changes by geography and time - the author mentions the
coworker who mentioned that he's shaved his whole body in preparation for a
bicycling event... as a relatively young member of society, I see nothing
wrong with this information. He has hair on his body that he had to remove -
using means you're no doubt familiar with also - get over it?

~~~
ojbyrne
I immediately looked (in vain) for a reference to the poem "High Windows"
written in 1974.

When I see a couple of kids

And guess he's fucking her and she's

Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,

I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--

Bonds and gestures pushed to one side

...

[http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/philip-larkin/high-
wind...](http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/philip-larkin/high-windows/)

~~~
mmazing
Thanks for the link, I love coming across great poetry.

------
pohl
This touches on why I have grown to think that the institution of marriage is
doomed. The best excuse for its continued existence that I have heard is that
family, friends, and community gather to "witness" the commitment - presumably
lending it some sort of strength.

But most of the above evaporate at the other end of the relationship:
everybody wants to come to the wedding; nobody wants to come to the divorce.
When it dissolves, "these things happen", "water under the bridge", yadda
yadda yadda.

The community that witnesses a wedding has no teeth during the relationship
either. It's no longer possible to shame people into keeping their vows. The
population is too dense, and it's too easy to dispose of one set of friends
who may disapprove of your behavior and reinvent yourself without necessarily
even needing to move to another town. One of the underlying principles of Game
(as in 'pickup artistry') is that there's no reason to feel fear or
embarassment on approach because you'll likely never encounter the 'target'
again.

And speaking of Game, Roissy has a 2x2 matrix of shame in a post he wrote
about the Tiger Woods scandal. Worth reading if the death of shame is
interesting to you.

[http://roissy.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/the-medicalization-
of...](http://roissy.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/the-medicalization-of-maleness/)

------
makmanalp
> I wondered who would be confident or crazy enough to get a cosmetic dental
> procedure performed in public.

Not a _dental procedure_! Oh NO! Have these people no shame?

>"Your slip is showing" used to be the most embarrassing sartorial faux pas a
lady could commit.

The idea that a lady would have been ashamed to _accidentally_ show their
underwear is plain dumb. Good riddance of such social customs. I get that part
of the message is that it's going beyond the accidental situation, but I
honestly don't care. I'm sick of older people whining about their values. I
can't be sure, but I'll speculate that the whiners wish they could have had
done those things - or feel that they were severely punished for doing such
things and feel unfair that these people are "getting away". The fact is that
what they are whining about don't exist anymore. They need to learn to deal
with it.

------
helwr
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_tempora_o_mores>!

------
alanh
Interesting that this is also on the HN frontpage:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1323164> (Surviving the Age of
Humiliation)

------
alanh
I’m tempted to see a decline in embarrassment as little more than an
indication that the traditional, conservative worldview is losing ground. See:
"On Truth and the Tyranny of Illusion", at
[http://www.freedomainradio.com/Books/OnTruthTheTyrannyofIllu...](http://www.freedomainradio.com/Books/OnTruthTheTyrannyofIllusion.aspx)
(click Online to read it for free).

------
zephjc
In rememberance of Embarrassment: it tought us the shame of joy, and the joy
of shame.

(with apologies to The Simpsons)

------
DanielBMarkham
I would be interested in anybody over 40 who thinks things are much the same
as they were before, and anybody under 20 who thinks the guy is on to
something.

Lots of generational bias in the comments so far.

I know I've seen the drift, and I strongly suspect that shame, guilt, and
embarrassment serve a greater societal function than we give them credit for.
The discussion is very reminiscent to me of the free love movement back in the
1960s. Everybody wondered why you just couldn't turn on, tune in, drop out,
and have all the sex you wanted. Love one another. Sounded great. Then the
societal bill came due, and it wasn't pretty -- STDs, junkies, crime, rapes,
lost lives, the me generation. Looked great on paper. Didn't work so well in
reality. My feeling is that this TMI stuff is going to turn out the same way.
But I'm as biased as the next guy.

~~~
tptacek
So then by your logic, the Victorian era should have been a "societal" golden
age. But:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis#Notable_syphilis-
infec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis#Notable_syphilis-
infected_people_in_history)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Huh?

No, by my logic, traditions develop for a reason. Learn the reason and do what
you like. Having a lot of tradition and social norms isn't good -- neither is
having none.

You're just as idiotic throwing it all out the window as you are accepting it
as the unalterable truth.

Moderation my friend. Understanding and moderation. Adapting and changing
things is awesome. Let's do more of that. But let's not be idiotic about it.

EDIT: I work in hi-tech with people changing the world. I love startups. My
goal in life is to change people's lives for the better. I'm always talking
about the singularity and how great change for the better is on the way.

And now I'm a Victorian. Go figure.

~~~
tptacek
I'm not saying you're a Victorian. I'm saying that during a culture where
shame and social norming were at their height, most of the "societal" problems
you attribute to the 70's were epidemic.

