

The Culture of Shame, in the context of last week's "Tiger Mom" controversy - kijinbear
http://kijin.posterous.com/tiger-mom-and-the-culture-of-shame

======
atgm
I feel like the author (kijinbear?) focuses a bit too much on demonizing a
culture of shame; nothing makes a culture of guilt inherently "better" or
"worse" on any kind of absolute scale. Yes, there are high suicide rates in
some developed Asian countries like Korea or Japan, but if you look at a list
of countries by suicide rates by percentage
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate))
only TWO of the top ten countries are those Asian countries with "cultures of
shame." I feel like more media attention is directed to those in the East
because they're more "exotic." This isn't limited to suicides, by any means,
either.

Also, saying that the "culture of shame" is inherently connected to "honor
killings" seems more like an ad hominem than anything else: "Look at these
barbarians in their shame culture, the shame culture itself must be barbaric!"

There are simply two different kinds of sticks and mothers used both.

I don't agree with the closer, either -- it's too simple. Some people should
be ashamed of themselves. The guy who shot Giffords? Shame. Rush Limbaugh and
his ching chang chong jokes? Shame.

If you can't control yourself and balloon up to 300 pounds when you're 5'5"?
Shame. It's not "okay" to be fat -- you're killing yourself. Sure, you have
the freedom, but that doesn't mean you should exercise it to excess.

What does guilt get you? Feelings of remorse after the fact. A culture of
guilt, it could be argued, is a culture of remorse and confession in the
Judeo-Christian tradition.

My take-away from the article is that it's more focused on using loaded words
and stories to beat up on the "dumb," "dehumanizing" culture of shame.

~~~
kijinbear
Yes, the purpose of the article is to beat up on the dehumanizing culture of
shame. That does not, however, imply that the Judeo-Christian culture of guilt
is any better. Most likely, each is better in some areas and worse in other
areas. But it's difficult to beat up on two different cultures in one blog
post.

> seems more like an ad hominem than anything else: "Look at these barbarians
> in their shame culture, the shame culture itself must be barbaric!"

A common feature of a culture of shame is that it takes any criticism of any
part to be an ad hominem attack on the whole. There are two different ways to
read any criticism of a society: (1) "Look at those barbarians!" (2) "That's
wrong. They should fix it." To the extent that a society prefers reading (1),
I think that that tendency of that society is inferior to the contrary
tendency of another society. To the extent that Western societies such as the
United States also display a similar tendency, I think that the United States
also has a problem.

This, however, does not imply that one culture as a whole is superior to
another -- in fact, this over-generalization is exactly what I'm trying to
criticize. All societies have problems of one kind or another. They should fix
those problems, or at least try.

> Some people should be ashamed of themselves.

Sure, the 300 pound guy should be ashamed of himself. But that's a matter of
conscience. It would be wrong for others to ostracize him, or to expect him to
ostracize himself out of shame.

It's one thing for a person to feel guilt and/or shame when he realizes he did
something wrong. It's another thing for an entire society to use shame as a
means of forcing individuals into compliance even when the behavior in
question is not obviously wrong, like playing Villager Number Six.

------
kijinbear
A little late to the Amy Chua-bashing party, but it took me a while to get
something "meta" written up. The article is less about education and more
about cultural backgrounds. Not exactly computer stuff, but I thought some of
the people here might enjoy reading this, given the number of thought-
provoking articles I've read here.

Let the ruthless criticisms begin...

