I think it depends on the mental state of the person being shamed.
People who experience childhood trauma (sexual, physical, emotional, etc.) are particularly at risk for developing a chronic, toxic sense of shame that follows them throughout life.
If you as the shamer shame someone who is in that position, it would only compound their shame and be extremely unhelpful, since it is something they already feel about themselves. Of course, it's difficult to know whether someone feels toxic shame about themselves as the "shamer", which makes it impossible to know if it would be "helpful".
Point is, because it's impossible to know whether the recipient of shame feels "toxic shame" about themselves, I would never purposefully engage in "strategic shaming" as a way to help someone.
Left to themselves, most people have a tremendous ability to ignore their flaws, and it hampers their growth. A bit of shame is often a positive motivation. I am ashamed of a lot of code I wrote last year. I have reasons why it is the way it is, some of which are defensible, but some are just "WTF was I thinking?" If you don't have nagging bits of guilt about your recent body of work, it might well be a benefit for someone to point out problems in terms that break through your defenses.
Sure, shame works (otherwise who would care to use it?). But it is a dangerous weapon. When people stop doing something because of shame, it's not that they change their minds. It's because they were (or are afraid of being) humiliated.
In Not-Violent Communication Marshall Rosenberg considers shame (and guilt) to be one of the violent ways to change people's behavior.
And yes, shame has its place to coerce social rules - the same as (the threat of) using physical (including lethal) force - e.g. by police. But IMHO it should be the last resort, not a go-to method.
Shame was how I learned to behave when I was a child, it was my parents' go-to method, and I expect that's true for most parents. The fact that I was shamed into brushing my teeth, washing my hands, not lying, and generally acting like a responsible human being doesn't mean that "I didn't change my mind". Nor does it mean that my parents perpetrated violence against me and squelched my individuality.
When you feel shame it's because you accept external judgements. If you didn't accept those judgements then you wouldn't feel shame, you'd just be angry. Accepting external judgements is healthy and necessary because our self-worth is derived from our perception of how other people view us.
Like any tool, shame can be misused. But, as the article lays out, it's a necessary tool. It's also highly preferable to violence.
> In Not-Violent Communication Marshall Rosenberg considers shame (and guilt) to be one of the violent ways to change people's behavior.
Calling shame "violent" is dismissing actual violence.
I was also shamed by my parents - it was their favorite tool. When it comes to things like brushing your teeth, thats one thing. The stakes there are lot lower.
When it comes to who you are or how you choose to express your individuality, shame is absolutely a violent thing. The suicide rate for trans people is as high as it is almost ENTIRELY because of shame - shame from others and society that becomes internalized. LGBT people have had to form whole alternate communities because of shame. For many of us our relationship to shame forms large parts of our personality.
> Calling shame "violent" is dismissing actual violence.
I agree if you're dealing with the idea of "all" shame, but in a lot of contexts is just as or even more harmful. Being punched is less harmful to a person than feeling like they're rejected by the whole of their community.
> The suicide rate for trans people is as high as it is almost ENTIRELY because of shame
It's not clear to me how you can confidently state something like this. The difficulty of coping with gender dysphoria could just as easily explain the high suicide rate among trans people.
> LGBT people have had to form whole alternate communities because of shame. For many of us our relationship to shame forms large parts of our personality.
Like the article says, shame is amoral. It's a tool, a necessary one, and it's not helpful to label shame as "toxic and destructive".
> I agree if you're dealing with the idea of "all" shame, but in a lot of contexts is just as or even more harmful. Being punched is less harmful to a person than feeling like they're rejected by the whole of their community.
Punching someone is violent. Disapproving of someone's sexual orientation is not. The fact that the latter is likely more harmful than the former does not make it violent.
It's also quite easy to imagine an act that is very harmful but is neither violent nor wrong.
> The difficulty of coping with gender dysphoria could just as easily explain the high suicide rate among trans people.
While you're right that dysphoria over physical manifestations of the wrong gender can be traumatic, in my experience its usually the experience of social shame.
> It's a tool, a necessary one, and it's not helpful to label shame as "toxic and destructive"
I didn't.
> The fact that the latter is likely more harmful than the former does not make it violent.
There's the 2nd definition in the dictionary: "strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force". Shame is a violent force.
Telling a child that having rotten teeth, unkempt hair, and filthy clothes will be met with social disdain is a form of shame, and it's also the truth. A little bit of awareness of the consequences of their actions in terms of how others will perceive them might aid them.
Telling a child they're a horrible person for traits beyond their control, and whatever obtuse and vile repercussions the parent imagines as a result is abusive. It is probably true that the child may encounter social disdain, but the causal factors are beyond their control. Shaming them will not aid them, it will only harm them.
> When it comes to who you are or how you choose to express your individuality
I’m from an Asian society and I’ve seen the pain the strict social framework can cause people who biologically cannot conform to social expectations. However, I feel like your phraseology sweeps more broadly than necessary. Society should think very hard about what would be good social norms, and evolve them as appropriate. (For example, the social norms against women on the front lines may need to be re-evaluated in the age of fly-by-wire F22.) And society should accommodate people who for biological reasons are different.
But that does not require unstructured, wholesale accommodation of how people “choose to express their individuality.” You can accommodate people without abandoning the rule that, “in general, society expects you to be a certain way and do certain things.” Abandoning that rule is a recipe for unhappy, directionless people and a disharmonious society. The fact of the matter is that (1) society is better and more well functioning when people conform; and (2) most people are pretty similar and will be made happy by the same things. The stunning irony of millennials is that they were raised to “follow their bliss.” But they grew up, and what’s their number one complaint? That they can’t find steady work that will let them afford a house in the suburbs and a couple of kids.
I think you're right, and my wording isn't as precise as it could be. There's still the concept of societal violence though, where society is set up to form or force its inhabitants into shapes they would naturally not be able to contort into. Its a matter of degrees. The more a society has exacting expectations of its inhabitants, the more there will become troublesome elements.
> The stunning irony of millennials is that they were raised to “follow their bliss.”
Citation please! Not my experience.
> But they grew up, and what’s their number one complaint? That they can’t find steady work that will let them afford a house in the suburbs and a couple of kids.
Citation please! Not my experience. Just complaining that it takes a 90th percentile income to afford housing in most areas now instead of 60th decades ago.
> Calling shame "violent" is dismissing actual violence.
It's worse than that. Calling words violence justifies the use of "defensive", actual violence against someone that has used "violent communication" – whatever the hell that might mean at the moment.
Where I grew up this was the norm. There were things that could only be said with full understanding that physical violence is the only possible response. And while I do not condone violence and would not want children to grow up in the same environment, I have to admit that the possibility of things escalating from words to punches did act as a deterrent. I also wonder if the modern zero tolerance attitude to violence is the reason for such wider spread bullying problem.
That may be, but I think we can all agree that being loose with our definitions in such a way that it incentivizes "bringing a sword to a pen fight" is a bad thing.
> Shame was how I learned to behave when I was a child, it was my parents' go-to method
I've heard quite a few times (especially for older generations) that one learned to behave well because their parent beat them.
I was raised in a guilt (rather than shame)-driven culture (Catholic), and well, while this is effective, it takes decades to undo the damage.
> It's also highly preferable to violence.
And my point is, that shame is a form of violence (not all violence is physical). Yes, it can be justified on occasions.
If you dislike the word violence (in this context), then consider intentionally making someone suffer.
> And my point is, that shame is a form of violence (not all violence is physical). Yes, it can be justified on occasions. If you dislike the word violence (in this context), then consider *intentionally making someone suffer".
All violence is physical. Metaphorically speaking of shame as violent is an attempt to make shame sound inexcusable when, in reality, shame is necessary.
I don't think it's possible to do a good job raising a child without intentionally making them suffer in order to teach them things. The issue is making someone suffer more than is necessary or making them suffer for the wrong reasons. The suffering part isn't the problem.
Definition of violence
1a: the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy
b: an instance of violent treatment or procedure
2: injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation : OUTRAGE
3a: intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force
the violence of the storm
b: vehement feeling or expression : FERVOR
also : an instance of such action or feeling
c: a clashing or jarring quality : DISCORDANCE
4: undue alteration (as of wording or sense in editing a text)
However, I strongly object to using "violent" do describe any form of verbal communication.
We need a hierarchy of what we as a society agree upon as wrong, and violence needs to be clearly at the top of that list, for good reason. Using the word "violence" to describe ways of speaking has the positive effect of making it clear that those ways of speaking are harmful, but it also has the negative effect of diluting the potency of the word "violence". To call shaming someone "violence" is to place it in the same category as murder, rape, and assault, and shaming someone simply does not belong in that category of actions.
Ironically, equating shaming with violence has the effect of shaming people into not shaming each other, by placing their action in the same category of the most horrific actions humans inflict on one another. I suspect this wasn't intended, but it's one of the ways in which attempts to control language, even one's own language, are ineffective. If you really want to shame someone you can find a way to do it, even with the frameworks set forth in Non-violent Communication.
I've observed similar problems when experimenting with E Prime[1]: I found when using it that I quickly was able to find ways around expressing identity and predication, which I began to employ subconsciously (against my conscious will: I was honestly trying very hard to conform to the spirit, rather than the letter of the law of E Prime).
Further, at what point does honest and valuable criticism become shame? It seems to me that this is predicated upon the subjective response of the individual. If shame is violence, and criticism can induce shame, then any criticism could be violent; no matter how valid, sincere and thoughtful.
Yeah, I avoided my larger complaints about Non-violent Communication in my previous post. I think a lot of Rosenberg's advice is geared toward abdicating the listener's responsibility for managing their own emotions. Kind speech is certainly something to aspire to, but trying to manage the emotions of everyone you speak to is both unrealistic and ill-advised. Careful, well-intentioned honesty is much healthier, in my opinion. Some people won't react positively, but getting positive reactions from everyone wouldn't be a good all-consuming goal even if it weren't unrealistic.
I have to temper this opinion by saying: It's hard to say how this plays out with people who are actually proficient with the techniques in the book, however. A lot of my criticism of the book comes from seeing people use the techniques, but perhaps the reason people pick up the book to begin with is to address harmful patterns in their communication, which might bias my experience toward the techniques being used by people with poor communication skills and confounding psychological issues.
In the article, it talks about how we should be focusing on institutions, not individuals:
> Wherever possible, we should target shaming at institutions, not individuals. Effective shaming focuses on the powerful, not the weak.
It's not about changing random people's behavior, but about large groups, like corporations, or political parties. Shaming such groups is a reputation attack on the group, not a personal attack on the individuals who make them up (usually).
> Sure, shame works (otherwise who would care to use it?). But it is a dangerous weapon. When people stop doing something because of shame, it's not that they change their minds. It's because they were (or are afraid of being) humiliated.
That's not really true, and the article addresses that point directly: "Fourth, 'The transgressor should be sensitive to the source of shaming.' The shamee must consider themselves subject to the same social norms as the shamer."
If you're someone who jaywalks because you think laws a against jaywalking are a product of Big Auto lobbying, you're not going to be shamed into using the crosswalk. Shame works for things where people know its wrong, but do it anyway because they think their transgression won't be publicized. Shaming people for littering, for example, reinforces what everyone already knows is wrong. It doesn't change minds per se, but reinforces a social norm, and that's a very good thing.
I'd just say that while those who litter usually do so only in situation they believe they can get away with it, they frequently litter because they don't identify as being a part of or responsible to or for the community they're dumping in. In much the same way that the jaywalker is against laws against jaywalking, the litterer doesn't see the point in keeping clean an environment that is uncaring and violent towards them.
So in this case, its a lot more often that the transgressor isn't sensitive to the source of shaming. Take a look around at who leaves their trays in fast food restaurants around for others to pick up - its disaffected people, small kids, punks, and out of touch old people who are cynical and nasty about society. About the only people who respond to "shaming" about it are the people who do it due to being completely overwhelmed, like a parent wrangling 3 crying kids around and doesn't even have a free hand, and they're the ones least likely to really be able to respond to it.
it's the dying that usually keeps people from jaywalking, not shame or even the law. reasonable folks (people who are neither blind rule-followers or needlessly reckless) have no problems "jaywalking" when an accident is practically impossible (cars are absent or far away).
in my experience, littering (and public urination/defecation by non-homeless people) almost seem like acts of aggression or defiance by the transgressors. i've rarely gotten anything but anger in return for speaking up about it. it seems to defy shame intentionally, rather than succumb to scoial norming.
Shame is underused in western society. For example, I'd love to see HOV lane enforcement that just involved cameras capturing the faces of HOV violators and posting them online.
The advertising industry more than makes up for the lack of governmental shame in the US. Also I don't think the LGBT or most monitory communities would agree that shame is underused.
As someone else wrote in a different thread: “The shamee must consider themselves subject to the same social norms as the shamer."
So the HOV thing would only work on people who thought it was morally or socially wrong to drive in the HOV lane. If you, for example, believe that HOV lanes are simply a handout to already-rich Tesla drivers and just remove a useful lane from the rest of us, then the only reason you don’t drive in them is the risk of a fine if you get caught. These people don’t care if they are publicly called out for breaking a rule because they reject the moral basis of the rule.
“Mockery is an important social tool for squelching stupidity. I’ve never seen anyone change his mind because of the power of a superior argument or the acquisition of new facts. But I’ve seen plenty of people change behavior to avoid being mocked.”
— Scott Adams
> I’ve never seen anyone change his mind because of the power of a superior argument or the acquisition of new facts.
I feel bad for Scott Adams as it would appear he's never taken part in a conversation which has been based on the assumption of good intentions on both sides. But, having read what Scott Adams writes, and his obsession with utilitarianism and zero sum games, that shouldn't be too surprising.
You assumed a lot about the parent poster that simply wasn’t there. I’m sorry you were drugged against your will. However, that doesn’t justify criminalizing those who use various drugs themselves, without desire to harm others. You say “people who are using drugs for their benefit” and then proceed to equate that only to several predatory behaviors. What about the personal benefits that many cannabis smokers enjoy, at no risk to others? Should they be shamed out of those benefits?
Indeed, people don't want to see their behavior being mocked in a Dilbert cartoon or do things considered Dilbert-esque. Which has basically become part of our collective consciousness.
The impact that cartoon has had on management/office behavior would be hard to overstate, I suspect.
I think the next 50-100 years might be a reverse renaissance where humanity discovers the value of heuristics like shame, fear of the unknown, etc, through large-scale automation and measurement.
Rather than eliminating these human flaws, we may begin to codify and implement them in automated systems.
The social norm was unencrypted and trusting. Google's power allows it to force less powerful businesses to operate in ways that are to Google's advantage. Google doesn't shame web owners. Google scares ordinary users. Users have emotions. Websites don't.
If someone is being an asshole instead of shaming them, we now shame the shammers. Which makes no sense, because now everyone is a shammer and should be shamed for that, because that's the rule now right?
People often say that "fat-shaming doesn't work," but Asian Americans fat shame their overweight family members constantly and -- surprise -- are among the least obese demographic groups in America today.
> Paradoxically, the use of fat-shaming to induce weight loss is a significant public health issue, as it has been linked to eating and exercise psychopathology. As juvenile obesity increases in African societies, there is a continuing risk that obese school children and adolescents in physical activity settings will become targets of fat-shaming that damage their developing self-image and weight management efficacy. The thesis of this paper is that fat-shaming in physical activity contexts can undermine efforts to stem juvenile obesity, promote lifelong physical activity and redress health inequities.
So "fat shaming" not only destroys juvenile's self-esteem, but may actually make them gain weight and struggle to control their weight. If you have any literature that supports "fat shaming" as a successful weight loss strategy, I'd be interested to read it.
There's still plenty of obese asian americans around.
Obese people self shame constantly. It creates a feedback look that keeps them being obese. It destroys all their self confidence. If fat shaming worked to prevent obesity on a societal level nobody would be fat. Its an issue with a lot of factors.
Where is the causative indicator? It could be genetics. Or maybe there are confounders - even if it is causative, perhaps it has serious negative impact on mental health.
I've definitely not picked up junk food at the store several times, or ordered something healthier & smaller when dining out, and so on, to avoid feeling shame. I've actually worked to cultivate the feeling in those situations, as it's so damn useful.
People who experience childhood trauma (sexual, physical, emotional, etc.) are particularly at risk for developing a chronic, toxic sense of shame that follows them throughout life.
If you as the shamer shame someone who is in that position, it would only compound their shame and be extremely unhelpful, since it is something they already feel about themselves. Of course, it's difficult to know whether someone feels toxic shame about themselves as the "shamer", which makes it impossible to know if it would be "helpful".
Point is, because it's impossible to know whether the recipient of shame feels "toxic shame" about themselves, I would never purposefully engage in "strategic shaming" as a way to help someone.