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The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behavi

by K0balt 3y ago

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created a significant subclass of infantile or openly hostile actors. Without shame, many people unfortunately need an authority figure to step in and moderate their behaviour. It is an unfortunate side effect of what I can only describe as the infantilisation of society that I have watched happen over the last few decades. It will likely result in people reaching for a paternal “strongman” figure and a subsequent slide into (probably) fascism. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Affric 3y ago
Well said. Shame is making a comeback in a big way with restorative justice. Hopefully enough of us get there so we can see meaningful change.
paulddraper 3y ago
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- mdanger007 3y ago
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- teolandon 3y ago
  Can you elaborate? Are these examples of "lack of shame"?
deleted 3y ago
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jmspring 3y ago
The ex of someone I know is both a user and a dealer. He opted to be homeless over getting clean. Sadly here in the states there is little you can do if an adult chooses a self destructive path - calls to sheriff/police did nothing - “nothing we can do until he commits a crime”. Where “crime” is something other than the drug use/possession. This individual has always been self absorbed and useless. His daughter asked him to change for her, he wouldn’t. His daughter’s counselor basically told her to decide how to remember him, it’s unlikely he will make it a year. Personally, I feel the individual is a PoS and hope he suffers but it’s heart wrenching to see the affect it’s having on his daughter. Addition: this is happening in one of the more permissive and “progressive” communities in CA.
- pierat 3y ago
  What's the saying... "My body, My choice" ? Well, some people will choose, willingly, to waste their life away living on the streets from one high to the next. The difference between most types of poverty and this, is that they *chose* this path. Bodily autonomy has powerful upsides, as well as downsides. Here's one of the downsides. If they wanted to 'get out', I'd be there to help them if I knew them. But they have to want to. Forcing your viewpoint on them makes you just as a horrible person as the judges throwing people in locked boxes for decades for a bit of white powder they injected.
  - User23 3y ago
    Bodily autonomy isn’t a moral principle, it’s a rhetorical device. Literally every law on the books interferes with your autonomy. Trying to apply it as the former is as nonsensical as arguing when someone says “nobody goes there anymore” when some people in fact still do.
    - lo_zamoyski 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - sangnoir 3y ago
        > Nothing turns off a hedonistic sex maniac more than the idea that he or she will have kids to take care of. They're an impediment to a licentious, self-absorbed lifestyle. This sounds a lot like the type of person you don't want raising a child
        isityouyesitsme 3y ago
        Perhaps not. I also don't want some cops to be the ones on patrol, out of fear that they might act on strong biases. But I also wouldn't excuse them for pulling someone over and immediately opening fire with intent to kill in order to bypass the problem.
      - 3y ago
ellisd 3y ago
This is a fascinating view on the sedative crisis. The lack of shame from "normal" people feels very real. Complete inaction to the staggering and ever increasing death count rate and bodies piling on the ground IS utterly shameful, but not for 2023 USA. I've noticed as well that when I've spoke to friends and family about open drug use and markets I become the one who's "out of line." Do we as a free society have no shame left to express?
- ryandrake 3y ago
  There's a huge strain of "mind your own business" running through the USA right now. When someone is out of line, you used to be able to rely on the public to correct that behavior. Now if you try, you're the bad guy--or "Karen" as they say, and everyone flips out their cell phone cameras to try to capture that crazed weirdo who has the audacity to ask someone else to behave themselves. I brought my kid to a pumpkin patch for Halloween last year and this lady told her kids to simply cut in line so they can go do some fun thing first. I thought to myself "crap, I can't say anything because you know what'll happen." My elderly father didn't have that inner voice and told the lady to get her kids to the back of the line. Well, as I expected, lady totally went bananas, whipped out her cellphone, shouting "you don't talk to my kids!" calling my old man a racist... everything under the sun. We're expected to simply sit back, mind our own business, and ignore bad/destructive behavior. If you believe in the social contract you're out of line.
  - ryanwaggoner 3y ago
    You think that assholes are a new phenomenon? You think that a few decades ago that lady would have meekly apologized and walked away?
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      I think the new phenomenon is how many people are now on the asshole's side, or are in the neutral "don't get involved" camp.
    - censor_me 3y ago
pierat 3y ago
> The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Wait, are you talking about "personal" shame, or "corporate" shame. Cause if anything, corporations have none, and people are *learning* to also have no shame. Doesnt get you anything. Just makes you feel bad for no good reason, cause others are pointing a finger at you. > Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Simply put: fuck the social contract. I didn't sign it. It doesnt get me any benefits, and all it is a whole lot of "costs", all of which are ill defined. So, no. > Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created a significant subclass of infantile or openly hostile actors. Being my username, a "pierat", has actually gotten me standing in communities. I democratize content access to the low common denominator of 0. I help others get the content they need or want. Im doing a lot better than capitalists slapping bills on access to everything... even if it does actually cost me money. > It will likely result in people reaching for a paternal “strongman” figure and a subsequent slide into (probably) fascism. We already are. Its not like anything I can do will affect that. I mean, whoop-te-doo, I make a pile of votes for even worse sycophantic leeches than myself every 2 years. And being in the "other party's state" (I mean, does it really matter?) my votes are effectively wasted. But it costs me 15 minutes.
- deprecative 3y ago
  I don't think folks want to hear or think about why shame has gone, or is going, away. Having shame will only ever interfere with the pursuit of money. As we live in a capitalist society money is the only important thing in life. You literally cannot live without it. Why would I have shame? Why would anyone? Love? Family? Friends? Those do not pay the bills. As we are hyper individualist and capitalist there is no moral or ethical cohesive force beyond the ability to secure money. People don't seem to grasp that and rely on outdated nonsense like God or Religion. Guess what? Shame is only a detriment these days because of the society we've all agreed to participate in.
- zer8k 3y ago
  > Simply put: fuck the social contract. I didn't sign it. It doesnt get me any benefits, and all it is a whole lot of "costs", all of which are ill defined. All of your "polite" behavior is modified by shame. To use an extreme, contrived, example if you shit on the floor your parents probably shamed you into using the restroom properly. You can, of course, continue to shit on the floor but you also can't act with such righteous indignation when no one wants you around. Perhaps you find a group of people who shit on the floor. But then they, too, will have their own shame-based norms that will you either comply to or be ostracized from the group. Now, scratch the example of shitting on the floor and replace it with any other behavior. Depending on the group you belong to (or are trying to belong to) shame is an effective way in enforcing expected behavior. It's one of the things that separate us from other animals. If you don't respond to shame (rather than just acting like it) you are not quirky and original you are likely a sociopath.
seoulmetro 3y ago
This is exactly my thinking whenever the debate of "legal is good for all" or "Japan and Korea are safe". It's so honestly true that forming a cohesive group where shame of standing out hurts the individual is the much lesser evil. I absolutely hate the social standards of some Western countries compared to these. Most crimes committed in the shame-adverse countries are masked ones like speeding or spy cams.
javajosh 3y ago
It presents an interesting problem for those "left behind" who value shame, self-restraint, and other unpopular virtues. The neoliberal view is that you can prove your point by forming subcultures that do better than the surrounding culture. I think that's true, but it's a plan B - plan A should be to fight hard to not lose those values in the first place. It's appalling that public discourse about systemic issues has entirely displaced talk of personal responsibility. It's appalling that a positive openness to alternative lifestyles has extended to an absurd dropping of ALL standards. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Sean Carroll has a recent podcast episode descrying the "crisis in physics", which he (partially) articulates as a problem of perception. As much as he himself always wanted to be a science heretic, he notes that all previous successful heretics were experts in the established state-of-the-art, and now if a member of the public researches physics, ALL they hear from are "heretics" who don't know the first thing about established physics. It's like the act of rebellion itself has eclipsed the utility of the specific act.
- cal85 3y ago
  > The neoliberal view is that you can prove your point by forming subcultures that do better than the surrounding culture. Can you clarify who you actually mean here by neoliberalism? It seems a very loosely defined ideology. Do you just mean ‘the mainstream West’, or something more specific? It’s a strange -ism. It’s very vague in definition, and no one ever professes to be a member of it, yet it is ostensibly an ideology. And I only ever hear it used with a pejorative subtext, which is interesting.
  - kaashif 3y ago
    > no one ever professes to be a member of it Go to reddit.com/r/neoliberal, there are lots of people claiming to be neoliberals there.
  - javajosh 3y ago
    Well, I don't mean it pejoratively. It harnesses the ideas of mutation + selection which has been proven to be successful for 5 billion years. "Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler," describes the limits of practical reason. People have a great deal of latent evil within them, and society should be the least oppressive it can be, but not less oppressive.
8note 3y ago
The US devalued shame by using it for everything. The big change recently is the me-too movement to change from shame into consequences, which is good for people with something to lose But, with the moves towards feudalism in the states, there's too many people with nothing to lose, and both shame and consequences depend on having some status to maintain
wkat4242 3y ago
Shame is a bad thing IMO. It's basically self-deprecation as a result of peer pressure. The thing is, peers aren't always right. In many cases the masses impose their self-centered views on arbitrary topics. It's not always about something as self-destructive as hard drugs, or even self-destructive at all. You might live in a highly religious community but have LGBT+ feelings. You might wish to enjoy playing games though your community feels those are for kids. You might like particular kinks that others are frowning upon. Feeling ashamed because of others' judgment in those cases is purely self-deprecating and holding the person back from truly finding themselves. In many cases resistance to shame is a great thing and promotes diversity. Avoiding hard drugs is not even a matter of shame but the lack of realisation that a person is destroying themself.
- chris_wot 3y ago
  There is good shame and bad shame. If you murder someone, then you should rightly feel shame. If you are gay, then you should not feel shame. Shame can work both ways.
  - re-thc 3y ago
    > If you are gay, then you should not feel shame. Shame can work both ways. Anything can go both ways. In the past you can go to jail for being gay (and still in some parts of the world).
    - chris_wot 3y ago
      Yes, but I'd argue that is likely the bad shame that is unproductive and unnecessary.
  - richk449 3y ago
    And if I want to know if I or my neighbor should be shamed for something, I just consult you, the oracle of shame?
    - unlikelymordant 3y ago
dclowd9901 3y ago
I think your premise (that folks suffering addiction _don’t_ feel shame) may be incorrect. I think the addiction is more powerful than the shame.
- dminor 3y ago
  Indeed, if you talk with people in recovery about what they felt during their worst moments, they overwhelmingly mention shame. Unfortunately our instincts about addiction lead us pretty far from the realities of addiction, as OP demonstrates.
oldpmfan 3y ago
I don't agree. Germany for example is pretty shameless beyond the shame border in USA. To give you a few maybe extreme examples (which does not apply to all people in Germany and not all this examples are sexual): Mixed saunas, swinger clubs, open relationships, no shame on being naked in designated nudity areas, topless DJs, a naked women is not a big skandal etc. Yet Germany does not have the drug problems which Oregon has. USA has a big shame problem (just look at IG) in sense of nudity and nipples (which is spreading around the globe thanks to US tech) yet you say shame is devalued in USA. I think I just debunked your theory (sorry for that) but it's not shame.
- unlikelymordant 3y ago
  Being ashamed about nudity is i beieve a totally different thing. The shame op is talking about is feeling bad when you have cheated your neighbours, or being ashamed of doing something that lands you in jail i.e. caring about your reputation as a good human. Nudity in public is completely orthogonal to any of that imho, and is more of a cultural norm.
  - oldpmfan 3y ago
    total nudity is in relation to reputation to being as a good human for many US Americans. Of course there is also some value in your proposition but saying that a society is totally shameless yet keeps cultural norms very high (like USA with nudity) does contradict the initial claim. It's something else then.
    - unlikelymordant 3y ago
      I get what you are saying. Perhaps its a morphing of what exactly people find shameful is the thing OP was talking about then. Where he identifies a lack of shame, its really just the shame is concentrated on completely different actions, and it makes the culture seem strange and wrong to a person on the other side.
- rayiner 3y ago
  You’re giving examples of where the German social norms allow things that are taboo under US social norms. That’s not what shame is about. Shame is a feeling that societies use to enforce social norms and taboos—whatever those norms happen to be. America is a very individualistic society—people can violate social norms and they don’t feel shame, because they say “who cares what other people think?” My impression of Germany—which is second hand, my wife lived there and I know lots of Germans—is that it is a less individualistic society. Society might allow certain things, but where society doesn't allow those things, there is strong shame-based social pressure. At least when my wife was living in east Germany in the early 2000s, drug use was one of those taboos. When she mentioned smoking marijuana—something that didn’t raise eyebrows among other teenagers at her rural Iowa high school—the reaction from German students was very negative.
redog 3y ago
How old are you?
- poopbutt7 3y ago
  38
- ezekiel68 3y ago
  Alert potential ageism detected. (Imagine if they had said instead, "What color is your skin?", for example)
robodan 3y ago
Shame relies on personal connections that they want to keep. People turning to drugs are already losing those connections at a rapid rate. Trying to shame them as they walk out the door isn't going to do anything. America already has an epidemic of loneliness. Chemical numbing is a symptom of this.
OO000oo 3y ago
You can’t devalue shame without devaluing dignity. They go hand in hand.
j45 3y ago
There’s lots of other ways to build strong peolel than negativity. I’m not a fan of the many culture either but dignity and positive inner dialogue is better for resilience than negative inner dialogue. Like shame. Shamers usually are insecure or impatient to some. Valuing one’s self is reason enough. Learning to get better, or sleds order at something one day at a time doesn’t come from a negative spiral of solely living by what others think.
HWR_14 3y ago
It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. Shame just doesn't work well at a practical level. To say nothing of the superpower that gives the shameless. Meanwhile, I find your alternative of "well if we don't have shame, we'll just have to make explicit laws about it" to be not a bad thing at all. You called it fascism with no real reasoning. Explicit laws that we can change and discuss seems like a good way to manage things!
- _8j50 3y ago
  Shame works very well. I so hate it when people use "gay" to invoke some sort of a culture war side-choosing spell. The original comment is about feeling shame not being shamed. If you believe being gay is wrong the yes you should feel shame, if you don't then the question is not relevant for you. The original commenter is more right than any of us can conceive. So many societal problems would be solved if people had raised their kids to learn to feel shame. Trumpism, gun worship, climate change denial, post-truth mindset, anti-vaxx, treason, insurrection, racial hatred and discrimination,etc... the thing so many of people with these views have in a common is they feel no shame about the harm they are causing. If in your own opinion you did something wrong, you should absolutley feel shame. What is more evil than being proud of doing wrong by your own standards? You can debate what is right ir wrong or even what morality is but refusing to feel shame is embracing evil.
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    For someone who leans hard into moral relativism, and specifically calls out moral relativism as the right way to consider shame, you have a very long list of things that shame will solve. What about the trump supporting gun worshiping climate change deniers who don't feel they are wrong? Is "the question not relevant to [them]"? Meanwhile, I used "gay" as an example because a lot of gay people feel shame about it and it's very bad for those people. It's an example of something with shame attached that clearly shouldn't.
    - 3y ago
webnrrd2k 3y ago
I dont think that I buy your line of reasoning. For one thing, historically, a lot of social contacts were based on ignorance and bullshit. Women were persecuted for being witches, people were killed for having the wrong religion, race, sexuality. There are many episodes in history where this was socially sanctioned and approved by authority figures. I think people are right to have a healthy dose of doubt and even disrespect for authority figures. That's far from infantilization. It's learning to think for yourself and to choose carefully who you take as an authority. As far as addiction goes, the US had a pretty long experiment with authority figures telling people to just say no. How well did that work out?
thowieru2342343 3y ago
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ezekiel68 3y ago
I actually agree with you -- from the standpoint of socially influencing others who are not already addicts. There is no true addict on the planet however (of any substance or behavior) who will hit "rock bottom", as they say, and moderate their addictive behavior due to shame. So I feel that some of the blowback you are receiving here is related to the notion (true or not) that public shame applied to addiction for the purpose of influencing non-addicts is equvalent to "giving up" on addicts themselves (and therefore not worth that cost).
woodruffw 3y ago
We’re a nation that deeply stigmatizes the addicted, saddling them with shame and isolation; what makes you think that piling more shame onto them is going to change anything? Shame makes people live lives of quiet desperation; it isn’t a building block in a healthy society.
gloosx 3y ago
Addiction is a perpetual Ouroboros of shame. It is essential to understand this truth before ever wanting to integrate more shame into this problem. If one chooses addiction - well, it is an authority that moderates his behavior – the substance. Any shame will only make its rule stronger. The infantilization of society is a myth, society never really grew up to the point of understanding the universal truth - that kindness, support, re-integration, participation, gratitude - these are our allies to fix the society problems - not shame, guilt, isolation and indifference.
- nroms 3y ago
  I think there's something in between the polarity you've got there, something like "tough love". I think too much policy is based on emotional ideas, instead of seeing 'kindness, support, and re-integration' as ends of those ideal policies. People cannot just heroically decide to be kind in the face of an overwhelming issue. I also think there's a point where things have slid so far that we need some measures that appear inhumane on the surface, but solve the problem more meaningfully. I think of the protesters in Toronto hoping to permanently protect the tent villages established in Trinity-Bellwoods inner city park, even blocking the police from clearing people out of their "homes". If we go on with policies like "give out free tents" that are the epitome of band-aid emotionally driven ideas It's hard to see how we aren't simply incentivizing the problem to grow. It's as though some people genuinely think the permanent slums as in india or brazil are a solution and not a problem.
  - gloosx 3y ago
    The reality we crafted makes us submit to its requirements, and on and on it goes forever eating its tail... I agree that the solution is in balance, except the polarities are infinite points on the circle, and in the center is you. Everything you radiate will be mirrored back exactly there. The world contains all of us, and at the same time, we contain the world connecting us in this beautiful way. Emotions are our best allies here to understand self and propagate the finest. Society is itself addicted in a way to sustain some illusions of a stable world, bringing addicts to it. And we and all artifacts we brought to this world are all parts of a progressing nature. So in my best dream, the growth of the individual and technology will eventually open the way for society to mutate out of the ugly form it temporarily took. I believe it would be a world where radically smaller groups of people are in full control of their living and their community's well-being; something makes me hope that it will be possible if one day it will appear there is no need to fight for your life anymore
rewmie 3y ago
> The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. It sounds like you are advocating for the virtues of oppression and the subjugation of anyone or anything that does not fit your norm. > (...) many people unfortunately need an authority figure (...) Let me stop you right there, and make it quite clear to you how profoundly idiotic and prejudicial your personal opinion is. As you seem to advocate that people unfortunately need an authority figure, I'm sure you will acknowledge your need to be put in your place when you step out of line with this blend of nonsense, and simply succumb to the shame you should be rightfully feeling for your regrettable opinion. If not, perhaps you can start to understand why your opinion makes absolutely no sense.
dehrmann 3y ago
I've worked with a number of people from rich European countries. Sometimes, they'd extol the virtues of their social programs, and I'd ask what keeps people from just mooching of them. The answer was always some combination of pride, shame, and sense of common purpose.
- imp0cat 3y ago
  It's not that simple, there are definitely (certain groups of) people who absolutely do just that.
telchior 3y ago
> The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame Shame is admittedly a very powerful tool for social conformity. During the few centuries that you seem to view as the good old days, it was used to great effect for blocking many different behaviors. Among those: not dressing in quite the right way; having dark skin; insufficient patriotism; insufficient aggression in men; the desire for autonomy in women; homosexuality, or for that matter basically any acknowledgement that humans are an innately sexual species. And then society broke, gosh darn it! The problem with bringing back those good old days of shame, but of course just in the way that's nice and beneficial, is that a huge number of people believe that all of the above listed shameful behaviors of yesteryear should still be shameful. Shame is the mechanism that various conservatives are using, at this very instant, in trying to brand all gay people as groomers, or all people who get abortions as murderers and/or worthless sluts. So, in my humble opinion, it ain't happening; how are you going to get any kind of agreement about what behaviors are good to shame? Pandora's box has been opened for half of humanity, who all generally agree that non-harmful behaviors should not be shamed, while things like flagrant violations of election law or finance law should be; while the other half continues to vociferously insist that non-harmful social behaviors are the only real priority and the golden days would come back if only we could all hate the deviants again.
akomtu 3y ago
What is the set of core moral principles shared by all in our society? Turns out, one half of americans has one moral code derived from christianity of the old days, and the other half has been trying to develop an alternative moral code. The two moral codes are rapidly diverging, and so is the list of things that deserve shame in both camps.
em1sar 3y ago
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vjk800 3y ago
> Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. In places with diverse people from different backgrounds and cultures (i.e. all modern cities) there is no social contract. Apart from murdering people, there are very few things that people agree are universally good or bad, and thus the behaviour moderating effect doesn't exist either. As someone who was raised in a very small town with sort of strict culture (didn't really seem like that to me at the time, but by modern urban standards it was that), I can very easily see how the cultural relativism leads to all kinds of social problems in western urban world. In my town no-one did drugs, because that would have been shameful. People around you (all of them to some extent) are important, you are important to them and you care about what they think about you, and as a result you don't want to do stuff that will look shameful in their eyes. Without this guidance from other people, (some) people end up going down into rabbit holes of drug habit, alt right, etc.
- throwaway77384 3y ago
  > In my town no-one did drugs, because that would have been shameful. Reads: People hid their drug use successfully. How much history do we need to experience before we accept that shame only leads to everyone pretending that something isn't a problem instead of addressing it head on.
  - PakistaniDenzel 3y ago
    > Reads: People hid their drug use successfully. Reads: Someone who can't comprehend that a lot of people actually don't want to do drugs.
    - pantalaimon 3y ago
      Not sure how it’s in the US, but in the small village where I came from (and that fits OPs description) alcoholism was rampant
  - vjk800 3y ago
    "No-one" was a bit of a hyperbola; there was a known "drug gang" of three people who we were warned not to interact with when we were children. These three drug users were known by everyone and I'd really be surprised if there were significantly more people using any kind of illegal substances; back in the 90s it was just not that easy to hide stuff in a town of 3000 people. Also, where the hell would you even get drugs? From the three people drug gang (who presumably were buying their stuff from a bigger city 50 kilometers away)? In that case you would be seen to interact with them, which would immediately raise some doubts. I suppose it's possible that there were some other people besides this three people gang at least trying illegal substances, but it was still marginal enough to been a complete non-problem. Alcohol, however, was different; it was legal and socially accepted and many people had a problem with it.
goodpoint 3y ago
> Without shame, many people unfortunately need an authority figure ... slide into (probably) fascism. A culture based on shame and guilt IS fascism.
theknocker 3y ago
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fennecfoxy 3y ago
Eh, I think shame as a societal tool is outmoded anyway. Sure, it can be used by our monkey brains to enforce "the greater good" as judged by our peers, but in some countries "the greater good" is throwing gay men off buildings. The US is filled with so many contrasting opinions that it's a survival skill to be able to ignore people trying to induce feelings of "shame". Whether you're a liberal who doesn't want to feel shameful that you're a feminist, or gay, or want healthcare for everyone, or a republican who doesn't want to feel shameful that you're against gay and trans people existing, want to ban abortion, throw the economy to the war machine etc. I don't think your argument extends at all to a hard drugs problem, though. As a gay man who has learnt to ignore the "shame" of being gay and to ignore the (surprisingly still high number of) people that shoot me disgusted looks if I dare to hold a man's hand in public, I'm not also going to suddenly _not_ feel shameful if I get into hard drugs. Also, I don't think you understand hard drugs at all. Pretty sure "shame" isn't even a blip on the radar of the awareness of the hard drug user, across all cultures and all of history, such drugs have been so potent that the addicted can only focus on the next fix; things like shame and morality sink into the background as effects of withdrawal from the drug take hold. For example, China has a strong, stroooong culture of shame and societal shaming, but they still had that trouble with Opium, by your logic enough shame would've stamped that out immediately. People on those drugs don't work like people not on those drugs.
- dirtyid 3y ago
  I think OPs point is to employ shame to prevent % of potential users and future addicts of hard drugs in the first place. Won't stop everyone but may subtantially mitigate. But I also think you're right, modern US culture is particularly shameless. Which isn't a value judgement, just that shame won't be effective given US context. Not to mention shame isn't going to prevent big pharma from engineering opiate crisis from legitmate medicine for non shameful use.
trabant00 3y ago
I would say more societal peer pressure than shame, but I don't want to argue semantics. I think that yeah, some of that went away, but another wave in another form is being created right now. Take a look at things like the fitness movement, NOFAP (which I think it's BS but that's beside the point), etc. A lot of individuals get lost in this cultural transitional period, but I think this always happened. A good example was the hippy movement, they where very drug and free sex positive too. Society as whole will be OK I think, other non-legal checks and boundaries are being set up to prevent a major collapse. Collectively we learn from mistakes and correct for extreme behaviors.
vintermann 3y ago
I think you should feel bad for making this post. But you won't, will you?
syndacks 3y ago
Yes, let’s bring religion back into schools. And for god sakes, cover up those legs!
ml-anon 3y ago
Its fucking wild that folks are advocating shame as a method for dealing with drug addiction in the year 2023. As if shame isn't one of the major contributing factors to the crippling opioid crisis to begin with. An astonishingly large number of people got hooked on legal prescription drugs which were pushed by billion-dollar pharma companies and the medical profession as a whole. Shame is what drives people away from admitting their addiction and seeking treatment towards illegal means of procuring a fix. The mind boggles at just how phenomenally stupid this thread is.
- afpx 3y ago
  Yeah, this shame angle is offensive. My 80 year mom, who was strongly against drugs, died an addict because the pharm industry got her hooked on pain killers. Because of shame, her kids didn’t even know until she was an addict until she was almost dead.
  - cududa 3y ago
    This is shockingly common in the aging population, and no one really thinks to look at Grandma baking cookies as a potential addict quietly suffering
    - godelski 3y ago
      Ironically the shame is what hides this too. The Grandma trying to hide her shameful addiction. The part of her family that takes care of her shamefully hiding it from the rest of the family, for fear that they would not be seen as good care takers despite doing their best. The shame of the others that see it but pretend they don't, because they themselves don't want to admit that grandma is an addict. Justifying it away. No, the junkies on the street are different, they chose that life, but grandma is a victim. While yes, there can be people who made those poor choices, if grandma is a victim, then why should it surprise anyone that there are others. Others who are less fortunate, who's children aren't as responsible and loving as you. My mom died of cancer in her 40's. My mom also died an addict. Two of her sisters also had cancer, found because of her diagnosis. Both became addicts as well. I don't see how they couldn't have. Chemo is rough. It is a long and painful treatment that we _should_ be giving painkillers to those receiving it. But it is shame that makes it difficult for people to get treatment. It is shame that prevents people from even admitting they need treatment in the first place. The hard truth is that grandma is an addict and she needs to be unashamed of going to the methadone clinic.
justanotherjoe 3y ago
shame is what got us casted out from eden
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]
jmac01 3y ago
This is a wild take. I get what you're going for, but I think you've got the problem wrong. The issue is that society has been constructed (deliberately or accidentally) by corporate interests to make the average person feel devalued and useless to the point that they be don't believe anyone cares about them, so why should they care about themselves, especially when they fall on harder times. The idea that shame is somehow missing in society is wrong, many of these people feel intense shame, but that is outweighed by the perception that society doesn't give a single fuck about them so they stop moderating their behavior as a coping mechanism. You're essentially "victim blaming" here, shame is not a healthy motivator. The "social contract" has been eroded in favor of "if you're wealthy/beautiful/healthy/etc you're a more important member of society". "If you can provide more money to the corporation, you are more important"
chociej 3y ago
I can't say I agree. The answer to debilitating addiction isn't to make someone feel even worse about it (to the extent they don't already feel terrible). It's to provide meaningful support to get out of addiction and back to the life the person wishes they could have. Shame is fatal to dignity and self-acceptance. It has no place in public health.
mitchdoogle 3y ago
Interesting. I feel the exact opposite about shame. It's far too prevalent and people make too many choices based on what they think others will perceive
walsand21 3y ago
You’re getting attacked a lot for this comment which I don’t think is fair. Shame helps hold people and companies accountable, and without a social control the only things that holds them accountable is money I think this article is relevant - shamelessness as a strategy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25591066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25591066
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
We've devalued shame so much that someone can write a blog post about shame shilling and needing a strong daddy, chased with a soy Reddit closer. Unreal.
dang 3y ago
Please don't post flamewar rants to HN. You made the thread far worse with this. Veering into fascism at the end didn't help. We want thoughtful, substantive, and above all curious conversation on HN. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- K0balt 3y ago
  Yeah, wow, I think a lot of people took that comment way out of the spirit it was made in. From my perspective it was an observation of my experiences in a variety of cultures and how certain social problems don’t flourish in those environments because people are more conscious about the perceptions of others, and how I see a tendency to replace those social mechanisms with “strong” authority figures as problematic for a functioning democracy… but… it seems I really hit a nerve for some folks and it got taken way out of the intended context. Sorry about that!

by K0balt 3y ago

Affric 3y ago

Well said. Shame is making a comeback in a big way with restorative justice. Hopefully enough of us get there so we can see meaningful change.

paulddraper 3y ago

[flagged]

mdanger007 3y ago
[flagged]
teolandon 3y ago
Can you elaborate? Are these examples of "lack of shame"?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jmspring 3y ago

The ex of someone I know is both a user and a dealer. He opted to be homeless over getting clean. Sadly here in the states there is little you can do if an adult chooses a self destructive path - calls to sheriff/police did nothing - “nothing we can do until he commits a crime”. Where “crime” is something other than the drug use/possession. This individual has always been self absorbed and useless. His daughter asked him to change for her, he wouldn’t. His daughter’s counselor basically told her to decide how to remember him, it’s unlikely he will make it a year. Personally, I feel the individual is a PoS and hope he suffers but it’s heart wrenching to see the affect it’s having on his daughter. Addition: this is happening in one of the more permissive and “progressive” communities in CA.

pierat 3y ago
What's the saying... "My body, My choice" ? Well, some people will choose, willingly, to waste their life away living on the streets from one high to the next. The difference between most types of poverty and this, is that they *chose* this path. Bodily autonomy has powerful upsides, as well as downsides. Here's one of the downsides. If they wanted to 'get out', I'd be there to help them if I knew them. But they have to want to. Forcing your viewpoint on them makes you just as a horrible person as the judges throwing people in locked boxes for decades for a bit of white powder they injected.
- User23 3y ago
  Bodily autonomy isn’t a moral principle, it’s a rhetorical device. Literally every law on the books interferes with your autonomy. Trying to apply it as the former is as nonsensical as arguing when someone says “nobody goes there anymore” when some people in fact still do.
  - lo_zamoyski 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - sangnoir 3y ago
      > Nothing turns off a hedonistic sex maniac more than the idea that he or she will have kids to take care of. They're an impediment to a licentious, self-absorbed lifestyle. This sounds a lot like the type of person you don't want raising a child
      - isityouyesitsme 3y ago
        Perhaps not. I also don't want some cops to be the ones on patrol, out of fear that they might act on strong biases. But I also wouldn't excuse them for pulling someone over and immediately opening fire with intent to kill in order to bypass the problem.
    - 3y ago

ellisd 3y ago

This is a fascinating view on the sedative crisis. The lack of shame from "normal" people feels very real. Complete inaction to the staggering and ever increasing death count rate and bodies piling on the ground IS utterly shameful, but not for 2023 USA. I've noticed as well that when I've spoke to friends and family about open drug use and markets I become the one who's "out of line." Do we as a free society have no shame left to express?

ryandrake 3y ago
There's a huge strain of "mind your own business" running through the USA right now. When someone is out of line, you used to be able to rely on the public to correct that behavior. Now if you try, you're the bad guy--or "Karen" as they say, and everyone flips out their cell phone cameras to try to capture that crazed weirdo who has the audacity to ask someone else to behave themselves. I brought my kid to a pumpkin patch for Halloween last year and this lady told her kids to simply cut in line so they can go do some fun thing first. I thought to myself "crap, I can't say anything because you know what'll happen." My elderly father didn't have that inner voice and told the lady to get her kids to the back of the line. Well, as I expected, lady totally went bananas, whipped out her cellphone, shouting "you don't talk to my kids!" calling my old man a racist... everything under the sun. We're expected to simply sit back, mind our own business, and ignore bad/destructive behavior. If you believe in the social contract you're out of line.
- ryanwaggoner 3y ago
  You think that assholes are a new phenomenon? You think that a few decades ago that lady would have meekly apologized and walked away?
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    I think the new phenomenon is how many people are now on the asshole's side, or are in the neutral "don't get involved" camp.
  - censor_me 3y ago

pierat 3y ago

> The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Wait, are you talking about "personal" shame, or "corporate" shame. Cause if anything, corporations have none, and people are *learning* to also have no shame. Doesnt get you anything. Just makes you feel bad for no good reason, cause others are pointing a finger at you. > Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Simply put: fuck the social contract. I didn't sign it. It doesnt get me any benefits, and all it is a whole lot of "costs", all of which are ill defined. So, no. > Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created a significant subclass of infantile or openly hostile actors. Being my username, a "pierat", has actually gotten me standing in communities. I democratize content access to the low common denominator of 0. I help others get the content they need or want. Im doing a lot better than capitalists slapping bills on access to everything... even if it does actually cost me money. > It will likely result in people reaching for a paternal “strongman” figure and a subsequent slide into (probably) fascism. We already are. Its not like anything I can do will affect that. I mean, whoop-te-doo, I make a pile of votes for even worse sycophantic leeches than myself every 2 years. And being in the "other party's state" (I mean, does it really matter?) my votes are effectively wasted. But it costs me 15 minutes.

deprecative 3y ago
I don't think folks want to hear or think about why shame has gone, or is going, away. Having shame will only ever interfere with the pursuit of money. As we live in a capitalist society money is the only important thing in life. You literally cannot live without it. Why would I have shame? Why would anyone? Love? Family? Friends? Those do not pay the bills. As we are hyper individualist and capitalist there is no moral or ethical cohesive force beyond the ability to secure money. People don't seem to grasp that and rely on outdated nonsense like God or Religion. Guess what? Shame is only a detriment these days because of the society we've all agreed to participate in.
zer8k 3y ago
> Simply put: fuck the social contract. I didn't sign it. It doesnt get me any benefits, and all it is a whole lot of "costs", all of which are ill defined. All of your "polite" behavior is modified by shame. To use an extreme, contrived, example if you shit on the floor your parents probably shamed you into using the restroom properly. You can, of course, continue to shit on the floor but you also can't act with such righteous indignation when no one wants you around. Perhaps you find a group of people who shit on the floor. But then they, too, will have their own shame-based norms that will you either comply to or be ostracized from the group. Now, scratch the example of shitting on the floor and replace it with any other behavior. Depending on the group you belong to (or are trying to belong to) shame is an effective way in enforcing expected behavior. It's one of the things that separate us from other animals. If you don't respond to shame (rather than just acting like it) you are not quirky and original you are likely a sociopath.

seoulmetro 3y ago

This is exactly my thinking whenever the debate of "legal is good for all" or "Japan and Korea are safe". It's so honestly true that forming a cohesive group where shame of standing out hurts the individual is the much lesser evil. I absolutely hate the social standards of some Western countries compared to these. Most crimes committed in the shame-adverse countries are masked ones like speeding or spy cams.

javajosh 3y ago

It presents an interesting problem for those "left behind" who value shame, self-restraint, and other unpopular virtues. The neoliberal view is that you can prove your point by forming subcultures that do better than the surrounding culture. I think that's true, but it's a plan B - plan A should be to fight hard to not lose those values in the first place. It's appalling that public discourse about systemic issues has entirely displaced talk of personal responsibility. It's appalling that a positive openness to alternative lifestyles has extended to an absurd dropping of ALL standards. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Sean Carroll has a recent podcast episode descrying the "crisis in physics", which he (partially) articulates as a problem of perception. As much as he himself always wanted to be a science heretic, he notes that all previous successful heretics were experts in the established state-of-the-art, and now if a member of the public researches physics, ALL they hear from are "heretics" who don't know the first thing about established physics. It's like the act of rebellion itself has eclipsed the utility of the specific act.

cal85 3y ago
> The neoliberal view is that you can prove your point by forming subcultures that do better than the surrounding culture. Can you clarify who you actually mean here by neoliberalism? It seems a very loosely defined ideology. Do you just mean ‘the mainstream West’, or something more specific? It’s a strange -ism. It’s very vague in definition, and no one ever professes to be a member of it, yet it is ostensibly an ideology. And I only ever hear it used with a pejorative subtext, which is interesting.
- kaashif 3y ago
  > no one ever professes to be a member of it Go to reddit.com/r/neoliberal, there are lots of people claiming to be neoliberals there.
- javajosh 3y ago
  Well, I don't mean it pejoratively. It harnesses the ideas of mutation + selection which has been proven to be successful for 5 billion years. "Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler," describes the limits of practical reason. People have a great deal of latent evil within them, and society should be the least oppressive it can be, but not less oppressive.

8note 3y ago

The US devalued shame by using it for everything. The big change recently is the me-too movement to change from shame into consequences, which is good for people with something to lose But, with the moves towards feudalism in the states, there's too many people with nothing to lose, and both shame and consequences depend on having some status to maintain

wkat4242 3y ago

Shame is a bad thing IMO. It's basically self-deprecation as a result of peer pressure. The thing is, peers aren't always right. In many cases the masses impose their self-centered views on arbitrary topics. It's not always about something as self-destructive as hard drugs, or even self-destructive at all. You might live in a highly religious community but have LGBT+ feelings. You might wish to enjoy playing games though your community feels those are for kids. You might like particular kinks that others are frowning upon. Feeling ashamed because of others' judgment in those cases is purely self-deprecating and holding the person back from truly finding themselves. In many cases resistance to shame is a great thing and promotes diversity. Avoiding hard drugs is not even a matter of shame but the lack of realisation that a person is destroying themself.

chris_wot 3y ago
There is good shame and bad shame. If you murder someone, then you should rightly feel shame. If you are gay, then you should not feel shame. Shame can work both ways.
- re-thc 3y ago
  > If you are gay, then you should not feel shame. Shame can work both ways. Anything can go both ways. In the past you can go to jail for being gay (and still in some parts of the world).
  - chris_wot 3y ago
    Yes, but I'd argue that is likely the bad shame that is unproductive and unnecessary.
- richk449 3y ago
  And if I want to know if I or my neighbor should be shamed for something, I just consult you, the oracle of shame?
  - unlikelymordant 3y ago

dclowd9901 3y ago

I think your premise (that folks suffering addiction _don’t_ feel shame) may be incorrect. I think the addiction is more powerful than the shame.

dminor 3y ago
Indeed, if you talk with people in recovery about what they felt during their worst moments, they overwhelmingly mention shame. Unfortunately our instincts about addiction lead us pretty far from the realities of addiction, as OP demonstrates.

oldpmfan 3y ago

I don't agree. Germany for example is pretty shameless beyond the shame border in USA. To give you a few maybe extreme examples (which does not apply to all people in Germany and not all this examples are sexual): Mixed saunas, swinger clubs, open relationships, no shame on being naked in designated nudity areas, topless DJs, a naked women is not a big skandal etc. Yet Germany does not have the drug problems which Oregon has. USA has a big shame problem (just look at IG) in sense of nudity and nipples (which is spreading around the globe thanks to US tech) yet you say shame is devalued in USA. I think I just debunked your theory (sorry for that) but it's not shame.

unlikelymordant 3y ago
Being ashamed about nudity is i beieve a totally different thing. The shame op is talking about is feeling bad when you have cheated your neighbours, or being ashamed of doing something that lands you in jail i.e. caring about your reputation as a good human. Nudity in public is completely orthogonal to any of that imho, and is more of a cultural norm.
- oldpmfan 3y ago
  total nudity is in relation to reputation to being as a good human for many US Americans. Of course there is also some value in your proposition but saying that a society is totally shameless yet keeps cultural norms very high (like USA with nudity) does contradict the initial claim. It's something else then.
  - unlikelymordant 3y ago
    I get what you are saying. Perhaps its a morphing of what exactly people find shameful is the thing OP was talking about then. Where he identifies a lack of shame, its really just the shame is concentrated on completely different actions, and it makes the culture seem strange and wrong to a person on the other side.
rayiner 3y ago
You’re giving examples of where the German social norms allow things that are taboo under US social norms. That’s not what shame is about. Shame is a feeling that societies use to enforce social norms and taboos—whatever those norms happen to be. America is a very individualistic society—people can violate social norms and they don’t feel shame, because they say “who cares what other people think?” My impression of Germany—which is second hand, my wife lived there and I know lots of Germans—is that it is a less individualistic society. Society might allow certain things, but where society doesn't allow those things, there is strong shame-based social pressure. At least when my wife was living in east Germany in the early 2000s, drug use was one of those taboos. When she mentioned smoking marijuana—something that didn’t raise eyebrows among other teenagers at her rural Iowa high school—the reaction from German students was very negative.

redog 3y ago

How old are you?

poopbutt7 3y ago
38
ezekiel68 3y ago
Alert potential ageism detected. (Imagine if they had said instead, "What color is your skin?", for example)

robodan 3y ago

Shame relies on personal connections that they want to keep. People turning to drugs are already losing those connections at a rapid rate. Trying to shame them as they walk out the door isn't going to do anything. America already has an epidemic of loneliness. Chemical numbing is a symptom of this.

OO000oo 3y ago

You can’t devalue shame without devaluing dignity. They go hand in hand.

j45 3y ago

There’s lots of other ways to build strong peolel than negativity. I’m not a fan of the many culture either but dignity and positive inner dialogue is better for resilience than negative inner dialogue. Like shame. Shamers usually are insecure or impatient to some. Valuing one’s self is reason enough. Learning to get better, or sleds order at something one day at a time doesn’t come from a negative spiral of solely living by what others think.

HWR_14 3y ago

It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. Shame just doesn't work well at a practical level. To say nothing of the superpower that gives the shameless. Meanwhile, I find your alternative of "well if we don't have shame, we'll just have to make explicit laws about it" to be not a bad thing at all. You called it fascism with no real reasoning. Explicit laws that we can change and discuss seems like a good way to manage things!

_8j50 3y ago
Shame works very well. I so hate it when people use "gay" to invoke some sort of a culture war side-choosing spell. The original comment is about feeling shame not being shamed. If you believe being gay is wrong the yes you should feel shame, if you don't then the question is not relevant for you. The original commenter is more right than any of us can conceive. So many societal problems would be solved if people had raised their kids to learn to feel shame. Trumpism, gun worship, climate change denial, post-truth mindset, anti-vaxx, treason, insurrection, racial hatred and discrimination,etc... the thing so many of people with these views have in a common is they feel no shame about the harm they are causing. If in your own opinion you did something wrong, you should absolutley feel shame. What is more evil than being proud of doing wrong by your own standards? You can debate what is right ir wrong or even what morality is but refusing to feel shame is embracing evil.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  For someone who leans hard into moral relativism, and specifically calls out moral relativism as the right way to consider shame, you have a very long list of things that shame will solve. What about the trump supporting gun worshiping climate change deniers who don't feel they are wrong? Is "the question not relevant to [them]"? Meanwhile, I used "gay" as an example because a lot of gay people feel shame about it and it's very bad for those people. It's an example of something with shame attached that clearly shouldn't.
  - 3y ago

webnrrd2k 3y ago

I dont think that I buy your line of reasoning. For one thing, historically, a lot of social contacts were based on ignorance and bullshit. Women were persecuted for being witches, people were killed for having the wrong religion, race, sexuality. There are many episodes in history where this was socially sanctioned and approved by authority figures. I think people are right to have a healthy dose of doubt and even disrespect for authority figures. That's far from infantilization. It's learning to think for yourself and to choose carefully who you take as an authority. As far as addiction goes, the US had a pretty long experiment with authority figures telling people to just say no. How well did that work out?

thowieru2342343 3y ago

[flagged]

ezekiel68 3y ago

I actually agree with you -- from the standpoint of socially influencing others who are not already addicts. There is no true addict on the planet however (of any substance or behavior) who will hit "rock bottom", as they say, and moderate their addictive behavior due to shame. So I feel that some of the blowback you are receiving here is related to the notion (true or not) that public shame applied to addiction for the purpose of influencing non-addicts is equvalent to "giving up" on addicts themselves (and therefore not worth that cost).

woodruffw 3y ago

We’re a nation that deeply stigmatizes the addicted, saddling them with shame and isolation; what makes you think that piling more shame onto them is going to change anything? Shame makes people live lives of quiet desperation; it isn’t a building block in a healthy society.

gloosx 3y ago

Addiction is a perpetual Ouroboros of shame. It is essential to understand this truth before ever wanting to integrate more shame into this problem. If one chooses addiction - well, it is an authority that moderates his behavior – the substance. Any shame will only make its rule stronger. The infantilization of society is a myth, society never really grew up to the point of understanding the universal truth - that kindness, support, re-integration, participation, gratitude - these are our allies to fix the society problems - not shame, guilt, isolation and indifference.

nroms 3y ago
I think there's something in between the polarity you've got there, something like "tough love". I think too much policy is based on emotional ideas, instead of seeing 'kindness, support, and re-integration' as ends of those ideal policies. People cannot just heroically decide to be kind in the face of an overwhelming issue. I also think there's a point where things have slid so far that we need some measures that appear inhumane on the surface, but solve the problem more meaningfully. I think of the protesters in Toronto hoping to permanently protect the tent villages established in Trinity-Bellwoods inner city park, even blocking the police from clearing people out of their "homes". If we go on with policies like "give out free tents" that are the epitome of band-aid emotionally driven ideas It's hard to see how we aren't simply incentivizing the problem to grow. It's as though some people genuinely think the permanent slums as in india or brazil are a solution and not a problem.
- gloosx 3y ago
  The reality we crafted makes us submit to its requirements, and on and on it goes forever eating its tail... I agree that the solution is in balance, except the polarities are infinite points on the circle, and in the center is you. Everything you radiate will be mirrored back exactly there. The world contains all of us, and at the same time, we contain the world connecting us in this beautiful way. Emotions are our best allies here to understand self and propagate the finest. Society is itself addicted in a way to sustain some illusions of a stable world, bringing addicts to it. And we and all artifacts we brought to this world are all parts of a progressing nature. So in my best dream, the growth of the individual and technology will eventually open the way for society to mutate out of the ugly form it temporarily took. I believe it would be a world where radically smaller groups of people are in full control of their living and their community's well-being; something makes me hope that it will be possible if one day it will appear there is no need to fight for your life anymore

rewmie 3y ago

> The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. It sounds like you are advocating for the virtues of oppression and the subjugation of anyone or anything that does not fit your norm. > (...) many people unfortunately need an authority figure (...) Let me stop you right there, and make it quite clear to you how profoundly idiotic and prejudicial your personal opinion is. As you seem to advocate that people unfortunately need an authority figure, I'm sure you will acknowledge your need to be put in your place when you step out of line with this blend of nonsense, and simply succumb to the shame you should be rightfully feeling for your regrettable opinion. If not, perhaps you can start to understand why your opinion makes absolutely no sense.

dehrmann 3y ago

I've worked with a number of people from rich European countries. Sometimes, they'd extol the virtues of their social programs, and I'd ask what keeps people from just mooching of them. The answer was always some combination of pride, shame, and sense of common purpose.

imp0cat 3y ago
It's not that simple, there are definitely (certain groups of) people who absolutely do just that.

telchior 3y ago

> The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame Shame is admittedly a very powerful tool for social conformity. During the few centuries that you seem to view as the good old days, it was used to great effect for blocking many different behaviors. Among those: not dressing in quite the right way; having dark skin; insufficient patriotism; insufficient aggression in men; the desire for autonomy in women; homosexuality, or for that matter basically any acknowledgement that humans are an innately sexual species. And then society broke, gosh darn it! The problem with bringing back those good old days of shame, but of course just in the way that's nice and beneficial, is that a huge number of people believe that all of the above listed shameful behaviors of yesteryear should still be shameful. Shame is the mechanism that various conservatives are using, at this very instant, in trying to brand all gay people as groomers, or all people who get abortions as murderers and/or worthless sluts. So, in my humble opinion, it ain't happening; how are you going to get any kind of agreement about what behaviors are good to shame? Pandora's box has been opened for half of humanity, who all generally agree that non-harmful behaviors should not be shamed, while things like flagrant violations of election law or finance law should be; while the other half continues to vociferously insist that non-harmful social behaviors are the only real priority and the golden days would come back if only we could all hate the deviants again.

akomtu 3y ago

What is the set of core moral principles shared by all in our society? Turns out, one half of americans has one moral code derived from christianity of the old days, and the other half has been trying to develop an alternative moral code. The two moral codes are rapidly diverging, and so is the list of things that deserve shame in both camps.

em1sar 3y ago

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vjk800 3y ago

> Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. In places with diverse people from different backgrounds and cultures (i.e. all modern cities) there is no social contract. Apart from murdering people, there are very few things that people agree are universally good or bad, and thus the behaviour moderating effect doesn't exist either. As someone who was raised in a very small town with sort of strict culture (didn't really seem like that to me at the time, but by modern urban standards it was that), I can very easily see how the cultural relativism leads to all kinds of social problems in western urban world. In my town no-one did drugs, because that would have been shameful. People around you (all of them to some extent) are important, you are important to them and you care about what they think about you, and as a result you don't want to do stuff that will look shameful in their eyes. Without this guidance from other people, (some) people end up going down into rabbit holes of drug habit, alt right, etc.

throwaway77384 3y ago
> In my town no-one did drugs, because that would have been shameful. Reads: People hid their drug use successfully. How much history do we need to experience before we accept that shame only leads to everyone pretending that something isn't a problem instead of addressing it head on.
- PakistaniDenzel 3y ago
  > Reads: People hid their drug use successfully. Reads: Someone who can't comprehend that a lot of people actually don't want to do drugs.
  - pantalaimon 3y ago
    Not sure how it’s in the US, but in the small village where I came from (and that fits OPs description) alcoholism was rampant
- vjk800 3y ago
  "No-one" was a bit of a hyperbola; there was a known "drug gang" of three people who we were warned not to interact with when we were children. These three drug users were known by everyone and I'd really be surprised if there were significantly more people using any kind of illegal substances; back in the 90s it was just not that easy to hide stuff in a town of 3000 people. Also, where the hell would you even get drugs? From the three people drug gang (who presumably were buying their stuff from a bigger city 50 kilometers away)? In that case you would be seen to interact with them, which would immediately raise some doubts. I suppose it's possible that there were some other people besides this three people gang at least trying illegal substances, but it was still marginal enough to been a complete non-problem. Alcohol, however, was different; it was legal and socially accepted and many people had a problem with it.

goodpoint 3y ago

> Without shame, many people unfortunately need an authority figure ... slide into (probably) fascism. A culture based on shame and guilt IS fascism.

theknocker 3y ago

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fennecfoxy 3y ago

Eh, I think shame as a societal tool is outmoded anyway. Sure, it can be used by our monkey brains to enforce "the greater good" as judged by our peers, but in some countries "the greater good" is throwing gay men off buildings. The US is filled with so many contrasting opinions that it's a survival skill to be able to ignore people trying to induce feelings of "shame". Whether you're a liberal who doesn't want to feel shameful that you're a feminist, or gay, or want healthcare for everyone, or a republican who doesn't want to feel shameful that you're against gay and trans people existing, want to ban abortion, throw the economy to the war machine etc. I don't think your argument extends at all to a hard drugs problem, though. As a gay man who has learnt to ignore the "shame" of being gay and to ignore the (surprisingly still high number of) people that shoot me disgusted looks if I dare to hold a man's hand in public, I'm not also going to suddenly _not_ feel shameful if I get into hard drugs. Also, I don't think you understand hard drugs at all. Pretty sure "shame" isn't even a blip on the radar of the awareness of the hard drug user, across all cultures and all of history, such drugs have been so potent that the addicted can only focus on the next fix; things like shame and morality sink into the background as effects of withdrawal from the drug take hold. For example, China has a strong, stroooong culture of shame and societal shaming, but they still had that trouble with Opium, by your logic enough shame would've stamped that out immediately. People on those drugs don't work like people not on those drugs.

dirtyid 3y ago
I think OPs point is to employ shame to prevent % of potential users and future addicts of hard drugs in the first place. Won't stop everyone but may subtantially mitigate. But I also think you're right, modern US culture is particularly shameless. Which isn't a value judgement, just that shame won't be effective given US context. Not to mention shame isn't going to prevent big pharma from engineering opiate crisis from legitmate medicine for non shameful use.

trabant00 3y ago

I would say more societal peer pressure than shame, but I don't want to argue semantics. I think that yeah, some of that went away, but another wave in another form is being created right now. Take a look at things like the fitness movement, NOFAP (which I think it's BS but that's beside the point), etc. A lot of individuals get lost in this cultural transitional period, but I think this always happened. A good example was the hippy movement, they where very drug and free sex positive too. Society as whole will be OK I think, other non-legal checks and boundaries are being set up to prevent a major collapse. Collectively we learn from mistakes and correct for extreme behaviors.

vintermann 3y ago

I think you should feel bad for making this post. But you won't, will you?

syndacks 3y ago

Yes, let’s bring religion back into schools. And for god sakes, cover up those legs!

ml-anon 3y ago

Its fucking wild that folks are advocating shame as a method for dealing with drug addiction in the year 2023. As if shame isn't one of the major contributing factors to the crippling opioid crisis to begin with. An astonishingly large number of people got hooked on legal prescription drugs which were pushed by billion-dollar pharma companies and the medical profession as a whole. Shame is what drives people away from admitting their addiction and seeking treatment towards illegal means of procuring a fix. The mind boggles at just how phenomenally stupid this thread is.

afpx 3y ago
Yeah, this shame angle is offensive. My 80 year mom, who was strongly against drugs, died an addict because the pharm industry got her hooked on pain killers. Because of shame, her kids didn’t even know until she was an addict until she was almost dead.
- cududa 3y ago
  This is shockingly common in the aging population, and no one really thinks to look at Grandma baking cookies as a potential addict quietly suffering
  - godelski 3y ago
    Ironically the shame is what hides this too. The Grandma trying to hide her shameful addiction. The part of her family that takes care of her shamefully hiding it from the rest of the family, for fear that they would not be seen as good care takers despite doing their best. The shame of the others that see it but pretend they don't, because they themselves don't want to admit that grandma is an addict. Justifying it away. No, the junkies on the street are different, they chose that life, but grandma is a victim. While yes, there can be people who made those poor choices, if grandma is a victim, then why should it surprise anyone that there are others. Others who are less fortunate, who's children aren't as responsible and loving as you. My mom died of cancer in her 40's. My mom also died an addict. Two of her sisters also had cancer, found because of her diagnosis. Both became addicts as well. I don't see how they couldn't have. Chemo is rough. It is a long and painful treatment that we _should_ be giving painkillers to those receiving it. But it is shame that makes it difficult for people to get treatment. It is shame that prevents people from even admitting they need treatment in the first place. The hard truth is that grandma is an addict and she needs to be unashamed of going to the methadone clinic.

justanotherjoe 3y ago

shame is what got us casted out from eden

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

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jmac01 3y ago

This is a wild take. I get what you're going for, but I think you've got the problem wrong. The issue is that society has been constructed (deliberately or accidentally) by corporate interests to make the average person feel devalued and useless to the point that they be don't believe anyone cares about them, so why should they care about themselves, especially when they fall on harder times. The idea that shame is somehow missing in society is wrong, many of these people feel intense shame, but that is outweighed by the perception that society doesn't give a single fuck about them so they stop moderating their behavior as a coping mechanism. You're essentially "victim blaming" here, shame is not a healthy motivator. The "social contract" has been eroded in favor of "if you're wealthy/beautiful/healthy/etc you're a more important member of society". "If you can provide more money to the corporation, you are more important"

chociej 3y ago

I can't say I agree. The answer to debilitating addiction isn't to make someone feel even worse about it (to the extent they don't already feel terrible). It's to provide meaningful support to get out of addiction and back to the life the person wishes they could have. Shame is fatal to dignity and self-acceptance. It has no place in public health.

mitchdoogle 3y ago

Interesting. I feel the exact opposite about shame. It's far too prevalent and people make too many choices based on what they think others will perceive

walsand21 3y ago

You’re getting attacked a lot for this comment which I don’t think is fair. Shame helps hold people and companies accountable, and without a social control the only things that holds them accountable is money I think this article is relevant - shamelessness as a strategy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25591066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25591066

shrimp_emoji 3y ago

We've devalued shame so much that someone can write a blog post about shame shilling and needing a strong daddy, chased with a soy Reddit closer. Unreal.

dang 3y ago

Please don't post flamewar rants to HN. You made the thread far worse with this. Veering into fascism at the end didn't help. We want thoughtful, substantive, and above all curious conversation on HN. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

K0balt 3y ago
Yeah, wow, I think a lot of people took that comment way out of the spirit it was made in. From my perspective it was an observation of my experiences in a variety of cultures and how certain social problems don’t flourish in those environments because people are more conscious about the perceptions of others, and how I see a tendency to replace those social mechanisms with “strong” authority figures as problematic for a functioning democracy… but… it seems I really hit a nerve for some folks and it got taken way out of the intended context. Sorry about that!