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today we're going to be talking about
shame and we're doing it for two reasons
the first is that shame has a rich
history
a portion of which I'll try to convey I
think it's interesting in itself second
shame has become a very controversial
emotion in many modern societies today
and ultimately I think the history
connects with the current problems the
current problems are easily stated it's
simple for example to make a case that
we have too much shame in our society
this is something psychologists have
been saying for some time too many
people suffer unnecessary psychological
pain the emotion is wielded cruelly and
we need to figure out how to reduce
shame and how to help people bounce back
from it or ignore it as one popularizer
brene Brown says we need to learn to
shame the shamers
the counter argument is a little less
clear but it's pretty it's pretty
powerful as well we don't have enough
shame we have too many people and too
many institutions that seem to think
they can behave any way they want
one lobbyist for example a couple years
ago was quoted as saying shame is for
sissies do we want leaders in our
society who are Shameless
so the Dilemma is clear
too much shame not enough
and what I hope to do is show why that
dilemma has emerged as
starkly as it has
and what history has to do with it
the history part's going to be conveyed
in three chunks I'm going to talk a bit
about the the uses of shame in
traditional societies where the
historical record is pretty clear
then I'm going to talk about a major
transition at least in Western societies
that began about 250 years ago
and then at the end some recent
developments that may not change the
overall Contours entirely but add some
further complexities
before diving in however we obviously
need some sense of what shame is all
about as an emotion and most of you know
some of this though I hope your shame
experiences have not been too painful
shame is an emotion that one feels when
one has a sense that you've been doing
something wrong or you're in wrong
circumstances it conveys a strong
element of community disapproval people
are aware of what you've been doing or
what they think you've been doing and
they disapprove strongly
Studies have shown that a sense of Shame
doesn't actually depend always on an
actual audience you can feel shame in
front of an imaginary audience but it's
a very very powerful and painful emotion
which at extremes can drive people to
Suicide it's it's a potent weapon
shame is also however a social emotion
and this is where some of the complexity
comes in many psychologists have been
studying shame quite appropriately in
terms of its individual impact
but shame is also a social experience it
helps groups band together
it helps give groups a sense that
they're defending common standards it's
an enforcement mechanism and in this
sense it's meant to be painful
and the tension between a society such
as ours that doesn't like to uh
inflict pain too deliberately
and the larger purposes of Shame which
involve pain this tension is very real
and this is one of the areas where I
think the history of Shame actually
helps in exploration in addition to the
insights that come from psychology and
other more individualized disciplines
some psychologists as a final Point make
a make a big play of distinguishing
shame from guilt arguing that guilt is a
more targeted emotion less likely to
have adverse effects guilt in this
construction is where a person realizes
that something has been done wrong the
focus is on the something that's been
done wrong and not on a larger sense
that the individual has become unworthy
that's an interesting distinction you
may want to keep it in mind it's not
hard and fast it's always a little hard
to distinguish between shame and guilt
some major languages for example ancient
Greek didn't have different words for
the two emotions so keep the distinction
in mind but also keep in mind that it
can be blurred
okay the first historical Point again is
pretty clear-cut
early human societies depended heavily
very heavily on shame as an enforcement
mechanism
after all one of the earliest stories of
the of The Human Experience the Adam and
Eve story is basically a shame story
Adam and Eve sinned
and as a punishment they were made to
feel ashamed of the ashamed of their
nakedness nakedness and shame actually
have a close relationship linguistically
as as well as historically
so shame was a result of human sin
and was a punishment for sin that has
haunted us ever since the Garden of Eden
more concretely
the earliest form of human societies
hunting and Gathering societies depended
quite clearly heavily on shame
anthropologists have Unearthed the
number of quotes from existing hunting
and Gathering peoples for example there
is no Authority here except shame
or it hurts to look up that's from a
person who feels that he or she's done
something wrong and is afraid to look at
the group
and there's a story that illustrates the
the connection still further this comes
from an anthropological study in central
Africa a hunting and Gathering group has
a custom in which the man who is nearest
to the kill
gets the first choice of meat everybody
shares but the actual position is
important because of this first choice
one guy in the group is impatient with
the dormal order and sneaks into first
position unauthorized gets the first
kill and is given the first choice
however he didn't behave right
so the other men in the group begin to
murmur among themselves they begin to
laugh with their backs turned to the
offender
the offenders taking the meat home
but he realizes that he's in a shame
situation and he doesn't want to endure
it so he actually goes home brings the
meat back gets a worse cut and
presumably the incident is closed and
presumably also he's not going to be too
likely to do this again in other words
shame was a crucial enforcement
mechanism in small groups that depended
on their group cohesion
shame at the extreme could lead to
ostracism which was a physical as well
as an emotional threat but even in less
extreme forms like the hunting example I
just cited shame could be a very
powerful weapon and indeed in a society
that didn't have a police force didn't
have jails this was the chief
enforcement mechanism other than sheer
physical violence
as societies became more complex with
Agriculture and when the rise of
government
other mechanisms were created alongside
shame to provide enforcement of group
standards and rules now often called
laws
there were judicial courts
there were other forms of punishment
although these societies could not for
afford elaborate police forces they
could not afford elaborate prisons
shame was no longer the only enforcement
mechanism however
agricultural societies though more
complicated than hunting and Gathering
and distinctly larger
continue to depend heavily on shame and
there are various angles to look at here
in the first place as is well known
when agricultural governments enforced
punishments they almost always did so
publicly
most obviously they did this so that
people would be aware of the harsh
consequences of an offense in a society
that didn't have other elaborate
enforcement mechanisms but the shame
element was vital as well
this comes up particularly clearly in
one of the most classic forms of
physical punishment the public whipping
most societies established public places
in cities in villages where an offender
would be whipped
and the punishment would be both
emotional and physical the physical is
obvious
and in some cases the whipping could be
really severe
but for many people and you'll get
quotes about this all the way to the
17th and 18th centuries for many people
it was the shame aspect the fact that
this was being done publicly that was
the much more severe penalty
we might disagree my guess is many
people today we don't like physical pain
would be a little bit more leery about
the whipping than the shaming but that's
something you can talk about and I may
be wrong in any event punishments were
public and this meant shaming was still
a vital Factor
philosophers began to talk about shame
this is a famous element in the
Confucian philosophy that developed in
China
and the Chinese have multiple words for
shame which indicates the importance of
of the emotion in their overall culture
both historically and to stumble to some
extent still today
Confucius for example and I'm going to
read a couple things here Confucius for
example said a man who has no sense of
Shame
cannot be called a gentleman
the notion that shame was a vital
enforcement mechanism
particularly for the upper class to make
sure they lived up to standards that
weren't always laws they were
conventions and shame in front of your
fellow noblemen was a vital enforcement
mechanism Confucius is disciplemensius
repeated this in saying that a man must
never be without shame but he added this
is not just for gentlemen even Ordinary
People if they gain quote a sense of
Shame can be well guided to reform
themselves
the
emphasis on shame was probably a bit
stronger in traditional Chinese
philosophy than it was in Greco-Roman
but Aristotle talked about a shame
elaborately as well for example we think
it is right for young people to be prone
to shame since they often go astray but
are restrained by shame the interesting
thing about these quotes is there's no
concern here for the pain Shame Shame
causes it's supposed to cause pain
the emphasis is on the social good it
does on its enforcement mechanisms and
on the extent to which knowing that
shame is painful is meant not to be
primarily a punishment but a deterrent
this will come up further in our
discussion
in other words traditional agricultural
societies through public punishments
through stated philosophies raised
virtually no objections to the notion
that shaming was an important meth
method of discipline that should be
acknowledged and utilized to when
necessary the only sight squeaking the
wheel
came from some of the new religions
in Christianity for example Saint
Augustine wondered about the balance
between shame and guilt
he argued that shame might be an
inferior emotion because it depended on
the standards of the human group not
necessarily Divine standards
guilt was better in his take because it
enforced these permanent moral precepts
and was a deeper
um
more targeted enforcement mechanism
however studies of Christian Society in
for example medieval Europe indicate
that this distinction was pretty well
lost
and Christian societies continue to use
shame heavily as an enforcement
mechanism again the main point stands
there just weren't many objections
raised to shame in these traditional
societies its importance was widely
recognized its use was frequent as
necessary its warning was Stark
and of course we know some of the
details involved
for example
um
traditional communities both rural and
urban had a variety of devices that were
that went beyond simple group shaming or
gossiping or turning their backs
for example in some communities both in
Europe and the Middle East at least a
shamed person was put backwards on a
donkey and paraded through the streets
possibly several days running so that
the public could see the shame the
backward element was meant to be a clear
indication of wrongdoing
sometimes the person would be scantily
dressed so that nudity or partial nudity
was added to the shaming
typical costumes or other devices could
indicate shame many societies branded
offenders with public markings on the
face or arms so that there would be a
durable badge that this person had
offended and was meant to be a target of
Shame
haircuts
were a frequent device when the Spanish
came to Mexico for example uh some of
the American Indian groups in Mexico had
a custom of growing their hair long as a
source of Pride well got it off and you
had a clear indication of shaming that
was effective in helping to enforce
Spanish norms for over a century until
some of the locals wised up and stopped
featuring long haircuts interestingly
after World War II one of the shaming
mechanisms imposed on French women who
were accused of consorting with Nazis
was simply to shave their heads in other
words distinctive markings or again in
some cases distinctive kinds of clothes
Were Meant To indicate shame the most
famous devices were physical
that imposed a certain degree of
physical pain as well as prominence and
Punishment
in China and Vietnam Vietnam for example
a device called the Kong was introduced
frankly I hadn't heard of this until I
began this project the Kong was and this
was used at least through the 19th
century the Kong was a sort of a table
that had a neck hole so the table was
fastened around the offender's neck and
this could be male or female
um it could be pretty heavy so there was
a physical burden sometimes considerable
but the main point was shaming
obviously divide the device was
extremely visible so everybody would
know that this person was under
chastisement
but equally the device was big enough
that you simply couldn't feed yourself
you couldn't reach over the table to get
food somebody had to help you
and if you couldn't find somebody to
help you you were in deep trouble
more common and this was used in many
parts of the world
what are the stocks and pillaries stocks
technically are those devices that go
over the feet so the offender is put in
a sitting position is immobilized it can
be moderately painful not necessarily
awful but the main point is they're held
there so that passers-by for a period of
an hour or so sometimes longer will know
that the person is is is is is justly
being singled out can add jeers
sometimes throw things rotten vegetables
for example uh it's deliberately a
humiliating experience
the pillory is even more famous this is
where the person is
um put through a device where both the
head and hands are immobilized
um these can be pretty painful tourist
pillaries which we still see today in
reconstructed Villages for tourist
Amusement uh tourist pillars turn out to
be much milder than real pillars were
and some of them were being replaced
because they're inaccurate in other
words the pillory was physically painful
you were lifted up uh you were squeezed
but the main point was again public
shaming
so again these societies depended
heavily on shame
they know they do this is something
imposed both on Aristocrats and on
common people though
for different kinds of offenses and with
different specific kinds of public
punishments
and the devices
largely worked
final point on this traditional pattern
as these devices were exported for
example to the Europeans in the new
world for example colonial America
they were taken over uh pretty literally
stocks and pillars were quickly
established in Colonial Villages other
forms of shaming through insults or
group disapproval sometimes through
religious congregations were frequently
imposed but the one thing to add here is
that um
we have pretty clear evidence that these
shaming devices were not actually used
all that frequently we sometimes have an
image of colonial America or other
traditional societies as shaming people
right and left stocks are always in use
but probably this wasn't true because
these punishments were so painful that
people simply tried to avoid the
behaviors sometimes tried to conceal
them that would yield this kind of
punishment there was even a word in
English which now fall has fallen out of
fashion called Shame fast that among
other things could describe a person who
was so acutely aware of the importance
of trying to avoid shame that they kept
their behaviors carefully moderated
to avoid this kind of punishment shame
fast was applied particularly frequently
to young women to commend their
appropriate cautious Behavior
okay and one final point I said final
already I think but I have to add one
um we're most familiar with this kind of
traditional shaming as it applies to
sexual offenses
okay uh shaming of people who committed
adultery shame of people who committed
premarital sex uh shame for a widow who
married uh two young a a second bride
shame for a widowed woman who married it
all and this kind of shaming for sexual
enforcement certainly was significant
but it is really vital to remember the
shaming applied to other offenses as
well for example shoddy business
practices
there's just been a discovery as I
understand it in ancient Samaria of a
set of clay tablets that described a
merchant who typically sold shoddy Goods
or sold sold Goods that were under under
the stated weight and these public
tablets apparently Were Meant to portray
to the public the fact that this was a
shameful Merchant who should not be
patronized the Chinese in enforcing good
business practices argued that the
merchant who cheated his customers
should be unable to hold his head up
okay medical malpractice was another
Target
doctors who were accused of uh giving
inappropriate treatments in other words
shaming was an all-purpose emotional
enforcer not just for sex but for other
forms of behavior including stuff that
we might regard as more trivial such as
dressing inappropriately
okay so point one
the history of Shame pretty much around
the world as far as We Know
shows a
widespread traditional dependence
it's a deep social precedent
and this President continues obviously
to have some influence today
but there's a second stage to the story
in the 18th century
shaming began to come under new kinds of
disapproval
particularly in Western Europe and what
became Western Societies in North
America and elsewhere
shame was no longer appropriate
Benjamin West for example who was one of
the
leading founding fathers in the American
Revolution
argued that quote shaming is universally
acknowledged to be a worse punishment
than death
or a little a little later
the New York Times in an editorial in
the early 19th century shaming
extinguishes the last vestiges
of social respect
for a person who may have done something
wrong but does not deserve this kind of
degradation
there are probably two reasons
that shaming came under new attack the
first is a little vague but Scholars
have cited it
as societies began to become more urban
shaming may have become a little bit
more difficult to organize urban
communities can be more diffuse there's
more anonymity
so possibly shaming is less possible in
quote modernizing societies
then in more traditional ones take this
as an element
but there's some flaws in it that we'll
pick up a little later as well
the more specific motivation is quite
simply the kind of cultural revolution
that occurred with Enlightenment
thinking in Western Society
the individual was given new dignity
when Benjamin West says shaming is worse
than death you could debate that but the
notion is that this kind of degradation
given the Newfound importance of
individual dignity this kind of
degradation is simply inappropriate it's
deeply painful it becomes part of the
cruel and unusual punishment list
that reform-minded societies we're now
trying to get rid of
so at least on paper and as we will see
to some extent in in real social life
shaming all of a sudden
got a really bad rap
how widely initially
how much people believe this even when
they said it a little hard to say
because remember we're dealing with a
very deep-seated precedent
but there's no question that this was a
really significant cultural reversal
so how does it show up
so the argument here is mid to late 90s
late 19th century
shame again begins to be reconsidered at
least in some intellectual circles
it's part of a a larger set of cultural
changes in Western Society
does it matter
well it begins to show up in several
ways most obviously
um the frequency of talking about shame
seems to go down
if you do a Google engram
which is a mechanism that very crudely
determines uh changes in the frequency
of word use if you do a good Google in
engram on shame in English or American
English you'll see that the use of Shame
goes prettily step pretty steadily down
from the from the late 18th century all
the way to the late 20th it just doesn't
become a frequently used word and the
same pattern occurs with humiliation
okay
uh less tangibly
I think there's an increasing impulse
when shaming does occur
to focus on an individual rather than a
family we haven't talked about this too
much but a mean traditional societies a
shameful act spilled over not only on
the offending individual but on the
individual's family well in a more
individualistic Society this doesn't
make any sense so I think we've seen a
pretty steady effort
to dissociate offenses from any sort of
explicit family involvement
but there are more specific
examples as well
examples that make it clear that Society
really is reconsidering what it's trying
to do with shaming
most obviously
um the classic shaming published
punishments are progressively abolished
Massachusetts moves against stocks and
pillaries in 1805. between 1805 and 1911
All American states abolish public
stocks and pillories in one North
Carolina Community for example in the
1870s the stocks and pillars are torn
down and the wood is used to make a
public bathroom which I think is a sort
of cute reuse
England nationally abolished the pillory
in the 1830s
punishments went private
increasingly when a person was punished
most commonly Now by being taken off for
a prison sentence
the punishment was was meant to be a
private experience
not something to which shame could be
attached
okay so punishments get Revisited it's a
gradual process
interestingly public whipping
lasts longer than the stocks and the
pillars do possibly because
it has the physical component as well as
the shaming component
but in the United States public quipping
is fully abolished only after World War
II Delaware is the last state to do it
in 1951 although the public whipping
post isn't taken down in Delaware until
I think the
1960s or 70s
okay so enforcement mechanism number one
shaming is now inappropriate
and since it's inappropriate
you outlaw the apparatus that was
particularly involved in its use
enforcement mechanism number two
people writing about child rearing
begin to argue quite clearly by the
1830s
that trying to shame children as a
method of discipline is a bad idea it
makes things worse it's unfair to them
children are now seen as innocent little
creatures
and their personalities could be damaged
by shaming
rather than improved again a couple of
quotes
from the 1830s a child rearing expert
called Lydia child
punishments which make the child feel
ashamed should be avoided a sense of
degradation is not healthy for character
or a bit later from 1900.
criticizing a child in front of others
causes quote pain out of proportion to
the offense and weakens self-respect now
we have no way of measuring
how widely these new messages were taken
up and Sheltering the changes in legal
punishment are quite clear
it is obvious that child learning
experts from the 19th century to the
present day have argued that shaming
kids at least in Western Society is a
bad idea
it reduces their dignity and
self-respect which now becomes a crucial
aspect of raising a responsible child
um and we can assume that
over time
parents increasingly made some effort to
avoid shaming children can't argue that
there's a total Reformation we know
that's not true but there's an effort
there's an awareness and this is a new
element as well
final venue for this first cut
a little more gradually the notion that
shaming was bad for people gets carried
over to the schools
by the latter three decades of the 19th
century teachers particularly in urban
districts are being told not only should
you not use physical punishments against
children you should avoid shaming them
as well we need new methods of
discipline more positive incentives for
good behavior we shouldn't be relying on
this old stuff
now again and we're going to have to
come back to this one
um it's not easy to measure how quickly
some of these messages were driven home
teachers have a limited arsenal of
enforcement mechanisms and it was
probably pretty hard has been hard to
get rid of shaming entirely but we know
that some of the classic
forms of shaming were pretty clearly
abolished at least by the early 20th
century most famously the dunce cap
which was this classic
cone-shaped hat put in a kid who'd done
something wrong or who hadn't done well
with his lessons so he'd have to sit in
front of the class with his cap on
the dunce cap the last evidence we have
for it is around 1920 in a rural School
District in the United States I wish I
had a a more precise date I don't but we
know that you don't use dunce gaps
anymore and you don't do things like
having a kid go up and draw a circle on
a chalkboard and put his nose in it and
have to stand there in front of his
class for an hour or so to be shamed
okay
and the shaming the effort to reduce
shaming goes on in the 20th century
one of the things that you all might
think about is ways in which you're
aware that over the last
half century 70 years or so
efforts have been made to reduce shaming
still further let me give some examples
they're not exhaustive but just to
indicate this was a really
vital current it was not just a bunch of
hot air
okay for example in the 19th and 20s and
30s in the 1920s and 30s a major effort
was mounted to try to persuade people to
report sexually transmitted diseases
this was vitally important for public
health and public health Commissions in
cities Nike New York
devised really clever posters
urging people to forget about their
shame to come in and Report
um they hadn't done anything bad they
were not going to get ashamed it could
be handled anonymously
okay similar mechanisms have been used
more recently to persuade people of the
validity of psychological therapy you
shouldn't feel ashamed you shouldn't
have to feel ashamed if you knew this if
you need this kind of help
okay
an effort to reduce shame was also I
believed applied even to toilet training
in the United States
some of you may not be aware that since
World War II the average age in which a
child is toilet trained in the United
States is a year later than it was in
the early 1950s now there may be a
variety of reasons for this including
cheaper paper diapers but I believe one
basic reason is
toilet training and shaming are closely
associated and we want to delay the
process reduce the association because
we so deeply believe that kids should
not be made to feel shamed
more recently other mechanisms have been
introduced
okay how about instead of having one
valedictorian for high school class we
have 16. so that fewer people will feel
ashamed that they didn't make Valentine
valedictorian
or more recently and I think this is a
really interesting one
let's make sure that everybody gets a
school lunch free
so that the kids who are too poor to pay
for their lunch are not made to feel
ashamed
that they're in that situation I don't
think this is not stated with any idea
that this is wrong it's just an
illustration we increasingly look for
more and more ways to reduce shame
and the same effort and this has become
a major movement as applied to group
shaming
one of the most obvious features of the
gay rights movement has been an effort
to reverse the notion that somehow gay
sexual behavior is something shameful
the notion is pride pride is the
Converse of Shame and the extent to
which gay rights were early framed in
terms of gay pride is an indication that
this group and other groups that have
been traditionally shamed are aware that
this is something that can and should be
reversed in the context of a modern
culture
and finally of course there are the
efforts from psychologists themselves
that I referred to earlier in this
conversation psychologists increasingly
urging people
to
avoid situations where they were
burdened by shame
urging law enforcement officers not to
try to impose shame on prisoners it was
contrary to their dignity it was likely
to lead to more aggressive behavior not
less Okay so we've got a whole apparatus
building from the earlier starting
blocks we've got a whole apparatus
dedicated to the notion that we should
eliminate shame as completely as
possible now
there were two complications in this
effort that takes us back to the 19th
century complication number one as
you've probably already
discerned it's hard to get rid of Shame
um you can talk about getting rid of
shame in the schools you can definitely
get rid of dunce caps
you can fire teachers
who try to implement shaming that's too
blatant there are several cases of this
in in late 20th century American history
with teachers who tried to shame a slow
reader
by making him wear special clothing
something like that we don't tolerate
that
but more subtle kinds of shaming
for example many schools introduce green
orange green yellow and red badges for
records of daily behavior and
performance the green is good the red is
bad yellow's in between and these are
put on a student's public record so that
other kids can see them other parents
can see them it's a shaming device it
may not be horrible indeed you can argue
we need something like this but it's
hard to get rid of Shame
it's hard to get rid of Shame a whole
institution in the United States
it probably has not Revisited shame
particularly at all although some of you
may know more about this than I do the
U.S military and I think most militaries
depend heavily on shaming for
enforcement so the point one we have a
major campaign against shame it's very
real it's very important but it's
inherently incomplete
second complication
new targets constantly emerge
where even though the society is
technically hostile to shame
it becomes terribly tempting
to install shame
to enforce these new standards let me
give two late 20th late 19th early 20th
century examples
when Sports began began to be more
important in American schools and
colleges
and coaches began to take their winning
records very seriously
coaches use shame routinely and I can
give you all sorts of examples from
Harvard or Berkeley or Chicago in
colleges in the late 19th century where
coaches blatantly use shame to try to
get their players particularly football
players to measure up
okay
um I don't mean that shame had been
absent from athletic stuff before but it
now becomes a more important component
we've tried to fight this a little bit
more recently but shame in sports are
still um fairly closely attached in many
cases
even more obviously by the early 20th
century Western societies including the
United States were increasingly
convinced that fat people had something
wrong with them
they were physically unattractive
they were unhealthy
and they may have
um
character deficiencies that caused their
overweight
so although this may not have been brand
new what we now call Fat shaming
begins to be a significant component of
social interactions from the early 20th
century onward until today
okay so here's the picture
let's say by the late 20th century
you've got a major Society in
Western Europe and the United States at
least
that has an old tradition of shaming
that's not too different from that of
other societies
that is experienced now 200 plus years
of efforts to reduce shaming some of
which have had measurable impact
but where they're a batch of
complications that clutter the overall
picture cases where shaming continues
despite disapproval
cases where new targets have been found
these societies again looking at the
late 20th century are still different
from another number of other societies
in the world where shaming is more
openly acknowledged
for example uh about a decade ago a poll
was taken in several East Asian
countries and in the United States
around the proposition that if a school
if a preschool child
is not behaving it's appropriate to put
them to shame
50 plus percent of the East Asian
parents in places like Taiwan
said this is absolutely right no problem
none of the American parents interviewed
and this was done both in Chicago and in
California none of the American parents
agreed with that that doesn't mean they
didn't shame in fact
but we just don't think the shaming
children is an appropriate thing to do
in other words
um
the kind of shaming package that is
developed in Western cultures for better
for worse is probably somewhat
distinctive and that's a comparative
topic that deserves further discussion
with more reference to the history of
non-western societies as well as those
of the West
okay
so final chunk and this will be brief
three new elements
have crept into the shaming picture over
the past
20 to 40 years
at least in the United States and
possibly more widely
change number one
in the United States
a number of more conservative judges
particularly in the south
begin to argue that
shaming may have some virtues as a
Judicial enforcement after all for
example a Texas judge argues that
a little shame goes a long way
some folks say everyone should have
IELTS self-esteem but that's not the
real world something sometimes people
should feel bad that's a really
interesting statement
okay and it's had some concrete
consequences in a number of cases where
people have been accused convicted of
shoplifting or drunk driving
or milder forms of domestic abuse
judges have imposed shame
sentences rather than jail sentences so
example a shoplifter
is made to stand for a few hours in a
mall carrying a sign I have been
convicted of shoplifting this is not
quite as physically painful as the
public stocks but it's obviously harks
back to that kind of tradition so point
one there's been a little bit of new
debate in judicial circles circles about
whether shaming shouldn't be at least
partially revised
two new targets for shame have clearly
come up
and this simply is a recent example of a
process that we've already seen occurred
earlier as well
for example the black lives matter
movement
frequently black lives black lives
matter protests frequently carried signs
and simply say shame
with an exclamation point and the notion
was that police officers should be
shamed into more careful behavior in
dealing with African-American or other
people of color when they were suspected
of offenses
shame
the miscreants
the metoo movement as depended very
heavily on shaming
okay in some cases obviously they've
managed to single out people mainly men
who've actually broken the law
but frequently they're also trying to
Target
um
less clear-cut actions of harassment or
other kinds of indignity
that can be best addressed by shaming
calling the person out publicly in some
cases using shaming to um
uh jeopardize a person's job
in other words we've got a whole batch
of new causes
that have caused a Revival of interest
in shaming on the other side of the
political Spectrum
anti-abortionists routinely try to shame
people trying to enter abortion clinics
okay in a situation where a whole batch
of new issues have cropped up
in intensely emotional partisan
atmosphere shaming has come in to new
service
and finally so we have some new judicial
thinking about shame
we have some new causes on both sides of
the political spectrum that have evoked
a new interest in shaming
and finally
their social media
as everybody knows social media among
its other
Services if that's the right word
makes it very easy to shame people
publicly even people you don't know
I won't repeat examples here except one
one brief one uh classic case several
years ago
a dentist I believe from Minneapolis
goes trophy hunting in Africa and kills
a famous lion in a safari park he does
it perfectly legally I don't mean it's
right or wrong that's for you to judge
but he hasn't done anything against the
law
but people opposed to hunting and
attached to this particular lion
immediately take the cause up on social
media
the guy is publicly shamed I believe he
had to close his dental practice his
garage is marked up all the signs of
contemporary shaming okay social media
make it easy to shame
okay
so here's the picture
we've talked today about the traditional
uses of Shame and How Deeply they go in
the human social experience and the good
reasons that Society of societies have
had to shame in the past and to some
extent still in the present
we've talked about a major revision
effort which is really important
which has great Vitality still today
and we've talked about some contemporary
developments
that further complicate the picture
okay
the result is I think twofold first and
most obviously
it sure becomes pretty clear
why shame is a complicated emotion
in contemporary societies and if you
didn't know this in advance hopefully
you agree now
it's complicated
for historical reasons we have different
Traditions that
come into clashing play
okay
so hopefully this is a case where what I
find is an intriguing emotion history
helps us understand the present
does it also does this history also
give us any clues about what to do next
we could leave it and maybe we should
leave it we got different
tensions here they're historically
understandable it's up to each
individual to figure out what to do
about it but let me suggest and this is
tentative let me suggest there are a
couple of other potential historical
lessons
first of all
it continues to be valid and here I'm on
the side of the psychologists it
continues to be valid to figure out ways
in which unnecessary shaming can be
curtailed we know it's painful we know
it's sometimes counterproductive
particularly in modern culture where we
don't approve of shaming
one of the movements that I think is
quite interesting in recent years it's
more clear in Europe than in the United
States is the um
um
laws that allow people to be forgotten
on social media in other words a person
who's done something wrong should have
the legal right if there's been an
appropriate compensation should have the
legal right to have that
um
offense removed from the social media
record it's called the right to be
forgotten in other words you can't be
shamed for this forever it's really
important when we do think of shaming
that we don't associate it with some
sort of Eternal human Destiny it should
usually be temporary
okay
second
it's unrealistic
to go about our social thinking as if
shaming can be eliminated I think it can
be
continue to be to be refined it can be
discussed critically but the historical
record makes it quite clear that you're
not going to get rid of it
so let's think about it as something
that can be bounded that needs to be
viewed critically but let's not pretend
that we're going to create a society
which is shame free we've been trying
for 200 years we haven't managed to do
it
so let's think about shame appropriately
curtailed
in ways that can possibly make it more
constructive more realistic more
socially useful
one thought and it's not mine that's
been touted by a number of people who've
looked deeply at the subject of shaming
one one uh one time one thought here is
the importance of teaching people
working in society
about the significance of reintegration
societies that are familiar with shaming
usually have mechanisms by which the
shamed individual after a while
can be readmitted to social to society
in our society that is so leery of
shaming
we sometimes don't have those mechanisms
so when we do shame we sort of view it
as a permanent judgment we don't let
people back in very easily
I think we need to rethink that in other
words while the main lesson of History
here is we've inherited a complicated
situation
I think there may be a subsidiary lesson
that argues there are possibly some ways
to a combination of further reductions
but also some realistic
um
counter adjustments there may be some
some ways in which we can handle this
powerful difficult but clearly socially
socially useful emotion better than
we're now doing
thank you very much and I hope you have
an opportunity to discuss some of these
issues further
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