Re: This Is Way Less Fun Than Jessica Biel's Ass

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Great post.

The grounding of shame in the understanding of opposition as something healthy and necessary to a stable emotional life has been lost,

In a culture that worships individual autonomy above all, it makes sense that shame -- which rests on acknowledging of the power of the community to restrict the individual -- would lose its power.

It's interesting how shame has been replaced by cruder public rituals that are directly coercive. Having your out-of-control kid kidnapped and taken to a school in Utah, juveniles getting locked up in adult jails, or just all the people getting hooted and laughed at by daytime TV audiences.

Daytime TV is ground zero for the collision between the new shamelessness and the power of communal disapproval.


Posted by: PerfectlyGoddamnDelightful | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:28 PM
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The fact that social groups are chosen is key here. One should be careful not to overestimate the number of people who perceive themselves as that powerful.

This is not to say that those just outside the circles of power don't adopt the very same shameful behaviors: that's just a slower process, and by another mechanism (probably the adoption of what appear to be the mores of the powerful).


Posted by: destroyer | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:36 PM
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by the fact that our social circles can be largely chosen rather than inherited.

Oh, Modernity! Why couldn't you leave us trapped on the farm?


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:37 PM
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Right, I think "aspirational shamelessness" probably names something real.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:38 PM
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Oh, Modernity! Why couldn't you leave us trapped on the farm?

You can take the cleric out of Najaf...


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:41 PM
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This wasn't about Jessica Biel's ass at all.


Posted by: marichiweu | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:41 PM
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Right, I think "aspirational shamelessness" probably names something real.

You mean like being a dick when you're young so you can think of yourself an enfant terrible? Isn't this a pretty good description of adolescence?


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:43 PM
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To support the post, maybe some notion about the 24 hour news cycle has damaged communal memory and now public figures don't believe that any individual act will be remembered long enough to be held against them. On the other hand, people who rarely get attention know that if they ever do, whatever thing they get attention for will be what they're known by, if they're known by anything.

I'm not sure I believe what I'm typing here is true.


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:46 PM
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And Ogged breaks away toward cultural history and sociology.

Warren Sussman had some good essays on the differences between character and personality. SCMT has it right. The small community where your business is everyone's business versus the anonymous community where you have a chance at more privacy.

Hmm, Sister Carrie is good for some of this. So is Howell's A Modern Instance (which has one of my favorite opening scenes).


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:54 PM
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I'm not sure I believe what I'm typing here is true.

Don't worry; it won't be remembered long enough to be held against you.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:54 PM
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I don't think of shame as an approved method of social control for us; it's too anti-individualistic. We're all about guilt, here.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 4:55 PM
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Alternate hypothesis: There have always been people who behave shamelessly but before that behavior was a detriment to success, now it can contribute to success.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:00 PM
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public figures don't believe that any individual act will be remembered long enough to be held against them.

Mmm, but in the past, lots of individual acts would not have been reported. On the whole, I think public figures are more likely to be held up to public ridicule today than in the past. If shame died for reasons other than the highway system, perhaps it's because we've now been inundated with examples of the fucked-upness of everyone, including our heroes. So, for example, steroids may be a big deal to sports writers, but a lot of fans of various sports just write the issue off. We expect them to cheat. Not to cheat more than players did in the past, but to cheat and--and here is the distinction from the past--get caught.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:01 PM
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Let's don't romanticize public shame here. In different eras and places, "shameless" can also describe women who bare their ankles or out-of-the-closet queers.


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:02 PM
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I don't think of shame as an approved method of social control for us; it's too anti-individualistic. We're all about guilt, here.

I remember reading a comment somewhere that, in this regard, if you were to group Americans, British, Japanese, and Chinese the logical groupings would be [Japanese,British] = strong culture of shame and [Chinese,American] = weak culture of shame.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:02 PM
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Possibly only marginally related, but I take the opportunity to link to Kung Fu Monkey's brilliant post, L33T Justice, where he suggests that "shame" (or lack of it, in fact) is an "exploit" which this adminstration has taken advantage of. His analysis is more narrowly focused,

Public shame has up to now been the silver bullet of American political life. But people who are willing to just do the wrong thing and wait you out, to be publicly guilty ... dammmnnnn.

but it may be that this Administration is the first to really take full advantage of the broader societal trend. Worth a read, if only for the ending:
I cannot help but think that as Nixon walked to the chopper, somewhere in the darkened hallways of the White House Dick Cheney shook his head, spit, and whispered: "Pussy."


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:06 PM
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I once wrote a proposal for a production of School for Scandal with a contemporary American setting and changing it from being about shame to American shamelessness, by setting it within the context of a confessional-style talk show (Oprah, Springer, etc).


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:12 PM
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Mmm, but in the past, lots of individual acts would not have been reported.

So there's the fear of them actually being held against you if they're reported, times a lesser chance of them being reported. But if your fear of what happens when they're reported gets close enough to zero, you stop caring about the fact that there's a higher chance of their being reported. The same argument works in reverse against me, and comes down to the size of the relative changes.


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:13 PM
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Isn't this is in some part one of those inevitable generational plaints? "In my day, we would have been ashamed to . . . ."


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:15 PM
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1. Thanks, ogged, for that little dose of shame. I am quite certain that I've done more than my fair share of 'oversharing' both here and elsewhere. Now I am wondering how frequently that has been viewed as off-putting and shameful.

2. We are probably definning shame differently, but I am quite confident that it has no place in a healthy and stable emotional life.

3. New hypothesis -- those who behave the most shamelessly are not those who experience the least shame. Rather shameless behavior is directly proportional to the shame experienced by the person and serves as a mechanism to allow people to dissociate from the overwhelming shame they feel.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:15 PM
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Let's don't romanticize public shame here.

I agree. I like the anonymity of modern life. I can choose my friends from a much deeper pool. I expect Emerson (John, though it could be Ralph given the topic) to opine on this thread.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:17 PM
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setting it within the context of a confessional-style talk show (Oprah, Springer, etc)

I think such shows have had a really good effect on the US, though I realize I probably overestimate the influence of them. I can't tell if this is a non-standard view or not.

The same argument works in reverse against me, and comes down to the size of the relative changes.

Right. I suppose the way I try to get a sense of my own sense of the relative sizes involved is by thinking of Presidential infidelity. For no reason at all, I assume that infidelity matters less now, but was much more likely to occur in the past.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:20 PM
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So maybe shamelessness is best understood as a marker of social position

But I think that the traditional (post-royalty) view would be that even at the top there at least exists some peer group that would effectively be willing and able to wield shame against each other. In this case the marker is more of an exercise in whose shaming do you agree to respond to.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:22 PM
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This is a good topic to post on, it's too bad the primaries don't know about pacing.


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:39 PM
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2. We are probably definning shame differently, but I am quite confident that it has no place in a healthy and stable emotional life.

I was thinking about this -- whether there is a definition of "shame" I could view as positive. Dealing with shame is probably 2/3 of the need for therapy, god knows.

But I do want people to feel constrained from, say, littering. Ideally, they won't because they feel a responsibility to the earth and their fellow citizens, etc., etc. But if not, is it okay to shame people into it? When we want to enforce community standards, we can use positive, "responsibility" arguments, we can punish rule-breakers, or we can make people feel bad enough not to keep doing it.


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:40 PM
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The grounding of shame in the understanding of opposition as something healthy and necessary to a stable emotional life has been lost, and the practical power of shame has been undermined by the fact that our social circles can be largely chosen rather than inherited.

I wouldn't say it's a function of a stable emotional life, but rather of a stable community (and the continued place of the individual in that community). Given that amendment, it seems an exaggeration to say it's been lost. In an environment like this one, for example, arguably the quintessence of a chosen community, shaming is a regular occurrence; there's a preferred tone, and there are acceptable and unacceptable forms of oversharing.

That's not to say that the point doesn't stand with respect to the shamelessness of the rich and powerful. This more general formulation works: shamelessness is best understood as a marker of social position, or, if you like, as a pathology endemic to our culture and most acute at certain positions in our social matrix.

If the freedom to be shameless goes hand in hand with power, the notion that we all emulate it to small degrees is interesting.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:41 PM
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it's too bad the primaries don't know about pacing

Damn primaries should be ashamed of themselves.


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 5:41 PM
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opposition isn't meant to benefit the one opposed,

God, you really are a platonist.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 6:17 PM
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I admit it's intriguing to see shame (as a form of opposition) explained as properly beneficial to the shamed (the opposed).


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 6:34 PM
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I don't think the problem is particularly the loss of shame as such, given how often shame is a weapon for enforcing bad norms. It's the absence of every other internal restraint, whether it's guilt, responsibility, or you name it. What we've got is a social/political culture that expects a certain fraction of the population to be psychopaths, and uses them for titillation, but lacks any real way of reining them in when it stops being grins-and-giggles time.


Posted by: Bruce Baugh | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 6:35 PM
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Further to 29 (I'm in a quiet, bored, tired mood):

If we understand shaming as a way in which a community constrains an individual's behavior, brings it into conformity with the community's norms, we can see it either as a form of (external) control, pure and simple, or we can see it as an extension of the socialization process.

Assuming it's both of these things, what looks like a bad thing is at once a necessary (and therefore good?) thing.

Hm. In any event, we train children to our ways; they come to internalize those ways, to have negative emotional responses (shame, embarrassment, guilt) to bad behavior. We control them thereby? Yes. Put otherwise: we oppose their random running around like crazy people for their own good, under the assumption that they will want to join in our society, be in dialogue with us.

It's really not a wild-eyed claim.

Dick Cheney and Paris Hilton aren't children, of course. Once the grounding assumption fails -- they will not want to be part of our society -- you could call this a form of sociopathology if you were inclined in that direction -- the entire mechanism (guilt, shame, embarassment) falls apart.

I've bored myself now, I'm afraid. Didn't get to what actually interests me: the extent to which the powerful may themselves be said to be in the very positions of control, of mastery, over society that normally obtains in the reverse direction, that of society over the individual. In the latter case, society still has a responsibility to the individual, despite its mastery, if the dialogue is to continue; indeed, the individual can shame a society. In the case of a Cheney ... I'm not sure what to say.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 7:32 PM
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Shame is supposed to be a form of education, like all forms of disciplining "for your own good". So it's not just opposition. Doesn't defining it purely in terms of opposition already start to deny the role of the community in educating the individual.

Aristocrats have always been shameless as far as the public went, that's nothing new.


Posted by: PerfectlyGoddamnDelightful | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:04 PM
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Aristocrats have always been shameless as far as the public went, that's nothing new.

Yeah, something more would have to be said about why shamelessness in our culture and age is different.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:18 PM
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Disagreed. I just finished reading "Raising Cain," that book about boys and psychology that came out a while ago, and it talks quite a lot, actually, about the ways that the shame culture men live in is actually a major cause of defensive violent reaction. Which I think is 100% true.

And isn't the take on Bush, at least, that a big part of why he's such a fucking asshole is that he's out to "prove" himself to the daddy that was always ashamed of him?

I don't think it's shame you want more of; it's empathy.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:19 PM
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Re. shameless aristocrats: actually, pretty much the *only* social check on the aristocracy, traditionally, was shame--but of course it had to be coming from their peers. Parsimon's right that part of the basis of shame is the idea of obligation to the community, but it *certainly* doesn't need to be what *we* conceive of as the community. Bush would be shamed among the community that he cares about if he were to back down about Iraq (so unmanly).

I agree that a sense of obligation to others is absolutely vital; I just don't think that shame is the right way to enforce this. Or at least, not the kind of "shame" that compares blog "oversharing" right alongside war crimes.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:23 PM
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(35 was me, obvs.)


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:24 PM
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ogged is using "shame" in unclear ways, which isn't surprising given that we all do seem to have several senses of it in play.

But in the case of Bush, Cheney, et al., "You should be ashamed of yourself" would ideally get some traction, and doesn't. We're not accusing them of a lack of empathy there, are we?

Actually, the "you should be ashamed of yourself" formulation is helpful: I want to say that to, say, advertisers, and a whole host of other pushers.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:28 PM
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See also: "Have you no shame?"


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:30 PM
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Right, I agree that they should be ashamed. But I'm also really willing to believe that people become that assholishly arrogant out of overreacting to earlier experiences of shaming; if mortification is intolerable, then just bluster your way through, man.

Don't you think that one of the fundamental problems with the administration is a lack of empathy? McCain's "we won, we're entitled" thing really just says it all: it's all, and only, about power for power's sake. And you have to cling to it like death because if someone else gets any, they're going to grind your nose in it just the way you'd grind theirs.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:35 PM
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Shame can be used/misused in all sorts of objectionable ways. But I think that a person who is impervious to shame (outer-directed) and guilt (inner-directed) is not going to be capable of much empathy.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:39 PM
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I'm willing to call it a lack of empathy.

But if we think that there's something in common between Paris Hilton's and Dick Cheney's having no shame, empathy's not going to cover the Paris Hilton case. (She may not empathize with the poor, but that's not the nature of her shamelessness, or the nature of the shamelessness of those on the Jerry Springer show.)


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:41 PM
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he looks like Rasputin, if he had shaved head he may look like a buddhist monk, otherwise what a sham, but who knows may be he got enlightened or initiated somewhere
i don't know what Paris Hilton does to irritate public, to me she seems harmless, just fortunate to be born to great wealth and induce everyone's jealousy
shame, i remember i felt great shame when i forgot what i had to say on the scene during the school performance, just all was like completely erased out of mind or when i messed up the phonogram for another show and our team lost the prize, i wanted like to die
so this kind of embarassment, harmless in general but hurtful to my pride, happens to me like every three-7 yrs, in between i manage to behave very normal, i mean relatively shameless :)
but this is a different kind of shame, right? just personal embarassment, not publicly or socially significant may be, don't know whether it qualifies as oversharing now
regarding grammar mistakes i'm like completely shameless though


Posted by: read | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:43 PM
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40: Oh, agreed; such a person, I think, would be a sociopath.

Paris Hilton, I think: why do we want her to be ashamed? She's rich and vapid, but she doesn't actually *do* anything, other than being rich and vapid. She courts publicity, and it's aesthetically objectionable--we're embarrassed for/by her--but what actual harm is there in it?


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:44 PM
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I think what we want from her is humility, not shame.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:45 PM
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Paris Hilton, I think: why do we want her to be ashamed?

People should be ashamed of being useless twits.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:46 PM
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40: The inner-outer distinction doesn't work. You can experience shame alone, and both guilt and shame are about introjected norms.

Guilt attaches to you because of discrete acts you commit in violation of an (impersonal) rule. Whereas shame is anxiety about the coherence and integrity of the story you use to make moral sense of your life as a whole.


Posted by: Michael Vanderwheel, B.A. | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:47 PM
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Salman Rushdie's Shame deals with some of this, making explicit the connection between shame and belonging to a community you cannot leave. There's a lot written about rootlessness, less that's clever about community or family. MFK Fisher is nice.

Amnesiac pop culture and political culture definitely serve as amplifiers, but I think of the shamelessness of people in the spotlight more often as a consequence rather than as a cause. One think that always strikes me is the supermarket reading selection; sure, it's least common denominator, but it's a competitive market. If people wanted more Sudoku/fitness/Nostradamus/prayer candles, and fewer celebrity navels, that's what there would be. I think that rack of crap says a lot. I always go for InStyle's celebrity reading lists, or if there's an article about some celeb's family, I read that.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:50 PM
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Bring back noblesse oblige! We've still basically got the nobles, after all.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:50 PM
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The trouble with Paris Hilton is that she courts public attention while doing nothing to deserve it. I'm sure there's many a deb who's just as rich and just as blonde but most of them have the sense to stay out of the spotlight. Also, have you noticed that all her Best Friends crack up? It's because she's Satan.


Posted by: mcmc | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:54 PM
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why do we want her to be ashamed?

This brings home that there's a difference between shameful and shameless behavior. Bush et al. the former (as well as the latter), Hilton just the latter. Does that work? Embarassment can be called for in both cases.

I'm off now, but part of the problem here may stem from the fact that we're trying to understand shame via its negative, the shameless or shameful.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:55 PM
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I'm actually quite in favor of noblesse oblige.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:57 PM
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Feel no shame in your desire!

The only thing we have to be embarrassed about is embarrassment itself.

The only thing Paris Hilton has to be embarrassed about is being rich.


Posted by: minneapolitan | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 8:57 PM
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I am in favor (dans la fievre?) of noblesse oblige as long as it is practiced in the manner of Des Esseintes. With absinthe. On a chaise lounge. After smoking hashish. In the morning.


Posted by: minneapolitan | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:01 PM
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That's not exactly noblesse oblige, minnie.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:07 PM
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#53. Much as I regard Des Esseintes as a figure to be emulated, I don't think he was a practitioner of noblesse oblige, minnie. Or what #54 said.


Posted by: Populuxe | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:12 PM
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54, 55: What, treating an street urchin to the services of the most expert courtesan in Paris isn't noblesse oblige? What the hell have I been wasting all this money on then?


Posted by: minneapolitan | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:16 PM
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treating an street urchin to the services of the most expert courtesan in Paris isn't noblesse oblige?

Non, it is entertainment.


Posted by: Populuxe | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:19 PM
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57: Non it is entertainment.

Oh well, 61 years until another annee erotique. "I may not get there with you."


Posted by: minneapolitan | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:23 PM
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I'm actually quite in favor of noblesse oblige.

I would support the principle of noblesse oblige, were we otherwise to be subject to, and at the mercy of, the untrammeled and unchecked whims and caprices of the fundamentally undeserving members of something that looked like a nobility (in which case, of course I'd want to rein them in, and use every shaming mechanism at our disposal to encourage/coerce them to toss a few coins toward the commoners/peasantry). But I doubt I could support the nobility that would make noblesse oblige a coherent principle in the first place.

However, if by "noblesse oblige" you mean something like, 'The more fortunate should recognize a commonality with the less fortunate, and act accordingly,' then, yeah, I totally support that.

B. hates Canada, mostly because of the snow but also because of the United Empire Loyalists and their descendants, but she secretly mourns the demise of that peculiarly Canadian animal, now all but extinct, that historians, political sociologists, and paleontologists call the Red Tory.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:28 PM
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56. There's probably a profitable video series devoted to exactly this idea.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:30 PM
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were we otherwise to be subject to, and at the mercy of, the untrammeled and unchecked whims and caprices of the fundamentally undeserving members of something that looked like a nobility

Good thing that sure ain't the case!


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:31 PM
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if by "noblesse oblige" you mean something like, 'The more fortunate should recognize a commonality with the less fortunate, and act accordingly,' then, yeah, I totally support that.

That, plus the fortunate have something of an obligation to use their fortune for something other than making themselves even richer.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:39 PM
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61: I'm not saying we're not subject to, and at the mercy of, somebody's whims and caprices. I'm just saying that that 'somebody' doesn't look anything like a nobility, according to even the most expansive and generous definition of that term. To assert otherwise would surely be to support the so-called 'soft bigotry of low expectations,' which I for one would never support, needless to say. I have too much respect for my American Republican brethren (and sistren?) to ever agree to such a shocking lowering of the standards in such a distasteful way.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 03- 4-08 9:57 PM
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But if we think that there's something in common between Paris Hilton's and Dick Cheney's having no shame, empathy's not going to cover the Paris Hilton case.

Hmmm. My first reaction was that comparing Paris Hilton to Dick Cheney rather trivializes the things we think he ought to be ashamed of and rather dramatizes the things folks think she should be ashamed of. Which would seem to suit both of their purposes.

But to the extent you believe Paris' "shameless" behavior stems from a sense of entitlement, then maybe empathy does fit. In my mind at least, empathy goes hand in hand with the humility Bitch referenced above in 44. Tuning in to the needs/thoughts/feelings of others (i.e. showing empathy) necessarily takes one's focus off oneself, thereby diminishing one's sense of personal entitlement.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 4:36 AM
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The Hilton and Cheney examples feel kind of unrelated to me, but then I don't think there's an Unfogged commenter more oblivious to celebrity gossip than me. It just doesn't interest me, so I ignore at the cost of occasional mild social awkwardness when I need to say "I have no idea, actually, I don't know who that is or what they've done." Cheney, on the other hand, matters to my life whether I ignore him or not. I expect more out of the people who have power than from those who only have attempted influence.

(I do realize that mass culture has a variety of indirect effects whether I pay attention - I'm not claiming to be some oversoul liberated from society. But it's not as intense or thorough as with direct political and economic power.)


Posted by: Bruce Baugh | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 8:23 AM
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The grounding of shame in the understanding of opposition as something healthy and necessary to a stable emotional life has been lost

Am I the only one who really didn't understand this? Not in the 'I don't see why you think that's true' sense, but in the 'I'm not sure what the sentence means' sense? And the comment thread hasn't clarified it for me.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 8:26 AM
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66. I took this to mean, "We are all sociopaths now". That is, that it's no longer acceptable to tell your mates, "Look pal, you're out of order here", because they'll turn round and accuse you of undermining their self belief or something (or cut you with a bread knife).

And this is to some extent true. The ability we all have to choose our friends exclusively from those who will reinforce us whether we're right or wrong has combined with the zillion dollar onslaught to convince us that instant gratification takes too long, whether we want a new Barbie, a degree or a corner office, to create a climate in which self examination is regarded with suspicion, and discussed with reference to the Cultural Revolution.


Posted by: OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 8:42 AM
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66: I think I misread that line the first few times through. Here's my current (and I think correct) parsing:

1. Opposition is healthy and necessary to a stable emotional life.

2. Shame is properly viewed as grounded in this understanding of the value of opposition.

In other words, we should embrace shame because opposition is beneficial.

I disagree with this proposition because, while I agree that opposition is beneficial, I do not agree that shame is a necessary or healthy means of opposition.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 10:09 AM
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Huh. So to put this in Unfogged terms, it's all about the proper reaction to being told you've just said something misogynist.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 10:13 AM
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69. Thereabouts. People who go off on one when they're called for being sexist on u/f are about a 2 on a scale that tops out with kicking a guy to death when he calls you on vandalising his car (can't be arsed to find the reference).


Posted by: OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 10:17 AM
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That is, that it's no longer acceptable to tell your mates, "Look pal, you're out of order here"

I think it might be that your mates can no longer tell you that you're out of order.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 10:18 AM
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Bitch's comments at 34-36 and 38 are great. Shaming is central to the forming of masculinity, which is an achieved status that has to be demonstrated. Empathy is a far more durable and humanistic (and loving) form of self-discipline than shame. Shame has the trace of the introjected punishment and thus creates resentment against both oneself and the other. etc. Empathy can come from a much calmer and more peaceful kind of openness to the effects of ones actions.

I wonder if what we're seeing isn't the death of shame, but a kind of culture war over who or what should have the power to shame. For example, people are claiming the right not to be ashamed of their sexual behavior, and there is social conflict over that.


Posted by: PerfectlyGoddamnDelightful | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 10:20 AM
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Silvan Tomkins advisor of Paul Ekman, the microexpressions guy, places shame close to the center of emotional life. Ekman is really interesting and has done great experiments. Tomkins I do not know how to assess. The linked book has an insufferable pomo foreword, and leans to the theoretical. There were bursts that were thought-provoking, but in a different way than, say, Gary Marcus or Pinker are thought-provoking. But definitely, Tomkins thinks shame is really important.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 10:21 AM
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Huh. So to put this in Unfogged terms, it's all about the proper reaction to being told you've just said something misogynist.

Well, yes, but also about the most useful way to tell someone that something they've just said is misogynist.

Shaming: "Quit being such a misogynist."

Appealing to Empathy: "Actually, if you examine that statement more carefully, it rests on some pretty derogatory assumptions about women and their role in society. I don't think that's what you really want to endorse."

PGD really sums up the value in the latter approach quite nicely in 72.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 10:33 AM
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Quit being such a misogynist

This still works if the misogynist is a bastard or an imbecile and say an employee of your organization or otherwise can't be ditched. Appeals to reason and self control only work with people who can exercise both capacities. The discussion started with people who don't.

How much to internalize ways to deal with unpleasant people is maybe part of the question. Pretty deeply seems right to me, but I can see where different stroles would work well for different folks.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 10:38 AM
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Shaming: "Quit being so annoying."

I'm not really buying that shame is particularly directed to men; though I haven't read the thing B. referred to above (Raising Cain?). If the argument there generally runs that men (boys) are shamed over seemingly unmasculine behavior, I don't see how it's not also the case that women (girls) are shamed over seemingly unfeminine behavior.

Thanks for the reference in 73, lw.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 10:42 AM
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76a: Uh, by the parallel construction to my 74, I assume it is me you are calling annoying? I put some thought into that comment and your drive-by gripe that I've somehow annoyed you comes off as awfully dismissive. At the very least, maybe you could elaborate as to why you think my preference for empathy over shame is "annoying."

76b: Sure, boys and girls are not infrequently subjected to shaming -- whether for deviating from gender-norms or for non-gendered things like bad grades or disobedience or whatever. But traditionally, the more nurturing quality of empathy has been treated as a feminine style, such that it is more acceptable to attempt to influence a little girl's behavior through empathy rather than shame. IOW, even though shaming and empathy are available methods of teaching both boys and girls, boys may be more likely to be subjected to shaming as the principal method and the effects of excessive shaming are reflected in stereotypically male forms of anti-social behavior.

Caveat: I didn't read the book B reference either -- though I am intrigued, and will look into it -- so the foregoing is all completely ex recto speculation.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 11:01 AM
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This still works if the misogynist is a bastard or an imbecile and say an employee of your organization or otherwise can't be ditched.

Does it? IME, people who are incapable of empathy also are not likely to change their behavior favorably in response to shaming. Ignoring their bad behavior is actually the closest you can get to an effective response.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 11:05 AM
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Works is a matter of degree, I guess. For most serious offenses, there's regulatory backup, so shaming fades into an unstated, possibly unimplied threat (pointing out that office porn is in poor taste even if there are no women around right now, eg). It depends on group dynamics and the like-- shaming a higher-up into realizing that he's a blowhard is unlikely, but it's possible to suggest that some favorite and endlessly repeated focus of banter is worn-out may be possible. Dunno.

For me, judicious sarcasm beats silence, but I won't mouth off until I think I know what's going on, which requires several sessions of just listening. Plus, effectiveness is inversely proportional to volume-- lectures or inane repetition get tuned out immediately.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 12:14 PM
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77: 76a: Uh, by the parallel construction to my 74, I assume it is me you are calling annoying?

No, not at all. The parallel construction was to indicate that on Unfogged, when some people say "Quit being so misogynist," other people say in response "Quit being so annoying." I was suggesting that both might count as a case of shaming, which went toward my thought that both men and women participate in the behavior; i.e. that it's not particularly gendered.

I thought I'd answer that as soon as I read it; haven't read the subsequent comments yet.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 1:01 PM
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Ah, that makes sense. I think we are pretty much on the same page, then.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 1:05 PM
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a matter of degree
my understanding of shame and shaming is there are different levels of shame depending on the deed which causes the feeling
like -embarrassment, -embarassment+guilt,
-embarassment+guilt+knowing and reproach of others amount of which can grow (family, friends, public etc in reverse intensity), may be there are other kinds of it, but anyway
there is a certain point after which shame becomes unbearable and causes two opposite reactions either shamelessness, 'going white' in my language (it's not about race, just about sympathetic reaction, inability to blush or ability to keep your face straight)
or loosing one's face, when one would even prefer to expire willingly
the choice depends on many things, upbringing or the circumstances one finds self etc
i don't think one can be shame free naturally from the beginning if not due to brain damage or acquire shamelessness through high SES or power
one could ease shame through rationalizations though
or be confident in one's righteousness if one is a public or political figure therefore do not feel shame or react to shaming


Posted by: read | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 3:48 PM
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there is a certain point after which shame becomes unbearable and causes two opposite reactions

This sounds right to me -- either you protect yourself from shame by withdrawing or by projecting your shame onto others. (That is, the "shameless" aren't actually shameless, they just manage to relocate their shame outside of themselves. Bastards.)


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 3:54 PM
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protect yourself from shame
yes, it seems to me that shame can't be a healthy feeling necessary for one's emotional life, it's painful! and better be avoided
healthy of course for the society in general


Posted by: read | Link to this comment | 03- 5-08 4:11 PM
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