IN DEFENSE OF SHAMING

Interesting video on shaming.

Shaming the shameless is a useful social tool for those who care about someone whose behavior is dysfunctional. Shaming the justified shame-casters is social sabotage. I am not an academic social scientist, but I have some common sense and life experience, pertinent to this issue. 

The current wave of antisocial anarchism among some segments of young citizens in The West gains its force with the personal assumption of victim identity by the one with the encouragement of the dysfunctional many, joined in a fascistic cult of censorship, name-calling and threatened gang violence against the honest and vocal. It is typical cult behavior. Initiates must surrender all skepticism before being lauded as a full member of the cult. It is the cult's shaming and use of threats of isolation which maintain its cohesion.

Walking down any street in my Liberal part of the world yields frequent sightings of male, female and other young people with the signature top-knot. Like gray-suited Mormon pairs, veiled Muslim women and Orthodox Jews with signature trappings, these young people are signalling identity with the cult of victims-vs-h8ers.

Seeing myself as a victim was part of my withdrawn pre-adolescent childhood. My one sibling was six years older. I spent much of my early years alone in a house where the three adults constantly worked outside and inside. Pencil and paper were given me when I was a pre-schooler. I spent hours and hours drawing, while sitting on the floor. I had a talent for drawing figures.

A professional cartoonist lived up the street. He saw some of my drawings and tried to encourage my development of this talent. But, my parents, who were narrowly and vigilantly determined that I become some kind of bourgeois 'professional', told the artist to bugger off. Such were the events of that time which fed my self-perception as a victim.

I was eleven when my paternal grandfather died rather suddenly. He was a central source of affection and encouragement in my early years. Then three of my school mates, one my best friend, died within a year. Car accidents and meningitis were the causes. I withdrew and became suicidal for a couple of years. As a result, I was bullied by boys whose families bullied them. Depression draws bullying like nothing else.

Being shamed by caring adults gradually brought me back to health. A red-faced nun, Irish and quick-tempered, took an interest in me at school. She pushed me against a wall one day after school and commanded me to become an altar boy in the church to which the school was attached. I complied out of terror and an inkling that she actually cared about me. I made a new friend in the process, a jovial and rotund classmate, who had always been shy. His fraternal teasing and infectious laughter helped me discover the benefit of not taking myself too seriously.

Jesuit prep school followed. My classmates were mostly from wealthier suburban families. My inner-city ways and speech attracted a lot of criticism from my Jesuit teachers. They shamed me by imitating my local accent in class. They shamed me for slouching at the back of the room in terrified silence. Their criticism taught me to channel my anger into education as a way of fighting back on their level. And I did.

I went to college at 16. My freshman classmates shamed me by calling me 'old man'. I was heavy, badly dressed and defensively arrogant. Within several months of merciless shaming by a few caring classmates, I had lost forty pounds and began dressing like my peers. I immediately found that I was attractive to many more people than I imagined possible. I stopped being ashamed. I stopped retreating to wound-licking silence when under stress. I began to realize that self-respect and respect for the valid perceptions of others gained respect.

The no-shame culture of today is simply enabling dysfunction. This is harmful to those whose dysfunction will inevitably impair their advancement through life. Those who might shame out of caring will distance themselves from those whom they could help change for the better. Those who enable will watch with a shake of the head as the dysfunctional become more dysfunctional. Ask any exploited family member of a recalcitrant addict about this process. 

As human population exceeds the human ecological niche on the planet, individual human life will become less valuable. This is simply a function of animal nature. The no-shaming culture may indeed be an adaptation. By not shaming, not caring enough to intervene, functional people eliminate a dysfunctional competitor for resources. The obese woman, for example, is less likely to compete for the more fit and attractive males. The addict is less likely to compete for high-paying jobs. The transgender person is also less competitive in both sexual and work arenas. 

Human cognition is both boon and burden. It has been used to embellish the human life experience. However, it may also be bent to destroy the quality of human life. I believe that shaming those who criticize out of caring is an example of the latter. Lumping together those who skeptically criticize dysfunction with those who are simply sadistic brutes is socially counterproductive. It is perhaps subconsciously motivated by an underlying awareness of too many people with too few resources. In any case, it will lead to less caring, in my opinion, and more dysfunction in society as a whole.