On Shame

Monica Lewinsky has re-emerged, and I say good for her! Please take the 20-something minutes out of your life to watch the video. It’s well worth it.  I agree completely that “Internet shaming as a blood sport has got to stop,” and I applaud her call for a more compassionate culture, both off and online. Nothing good comes from public shaming of private indiviuduals, usually women, usually over sexual misconduct. Innocent lives have been ruined — even lost — by the vicious words of anonymous haters spewed for no legitimate reasons. There is another consequence of this cultural coarsening, in which the whole concept of “shame” has been so perverted that its true purpose — yes, shame has a purpose — has been lost.  Shame is the feeling of distress or humiliation caused by the awareness of having done something wrong or foolish. Note that it requires two separate components: both the action, and the awareness that the action is wrong or foolish. In verb form, it means inflicting the emotion on someone else by making them aware that their actions are shameful. This presumes that the individual is not already aware of it him or herself.  So how can shame be good? Simple. Fear of shame, and therefore its avoidance, is a powerful motivation to refrain from wrong or foolish behavior, be it words or actions.  Remember when the expression, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself” actually had an effect o...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs