<story><title>The Shaming-Industrial Complex</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/the-shaming-industrial-complex-cathy-oneil-the-shame-machine-owen-flanagan-how-to-do-things-with-emotions</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hunglee2</author><text>Shame is a powerful moderator of behaviour considered marginal or taboo in society, likely it forms an essential role in group cohesion.&lt;p&gt;However, it may well be maladaptive at the scale of global society, where the mechanisms of shame - the &amp;#x27;calling out&amp;#x27; of transgressors, the dogpiling that ensues following a successful call out - are chaotic, following no process or moderation itself.&lt;p&gt;The inevitable result is self censorship, in order to mitigate risk, leading to the decline of the health of public discourse, and emergence of a &amp;#x27;self-police state&amp;#x27; by stealth</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dalbasal</author><text>A lot of shame relates to things outside of one&amp;#x27;s immediate control.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;Son of a whore&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot; is a old shame accusation. Shame by familial association is a very &amp;quot;traditional&amp;quot; part of shame. People who have suffered attack, especially rape, often feel ashamed. Failure is shameful. STDs are shameful. Being illiterate or inumerate. Etc.&lt;p&gt;Shame in these cases isn&amp;#x27;t about altering behaviours directly. It is about creating social hierarchies, structures and such. It results more in hiding.&lt;p&gt;So sure, shame has always been a part of culture and has good, along with bad effects. I don&amp;#x27;t agree that the internet &amp;quot;broke shame.&amp;quot; Shame was always pretty broken. The internet just delivered it to new places.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Shaming-Industrial Complex</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/the-shaming-industrial-complex-cathy-oneil-the-shame-machine-owen-flanagan-how-to-do-things-with-emotions</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hunglee2</author><text>Shame is a powerful moderator of behaviour considered marginal or taboo in society, likely it forms an essential role in group cohesion.&lt;p&gt;However, it may well be maladaptive at the scale of global society, where the mechanisms of shame - the &amp;#x27;calling out&amp;#x27; of transgressors, the dogpiling that ensues following a successful call out - are chaotic, following no process or moderation itself.&lt;p&gt;The inevitable result is self censorship, in order to mitigate risk, leading to the decline of the health of public discourse, and emergence of a &amp;#x27;self-police state&amp;#x27; by stealth</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jsnk</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s maladaptive for some, but also effective for some others. It can be wielded as a weapon to destroy one&amp;#x27;s competition and enemies. It works especially well against whichever group of population that has more tendency to self-reflect and  have capacity to feel shame. Whereas if a population doesn&amp;#x27;t feel shame or less shame or construct the standard so that the shaming only applies to one group but not the other, it can thrive in this kind of environment.</text></comment>