Love this. It makes me curious about the overlap between shame and willpower. I’ve long thought that willpower is a bullshit concept (one that doesn’t even require much explanation beyond Frog and Toad’s “Cookies”), and some of what you’re talking about here is all tied up with that. (The ways that the attempt at restriction actually causes bingeing, etc.) I guess the relationship is probably that a culture of shame promotes willpower as the tool people “should” use, if only they were good/pure/moral enough to do so. Looking forward to reading more!
This article has great info touching on many possible topics *but* I guess it's bothering me because this isn't my personal experience of shame at all? For me, I'll often feel an intense pulse of shame over something and then spring into action around it. As long as it isn't that chronic, helpless kind of shame, just the memory of being ashamed can keep me devoting my efforts to something positive.
Internalized transphobia is a good example. Sure, I internalized a cringe response to other trans people having features that I'm insecure about in myself––but feeling shame at not doing right by other members of my community, even in my own head, motivated me to discipline myself to stop feeling that cringe response, stop judging, see the beauty and euphoria in other trans people, etc.
I had a good-paying job in tech management circa 2015-2016 when I started seeing younger and/or less economically-secure people come out as nonbinary and have to fight that in their workplaces. I was ashamed that I'd stayed in the closet and left them to fight on all of my behalf (as well as their own, of course), so I came out at work and then transitioned visibly. I'm really glad I did both of those and it's really enhanced my life and my community to act on shame in this way.
Similarly, at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019, inspired by the shame I felt watching the youth fight climate change while I did nothing, I quit my job and spent a year devoted to organizing collective, disruptive action for climate and housing justice.
I couldn't list all the times I've felt ashamed when I got into an argument with someone on some political/social matter where I suspected I might be in the wrong, and that drove me to obsessively educate myself and then in many cases take action. I do think that shame-driven allyhood distorts people's efforts at collective change in many negative ways, but I don't think it's the shame itself that's the problem, but rather that people don't know when or how to put shame aside, and how to navigate it in a helpful way in general. IMO trying to eliminate shame doesn't make a lot more sense than trying to eliminate sugar cravings (though I know nothing you said above advocates for eliminating shame, I don't think you addressed that question either way).
Anyway, so if shame is really an avoidance-based emotion, why is my experience that it often motivates me to positive action? I don't think I'm misidentifying some other emotion as shame, and I'll point out that anger is also not always an approach-based emotion either, if it becomes chronic and you believe it can't be changed, it just kind of simmers sourly inside you and can definitely lead to withdrawal from other people, lack of self-care, etc. I think shame acts similarly––if you feel momentary shame over something that you think you can change, and you know how to navigate the various, changing emotions inside you, it can motivate action.
Heidi below has it right -- typically, guilt is observed to motivate action, but shame is not. (For some of us the two feel pretty much indistinguishable -- I don't really leap into action even when "just" guilty. But clearly you are the opposite!)
I guess I thought it was shame because these things come from social comparison or being judged/fear of being judged rather than from me actually doing something I believe is wrong? E.g. "I'm not doing as well as these younger people in holding up the movement," or "This person disagrees with me, even though I think I'm right, I feel really bad about them being disgusted with me and need to try resolving it by researching the issue more/thinking through their side of the argument".
Or to put it another way, I don't feel guilty, like I did anything wrong, for not putting my body on the line for a cause, but I am going to feel ashamed next to someone else who had more at stake but did it anyway while I enjoyed my comfort.
I also don't really buy the idea that some emotions motivate action whereas others motivate inaction. E.g. having a romantic crush *should* motivate action, but plenty of us withdraw instead due to the intensity of the emotion or believing we don't have a chance with the person (that belief could be based in either other emotions, including shame and fear, but it could also be based on a rational analysis of the situation from someone with no baggage around romance but who knows dating their crush would be a bad idea, e.g. because they're monogamously married). Similarly, in your post, you mention that "mild sadness" can motivate action, suggesting that in some cases sadness causes avoidance instead, and you also mention many actual actions that people have taken out of shame (lecturing others, engaging in risky behavior, etc––these are all actions even if they're not ones we consider desirable).
I feel definitely a bit of shame bringing up all this when I haven't read the research while you have, but my suspicion is that the studies are probably designed in a way that doesn't reveal the full spectrum of how each emotion can function. I think cognitive processes around how to respond to the emotion are probably more important than the emotion itself in determining whether it motivates action or not. I think your father's behavior in collecting therapy business cards helps demonstrate this––business cards don't just fall in your lap, he was clearly motivated to change and I'd be shocked if he only wanted to change on days when he felt unusually low degrees of shame. But there was some cognitive process (perhaps a belief that if he tried, he'd fail, or imagining it being embarrassing, awkward, and not helpful when he was there, or imagining an all-or-nothing that he'd have to give up his coping mechanisms if he entered treatment and not being ready to do that) that drew a dividing line between his motivation to seek out therapy and his lack of ability to follow through. I'm sorry for your loss and the fact that we can't ask him, a dear friend of mine died due to alcoholism last year and I think the work you're doing on challenging systemic shame is extremely important because I do think that's a huge factor in their deaths. I think shame is an extremely tricky experience and you're right that we have a culture of invoking it to try to force positive change that ends up being incredibly destructive.
And of course since I'm ashamed of not having read the literature I am reading some literature and at least this first paper I found about shame vs guilt seems to support my viewpoint?
"Shame implies perceived *lack of power* to meet the standards of one’s ideal self, whereas guilt implies perceived *power and willingness to be harmful*, that is, to violate the standards of one’s moral self. These differences have important motivational consequences, both positive and negative: whereas guilt is likely to motivate either reparative or self-punitive behavior, shame is likely to motivate either withdrawal or increased efforts in building one’s aspired-to identity."
The examples I gave were times when I invested a lot of energy into building an aspired-to identity as a result of shame.
I also read the abstract for the article on shame, guilt, and self-efficacy and it's frustrating to me that there seem to be claims of causation based on correlation between low self-efficacy and shame. As someone who grew up with a ton of both, I think there's a common factor that causes both: If you have actual experience of, on a day-to-day basis, not being able to achieve what you're trying to do and/or what you're expected to do, of course you have low self-efficacy (which is mostly in the belief realm) and shame (which is mostly in the emotion realm). Shame does not inherently make people believe they can't change the thing they feel ashamed over (and in a culture with much more of a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset when it comes to abilities, I don't know if responding to shame by insisting you can't change would even make sense to most people). I think it's our actual experiences and cultural beliefs around not being able to fix whatever the thing is that cause despair and resignation when shame is evoked.
Personally I think that might be the difference between shame and guilt. I think of guilt as motivating someone toward taking responsibility for something. Whereas shame doesn't motivate, except to hide, avoid, and lie.
I look at the difference like this. Guilt is an internal feeling stemming from something you may have done or said not aligning with your values, it can inform what you can change or work on or repair. It tells you that you feel badly about something. Shame comes from external sources and tells you that you are bad/wrong/inadequate because of something.
Tbh shame-driven allyship is another can of worms bc there really needs to be more of a convo about how countless young, vulnerable, marginalized folks are taken advantage of in activist spaces, constantly convinced they’re not doing enough, and manipulated out of every last dime and spoon by folks who convince them that they’re actually privileged and evil.
There’s a good anecdote in the rest of this book about a friend of Devon’s who’s chronically apologetic about every perceivable aspect of their life that doesn’t hold up to the wokest standards—which often are inaccessible to them because of disability or other uncontrollable forces. Devon says they’re thinking the whole time “It’s okay! No one can win this game!” And it’s how I’ve often felt talking to folks who have been in activist spaces for a long time (who, most of the time, have ended up chewed up and spat out by their alleged community).
But do you see where that's a manipulation problem, not an inherent problem with the emotion of shame? The activists you're talking about are *also* being manipulated with shows or promises of love, affection, and belonging in a community.
Shame is, in a natural and *positive* way, a major motivator for people to try to end their complicency in oppressive systems. We need have conversations about boundaries and consent-culture with newbie activists (or the experienced ones who don't believe they're allowed to develop boundaries). Someone evoking feelings of shame to try to get privileged folks to dig infinitely deeper is a sign that that person either has bad judgement or is intentionally being manipulative at their target audience's expense, so activists should be prepared to shrug off such messages. But that doesn't mean we need to demonize shame—the same can and should be said for clout-seekers who use sex appeal on social media to become popular among activists but who have erratic or just bad political takes. Autonomy means having boundaries and learning how to navigate your own emotions, including being thoughtful about how other people are influencing you. But there are plenty of cases where you might feel shame and, thinking it through calmly and with self-respect and boundaries, decide that, yes, that's accurate, then resign from your job at Raytheon or whatever.
I think a larger point that’s being made is that while social pressure CAN and HAS been put to good use in the past, ever, systemic shame—wherein what defines good or amoral people in a community—falls incredibly short of what folks think it will do, often triggers a counterintuitive response, and becomes a way to scapegoat the harm done to marginalized folks at the hands of unchecked bastions of power.
I’m a teacher, and I see this a lot with students. Sure, teachers who lead with guilt and shame might have students get their work done, but at what cost? It might even “work” for some students, but far from all. And for those whom it doesn’t work, the effects are disastrous. Students grow to hate themselves, resent the work and the subject and school itself, they feel guilty, stupid, or lazy even to ask for the help they need, they’re terrified of getting anything wrong, and will often miss signs of disabilities that make the work harder, because they assume that they should just “push past” any difficulty.
Worse, shame encourages isolation, which means that conversations aren’t being had about what is or isn’t working. They don’t get to the root of the problem. They see those who are there to help them as cops, as punishers.
I use children as an example of this particularly because they’re such a prominent example of people who are still learning what the rules of society are (as are many adults, such as neurodivergent folks or those moving to new communities), and so you really can’t rely on them to know how to navigate critique effectively. In an ideal world, maybe they’d be able to draw boundaries, think through things calmly and with self-respect, etc., but they are literally not built to do that proficiently—as are many adults, especially those with trauma or those going through difficult times in their life.
In short, it’s a nice thought, but it tends not to work out in the way you’re describing. Research—there’s a lot in Devon’s book(s), in fact— backs this up. Laziness Is A Myth in particular has a lot of great research that speaks to this.
Like, I think what I'm getting at is that while shame, the result of falling short of an internalized ideal, is closely related to the societal structures of control that are causing the harm, and sometimes the harm itself is in the intensity and persistence of the emotion of shame and related behaviors, I think the shame itself is not the problem. If someone tries to control you with positive messaging and emotions, that's just as bad. And it's a deep misunderstanding of shame to think it can't motivate positive action.
I had all the problems you describe growing up in the school system as a kid btw, and I think the root problem was that I didn't have caring parents or really any nurturing figures in my life that would have allowed me to figure out how to navigate the difficulties of new challenges, undiagnosed disabilities, the occasional actively abusive teacher, etc. Children need healthy relationships with figures who will guide them to learn emotional regulation and all that. I think we can better teach emotional regulation if we understand how to use our own feelings of shame to motivate change when that's warranted. If the otherwise safe adults are enmeshed in unsafe power structures, whether that's a church that appeals heavily to shame or the military that appeals to pride and duty or an MLM that says all its members are a sisterhood, that's going to be passed on to children. And to be clear, I'm not against focusing on "systemic shame" as a unit of analysis, there's some value in that, but the emotion of shame is certainly not inevitably harmful.
The paper I linked earlier in the thread has a section about why a lot of the research on shame is biased because it uses a scale that assumes shame is harmful in order to measure shame.
That said, I agree that systemic shame is bad. I'm not saying teachers should shame children, that's horrible—but that's a result of the power dynamic and we absolutely should teach children that shame can and should be navigated in positive ways whenever they experience it.
And I haven't thought this through much, but if we flip this around—systemic positive idealization. If we consider that as a concept, is it any better than systemic shame? Beauty standards, glorifying soldiers, heteronormativity, seeing the straight A students get praised every day—even if only positive messages are sent, of course negative results (including shame but also things like erasure, arrogance, and doing harmful things to meet social ideals) occur. I think most things probably come out looking bad if you put "systemic" in front of them? Students and all people need to be seen as individuals and anything that fails to do that will be harmful.
All the shame-based perspectives you profiled ignore the obvious and simple truth that every "shameful" choice is a naturally desirable one. It's completely normal and common to enjoy the feeling of drugs, sweet food, sex, etc. We call them bad, but they're gooooood. I know for a fact that it's common to like those things, because there are shame campaigns against them! In contrast, I've never heard of anybody shaming the practice of spraying yourself with pepper spray, because most people don't want to do that.
Much like the concept of "eating normally" you mentioned, once we acknowledge it's normal to like and want those things, we can then talk about the downsides and make honest decisions. For example, I enjoy the taste of wine and I kind of like the initial muscle relaxation I feel when I drink it. But far too often it gives me a migraine, and it's a short path for me from pleasantly buzzed to nauseous. So it's an easy decision for me to find other things I enjoy with less bothersome side effects. If I just said "drinking is BAD!", I'd in effect be gaslighting myself. I wouldn't be able to trust my own feelings. "Wine is bad, but -- I like it??? Something's wrong!"
I was a volunteer for dare in highschool. Got to get out of school one Tuesday a month. Best freaking times ever.
I never did drugs nor did I drink before 21. Despite being married at 18 to someone who was almost 30.
The reason wasn't shame or conditioning. It was sensitivity to them. Seizures are a real buzz kill.
But the shame part is very real. I don't have much of it now. Those of us who are different get so much of shame around not understanding the heirarchy rules. We stupidly and optimistcally think the world will be accepting and fair. Then are brutally reminded it is not and shamed for it. The shame spirals our are amazing brains bringing up every instance of this before each time it happens yet again.
I truly believe our higher empathy compounds shame because not only do we have our own we also absorb and remember everyone else's. I think this is the sins of the father religion is references. I think our systems do it on purpose. To keep the most sensitive and intelligent from seeking leadership.
Love this. It makes me curious about the overlap between shame and willpower. I’ve long thought that willpower is a bullshit concept (one that doesn’t even require much explanation beyond Frog and Toad’s “Cookies”), and some of what you’re talking about here is all tied up with that. (The ways that the attempt at restriction actually causes bingeing, etc.) I guess the relationship is probably that a culture of shame promotes willpower as the tool people “should” use, if only they were good/pure/moral enough to do so. Looking forward to reading more!
This article has great info touching on many possible topics *but* I guess it's bothering me because this isn't my personal experience of shame at all? For me, I'll often feel an intense pulse of shame over something and then spring into action around it. As long as it isn't that chronic, helpless kind of shame, just the memory of being ashamed can keep me devoting my efforts to something positive.
Internalized transphobia is a good example. Sure, I internalized a cringe response to other trans people having features that I'm insecure about in myself––but feeling shame at not doing right by other members of my community, even in my own head, motivated me to discipline myself to stop feeling that cringe response, stop judging, see the beauty and euphoria in other trans people, etc.
I had a good-paying job in tech management circa 2015-2016 when I started seeing younger and/or less economically-secure people come out as nonbinary and have to fight that in their workplaces. I was ashamed that I'd stayed in the closet and left them to fight on all of my behalf (as well as their own, of course), so I came out at work and then transitioned visibly. I'm really glad I did both of those and it's really enhanced my life and my community to act on shame in this way.
Similarly, at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019, inspired by the shame I felt watching the youth fight climate change while I did nothing, I quit my job and spent a year devoted to organizing collective, disruptive action for climate and housing justice.
I couldn't list all the times I've felt ashamed when I got into an argument with someone on some political/social matter where I suspected I might be in the wrong, and that drove me to obsessively educate myself and then in many cases take action. I do think that shame-driven allyhood distorts people's efforts at collective change in many negative ways, but I don't think it's the shame itself that's the problem, but rather that people don't know when or how to put shame aside, and how to navigate it in a helpful way in general. IMO trying to eliminate shame doesn't make a lot more sense than trying to eliminate sugar cravings (though I know nothing you said above advocates for eliminating shame, I don't think you addressed that question either way).
Anyway, so if shame is really an avoidance-based emotion, why is my experience that it often motivates me to positive action? I don't think I'm misidentifying some other emotion as shame, and I'll point out that anger is also not always an approach-based emotion either, if it becomes chronic and you believe it can't be changed, it just kind of simmers sourly inside you and can definitely lead to withdrawal from other people, lack of self-care, etc. I think shame acts similarly––if you feel momentary shame over something that you think you can change, and you know how to navigate the various, changing emotions inside you, it can motivate action.
Heidi below has it right -- typically, guilt is observed to motivate action, but shame is not. (For some of us the two feel pretty much indistinguishable -- I don't really leap into action even when "just" guilty. But clearly you are the opposite!)
I guess I thought it was shame because these things come from social comparison or being judged/fear of being judged rather than from me actually doing something I believe is wrong? E.g. "I'm not doing as well as these younger people in holding up the movement," or "This person disagrees with me, even though I think I'm right, I feel really bad about them being disgusted with me and need to try resolving it by researching the issue more/thinking through their side of the argument".
Or to put it another way, I don't feel guilty, like I did anything wrong, for not putting my body on the line for a cause, but I am going to feel ashamed next to someone else who had more at stake but did it anyway while I enjoyed my comfort.
I also don't really buy the idea that some emotions motivate action whereas others motivate inaction. E.g. having a romantic crush *should* motivate action, but plenty of us withdraw instead due to the intensity of the emotion or believing we don't have a chance with the person (that belief could be based in either other emotions, including shame and fear, but it could also be based on a rational analysis of the situation from someone with no baggage around romance but who knows dating their crush would be a bad idea, e.g. because they're monogamously married). Similarly, in your post, you mention that "mild sadness" can motivate action, suggesting that in some cases sadness causes avoidance instead, and you also mention many actual actions that people have taken out of shame (lecturing others, engaging in risky behavior, etc––these are all actions even if they're not ones we consider desirable).
I feel definitely a bit of shame bringing up all this when I haven't read the research while you have, but my suspicion is that the studies are probably designed in a way that doesn't reveal the full spectrum of how each emotion can function. I think cognitive processes around how to respond to the emotion are probably more important than the emotion itself in determining whether it motivates action or not. I think your father's behavior in collecting therapy business cards helps demonstrate this––business cards don't just fall in your lap, he was clearly motivated to change and I'd be shocked if he only wanted to change on days when he felt unusually low degrees of shame. But there was some cognitive process (perhaps a belief that if he tried, he'd fail, or imagining it being embarrassing, awkward, and not helpful when he was there, or imagining an all-or-nothing that he'd have to give up his coping mechanisms if he entered treatment and not being ready to do that) that drew a dividing line between his motivation to seek out therapy and his lack of ability to follow through. I'm sorry for your loss and the fact that we can't ask him, a dear friend of mine died due to alcoholism last year and I think the work you're doing on challenging systemic shame is extremely important because I do think that's a huge factor in their deaths. I think shame is an extremely tricky experience and you're right that we have a culture of invoking it to try to force positive change that ends up being incredibly destructive.
And of course since I'm ashamed of not having read the literature I am reading some literature and at least this first paper I found about shame vs guilt seems to support my viewpoint?
"Shame implies perceived *lack of power* to meet the standards of one’s ideal self, whereas guilt implies perceived *power and willingness to be harmful*, that is, to violate the standards of one’s moral self. These differences have important motivational consequences, both positive and negative: whereas guilt is likely to motivate either reparative or self-punitive behavior, shame is likely to motivate either withdrawal or increased efforts in building one’s aspired-to identity."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6143989/
The examples I gave were times when I invested a lot of energy into building an aspired-to identity as a result of shame.
I also read the abstract for the article on shame, guilt, and self-efficacy and it's frustrating to me that there seem to be claims of causation based on correlation between low self-efficacy and shame. As someone who grew up with a ton of both, I think there's a common factor that causes both: If you have actual experience of, on a day-to-day basis, not being able to achieve what you're trying to do and/or what you're expected to do, of course you have low self-efficacy (which is mostly in the belief realm) and shame (which is mostly in the emotion realm). Shame does not inherently make people believe they can't change the thing they feel ashamed over (and in a culture with much more of a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset when it comes to abilities, I don't know if responding to shame by insisting you can't change would even make sense to most people). I think it's our actual experiences and cultural beliefs around not being able to fix whatever the thing is that cause despair and resignation when shame is evoked.
Personally I think that might be the difference between shame and guilt. I think of guilt as motivating someone toward taking responsibility for something. Whereas shame doesn't motivate, except to hide, avoid, and lie.
I look at the difference like this. Guilt is an internal feeling stemming from something you may have done or said not aligning with your values, it can inform what you can change or work on or repair. It tells you that you feel badly about something. Shame comes from external sources and tells you that you are bad/wrong/inadequate because of something.
Tbh shame-driven allyship is another can of worms bc there really needs to be more of a convo about how countless young, vulnerable, marginalized folks are taken advantage of in activist spaces, constantly convinced they’re not doing enough, and manipulated out of every last dime and spoon by folks who convince them that they’re actually privileged and evil.
There’s a good anecdote in the rest of this book about a friend of Devon’s who’s chronically apologetic about every perceivable aspect of their life that doesn’t hold up to the wokest standards—which often are inaccessible to them because of disability or other uncontrollable forces. Devon says they’re thinking the whole time “It’s okay! No one can win this game!” And it’s how I’ve often felt talking to folks who have been in activist spaces for a long time (who, most of the time, have ended up chewed up and spat out by their alleged community).
But do you see where that's a manipulation problem, not an inherent problem with the emotion of shame? The activists you're talking about are *also* being manipulated with shows or promises of love, affection, and belonging in a community.
Shame is, in a natural and *positive* way, a major motivator for people to try to end their complicency in oppressive systems. We need have conversations about boundaries and consent-culture with newbie activists (or the experienced ones who don't believe they're allowed to develop boundaries). Someone evoking feelings of shame to try to get privileged folks to dig infinitely deeper is a sign that that person either has bad judgement or is intentionally being manipulative at their target audience's expense, so activists should be prepared to shrug off such messages. But that doesn't mean we need to demonize shame—the same can and should be said for clout-seekers who use sex appeal on social media to become popular among activists but who have erratic or just bad political takes. Autonomy means having boundaries and learning how to navigate your own emotions, including being thoughtful about how other people are influencing you. But there are plenty of cases where you might feel shame and, thinking it through calmly and with self-respect and boundaries, decide that, yes, that's accurate, then resign from your job at Raytheon or whatever.
I think a larger point that’s being made is that while social pressure CAN and HAS been put to good use in the past, ever, systemic shame—wherein what defines good or amoral people in a community—falls incredibly short of what folks think it will do, often triggers a counterintuitive response, and becomes a way to scapegoat the harm done to marginalized folks at the hands of unchecked bastions of power.
I’m a teacher, and I see this a lot with students. Sure, teachers who lead with guilt and shame might have students get their work done, but at what cost? It might even “work” for some students, but far from all. And for those whom it doesn’t work, the effects are disastrous. Students grow to hate themselves, resent the work and the subject and school itself, they feel guilty, stupid, or lazy even to ask for the help they need, they’re terrified of getting anything wrong, and will often miss signs of disabilities that make the work harder, because they assume that they should just “push past” any difficulty.
Worse, shame encourages isolation, which means that conversations aren’t being had about what is or isn’t working. They don’t get to the root of the problem. They see those who are there to help them as cops, as punishers.
I use children as an example of this particularly because they’re such a prominent example of people who are still learning what the rules of society are (as are many adults, such as neurodivergent folks or those moving to new communities), and so you really can’t rely on them to know how to navigate critique effectively. In an ideal world, maybe they’d be able to draw boundaries, think through things calmly and with self-respect, etc., but they are literally not built to do that proficiently—as are many adults, especially those with trauma or those going through difficult times in their life.
In short, it’s a nice thought, but it tends not to work out in the way you’re describing. Research—there’s a lot in Devon’s book(s), in fact— backs this up. Laziness Is A Myth in particular has a lot of great research that speaks to this.
Like, I think what I'm getting at is that while shame, the result of falling short of an internalized ideal, is closely related to the societal structures of control that are causing the harm, and sometimes the harm itself is in the intensity and persistence of the emotion of shame and related behaviors, I think the shame itself is not the problem. If someone tries to control you with positive messaging and emotions, that's just as bad. And it's a deep misunderstanding of shame to think it can't motivate positive action.
I had all the problems you describe growing up in the school system as a kid btw, and I think the root problem was that I didn't have caring parents or really any nurturing figures in my life that would have allowed me to figure out how to navigate the difficulties of new challenges, undiagnosed disabilities, the occasional actively abusive teacher, etc. Children need healthy relationships with figures who will guide them to learn emotional regulation and all that. I think we can better teach emotional regulation if we understand how to use our own feelings of shame to motivate change when that's warranted. If the otherwise safe adults are enmeshed in unsafe power structures, whether that's a church that appeals heavily to shame or the military that appeals to pride and duty or an MLM that says all its members are a sisterhood, that's going to be passed on to children. And to be clear, I'm not against focusing on "systemic shame" as a unit of analysis, there's some value in that, but the emotion of shame is certainly not inevitably harmful.
The paper I linked earlier in the thread has a section about why a lot of the research on shame is biased because it uses a scale that assumes shame is harmful in order to measure shame.
That said, I agree that systemic shame is bad. I'm not saying teachers should shame children, that's horrible—but that's a result of the power dynamic and we absolutely should teach children that shame can and should be navigated in positive ways whenever they experience it.
And I haven't thought this through much, but if we flip this around—systemic positive idealization. If we consider that as a concept, is it any better than systemic shame? Beauty standards, glorifying soldiers, heteronormativity, seeing the straight A students get praised every day—even if only positive messages are sent, of course negative results (including shame but also things like erasure, arrogance, and doing harmful things to meet social ideals) occur. I think most things probably come out looking bad if you put "systemic" in front of them? Students and all people need to be seen as individuals and anything that fails to do that will be harmful.
Love, love, love.
All the shame-based perspectives you profiled ignore the obvious and simple truth that every "shameful" choice is a naturally desirable one. It's completely normal and common to enjoy the feeling of drugs, sweet food, sex, etc. We call them bad, but they're gooooood. I know for a fact that it's common to like those things, because there are shame campaigns against them! In contrast, I've never heard of anybody shaming the practice of spraying yourself with pepper spray, because most people don't want to do that.
Much like the concept of "eating normally" you mentioned, once we acknowledge it's normal to like and want those things, we can then talk about the downsides and make honest decisions. For example, I enjoy the taste of wine and I kind of like the initial muscle relaxation I feel when I drink it. But far too often it gives me a migraine, and it's a short path for me from pleasantly buzzed to nauseous. So it's an easy decision for me to find other things I enjoy with less bothersome side effects. If I just said "drinking is BAD!", I'd in effect be gaslighting myself. I wouldn't be able to trust my own feelings. "Wine is bad, but -- I like it??? Something's wrong!"
I was a volunteer for dare in highschool. Got to get out of school one Tuesday a month. Best freaking times ever.
I never did drugs nor did I drink before 21. Despite being married at 18 to someone who was almost 30.
The reason wasn't shame or conditioning. It was sensitivity to them. Seizures are a real buzz kill.
But the shame part is very real. I don't have much of it now. Those of us who are different get so much of shame around not understanding the heirarchy rules. We stupidly and optimistcally think the world will be accepting and fair. Then are brutally reminded it is not and shamed for it. The shame spirals our are amazing brains bringing up every instance of this before each time it happens yet again.
I truly believe our higher empathy compounds shame because not only do we have our own we also absorb and remember everyone else's. I think this is the sins of the father religion is references. I think our systems do it on purpose. To keep the most sensitive and intelligent from seeking leadership.
Anything to help dissuade the influence of shame from stigma into our society should be encouraged. Thank you for writing this.