Carousel by The New Yorker
The New Yorker@newyorkermag Shame is becoming something that people dismiss altogether, Jay Caspian Kang writes. “Life experienced on phones and through social media leaves us lonely and alienated from one another; this has led to an existence that’s somehow at once both intensely individual and intensely tribal. We can find online fellow-travellers for our worst impulses, people who will influence and reinforce these tendencies, but this does not provide a real sense of community. Rather, it often emboldens what once would have been regarded as obviously shameful behavior.” While it’s true that social media can function as the ultimate shaming machine, we don’t see the repercussions in reality. “Do you look around in whatever city or town you live in and see evidence that social-media shaming has made people more submissive to a shared set of social norms?” Kang asks. “Or do you see influencers invading personal space, people rudely taking out their phones in the middle of conversations with actual people, and theatrical, internet-incentivized, constantly filmed conflict?” In his latest column, he considers how social media has made us far more shameless, and the inefficacy of shame without actual communities. Read it at the link in our bio. Illustration by George Wylesol (@wylesol_).
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@dcarterjr Can a post about shame really be about shame if you count your Likes for it?
@claudevonreigan It’s precisely that lack of community, yes. It’s rooted in a social problem and turns into a psychological problem. There are no collective disciplinary mechanisms for anti-social behavior. All communities have rules and boundaries for their maintenance. People who grew up in a strong community of some kind know the boundaries and rules, often unwritten, and adhere to them to maintain the social fabric, allowing them to properly develop a strong ego/super ego. They become well balanced people, and quite like how exercise in youth allows you to regain healthy habits easier later in life, even if you lose that community, you will be better equipped to refrain from anti-social behavior. The real problem, however, is capitalism. It has destroyed communities (cities and small towns alike are all beholden to real estate interests), put phones in everyone’s hands, and lead to the hollowing out of small towns- spreading concentrated capital and economic activity apart to places where it can grow exponentially and unnaturally, forcing people to move around to get decent jobs. It also rewards rampant individualism and tells people that whatever they’re doing, they’re just being themselves, and any attempt to maintain the social fabric by enforcing shame or telling them not to do something is “authoritarian.”
@midwestangelxoxo I blame Brene Brown who made such a fuss over “shame” being this awful thing
@shoemaker_and_the_elves Bring back the stocks. It’s the only way.
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@pictrick.2 Just like in late USSR, people are out of sympathy bc it was overused to the point that it became ignored. Every day a new “threat” to spike your cortisol… people learn to just ignore.
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@oeprophoto I've said for year's, sayings like "My way, right or wrong" and "No Regrets" have programmed us to have no shame.
@pechorin3 I yell “shame” at people who try to board in group 2 when they have group 4 on their pass
@celestegrandav Sooooo sad.
@kyle_rokes Yes, but do please keep shouting "Shame!" as you point fingers at the bad guys when you go protest. That'll learn em.
@rychacr I don't think today's young adults have a deficit of shame.
@olivia.a.cole As someone else noted, I'm not sure if it's shame that is most productive. What might be more important is fostering a feeling of responsibility to our community and our habitat, and when we break with what we know is "right" in our behaviors and attitudes, the arising feeling might also be one of responsibility. A responsibility to repair, to make amends, which is much more productive than shame.
@wxbwxbwxbwxbwxb People are pushed to the brink by capitalism what did you expect? The collective unconscious is now in terror management mode - we all know we will die and there's no judgement after death. Extreme religiousness and complete nihilism have taken over in one form or another, there's zero space for nuance. Shame is for poor loser plebs is what I'm saying. Get that bag.
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@tragediapastelao Eu tenho de sobra