Shaming as societal self correction

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Shaming makes a person resentful so it would push them away. Making people want to do the right thing is more reliable.
 
I don’t agree with shaming. Not shaming isn’t the reason for “society destroying itself”. Often, shaming the wrong people or the wrong thing causes breakdown in society. And if a person is changing because they don’t want to be shamed, then they are not changing because they see their previous behaviour was wrong, or whatever. It doesn’t lead to constructive change.
ThoughtfulMind said:
Today we are not suffering shame for anything.
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I definitely don’t think this is true.
ThoughtfulMind said:
I was in a mall year or so ago, and while I was standing on an escalator I saw a girl in front of me with shoooooort shorts, I could actually see quite a bit of her butt. So I decided to tell my friend next to me reasonably loud (but in the same time silent enough for others not to hear it), that it’s really gross to show everyone your butt in such shorts. She immediately pull those short down, and I believe she will never wear them again.

I think I did it in a charitable way, not to ashame her in front of all the people around but loud enough so she, and only she, could hear it. I didn’t tell her directly otherwise she would get into defense mode and it would be way more humiliating for her than it needs to be.
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I think that was massively humiliating. Two men, older than her, commenting on her appearance really is not nice behaviour. And why shame her for it? It’s more than likely she didn’t even realise how short they were. To me, shaming someone (if it should happen) should be when a person knows their behaviour/whatever is wrong and doesn’t care. Not if they were unaware in the first place. In that case, a quiet word would be much more charitable.

I do feel for that girl. A very, very similar thing happened to me when I was a teenager. I was wearing a skirt that unbeknown to me had become tucked into my underwear. A group of older boys took it upon themselves to inform me how funny they found it and disgusting it was to them. It didn’t act as a self-correction. It was humiliating, it made me very paranoid and upset. It wasn’t an acceptable or charitable thing for them to do and it did nothing to change my behaviour.

Also, shaming people for the clothes they wear is one of the factors I was thinking about when I said “often we shame the wrong people”. I just find it unnecessary.
 
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Yes, exactly. I feel so sorry for that girl that she was so unnecessarily shamed like that. And I’m sorry that happened to you when you were younger. I hope that poster realizes that this humiliation is something she might remember for the rest of her life.
 
Thank you, @DeniseNY 🙂. I don’t see how shaming someone for what they’re wearing is in any way helpful, or benefiting society at large. I certainly don’t think it will stop “society destroying itself”, if that is indeed the way society is headed.
 
JMMJ said:
Like slaping kid on the but when he misbehave (I don’t know about U.S. but here in Europe it’s seen as proper way to teach your kids), to get them behave better next time.
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I missed that statement of the OP’s. I have no idea where in Europe they live, but where I am it’s not seen as the “proper way to teach your kids to get them to behave better next time”. Not even remotely.

And I agree with you, @JMMJ. Shaming is incredibly lazy. It also creates this idea that people can criticise for anything and if the other person doesn’t respond ‘properly’ (i.e embarrassed and humiliated), then they are contributing to the destruction of society. When in real times, it is more than often the shamer who needs to take a look at themselves.
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Lou2U said:
Shaming is incredibly lazy. It also creates this idea that people can criticise for anything and if the other person doesn’t respond ‘properly’ (i.e embarrassed and humiliated), then they are contributing to the destruction of society. When in real times, it is more than often the shamer who needs to take a look at themselves.
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Attempting to control someone else’s behavior (past, present or future) through shaming is manipulation of the worst kind. It is self-serving, for the shamer. It is not kind or charitable. Aren’t we all supposed to make sure our actions are kind and charitable? I find it to be a moral failing (and yes, lazy) to resort to shaming in an attempt to manipulate the behavior of other people.
 
JMMJ said:
Attempting to control someone else’s behavior (past, present or future) through shaming is manipulation of the worst kind. It is self-serving, for the shamer. It is not kind or charitable. Aren’t we all supposed to make sure our actions are kind and charitable? I find it to be a moral failing (and yes, lazy) to resort to shaming in an attempt to manipulate the behavior of other people.
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Manipulation is exactly what it is. And it can come with undertones of threat, IMO. If a person doesn’t react to shame, what’s the next step? In the eyes of the shamer, what can they do to make sure the message gets through properly? It’s an incredibly slippery slope, and not something that should be promoted.

Shaming also thrives off of gossip, in my experience.
 
ThoughtfulMind said:
As I said in this example I think that if I took her aside to tell her about her shorts, she would probably get aggresive and very defensive. I might be wrong
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Frankly, I find your behavior towards this woman to be rude, disgusting, and borderline sexual harassment. The fact that you are proud of your rudeness makes me think there is something seriously amiss with your perception of etiquette. If a strange man approached me on the street about my clothing, I would call the police.
 
Oh dear… you mixed apples and pears together (hopefully you have the same phrase in english). I would NEVER shame someone for having skirt tucked in their underware, that’s just disgusting how you try to make a strawman argument against me… She DELIBERATELY chose to wear the shorts, it is not in any stretch of imagination the same thing. I very much stressed:
ThoughtfulMind said:
As with anything else, you can go to extremes and use it for you own good feelings, but if used wisely society can benefit from it.
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So yeah… strawman…
Tis_Bearself said:
If a strange man approached me on the street about my clothing, I would call the police.
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Thanks! I am glad you now understand why I couldn’t take her aside like the other commenters said here. This was the only thing I could do to make her know what’s wrong without causing scandal.

TO ALL OF YOU:
I have defined what is in my view a good way of doing it, so stop puting words in my mouth. I never advocated for mean shaming. Unfortunatelly I am sure there will be next 10 comments full of strawman arguments, puting words in my mouth or some obscure mean stories what someone did to you.
Should we ban cars because some people drive drunk? Of course not - the same thing applies in this concept. There will be mean people it doesn’t mean that this act must always be mean.
 
ThoughtfulMind said:
Oh dear… you mixed apples and pears together (hopefully you have the same phrase in english). I would NEVER shame someone for having skirt tucked in their underware, that’s just disgusting how you try to make a strawman argument against me… She DELIBERATELY chose to wear the shorts, it is not in any stretch of imagination the same thing. I very much stressed:

ThoughtfulMind:
As with anything else, you can go to extremes and use it for you own good feelings, but if used wisely society can benefit from it.
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You’ve misunderstood my point. It wasn’t about what I and this girl were wearing. It’s the actions of others who thought it acceptable to shame us. You may consider it disgusting that she wore short shorts. But no, you really don’t know that she knew how short they were before she put them on. And the resultant feeling, for her and for me, is likely to be very similar.

It’s cruel. And there was really no need for it. Wearing short shorts is not the end of the world. Commenting to your friend on what she was wearing as two older men is pretty disgusting behaviour, IMO. And if you think going up to her would have led her to call her police, that’s even more indication you shouldn’t have said anything in the first place.
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I am really not sure if she didn’t know how short those shorts were since a quite a bit of her butt was peaking out. Anyways I am not an elderly man and if I wouldn’t say something she would wear them till this day. I hope you would want to know that you have your skirt in underwear so you don’t walk around like that all day long (AGAIN: how they did this TO YOU was wrong) - therefore I let her know about her extremely short shorts (not even shorts at that point), so she doesn’t walk like that next time.
Lou2U said:
Again, you have massively missed my point.
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No I didn’t. I absolutely understand how bad their behaviour was, but I never advocated for this. It’s the drunk driver I’ve meantion in my example with cars.
Lou2U said:
I have no idea where in Europe they live, but where I am it’s not seen as the “proper way to teach your kids to get them to behave better next time”. Not even remotely.
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From the part of Europe that went through rough times and is not yet so decadent as the western part (we also have no political prisoners like the british does). We understand that thousands of years of using it is probably making it more reliable than last 40 years of people trying to put something upside down. I can see the kids of parents who do not slap their kids butts in my church - they are shouting, running around, banging on things and their parents do nothing because beating them would be “bad”. It doesn’t seems to work. They might just ask them to stop, but of course their kids dont care. In the worst scenario they just stand there not giving them attention and letting them do whatever they want. We are getting a little bit OT.

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I wanted to know your opinion and I am glad you guys are commenting - just try to stay away from putting words into my mouth. Thank you 🙂
 
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ThoughtfulMind said:
No I didn’t.
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I’m afraid you have. Because although my skirt was accidental and neither of us know about the shorts, the way you and those boys acted was to shame us. By saying we were disgusting - deliberately to humiliate and embarrass. That was exactly the same. And you say that they shouldn’t have treated me with shame because it’s not the same thing, but it is. Other people believing they are superior and should be listened to as the arbiters of morality. My point isn’t what I was wearing, or what she was wearing. My point is about the shamers.
ThoughtfulMind said:
I hope you would want to know that you have your skirt in underwear so you don’t walk around like that all day long
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Of course. But a quiet word would have been so much better, don’t you think? Instead of shaming. As others have pointed out, it’s incredibly lazy and does more harm than good. That’s why I said originally you should just have told her kindly to her face. Just because you thought it wouldn’t have been received favourably doesn’t give you carte blanche to shame her.

I suppose what I’m getting at is why humiliate when you know there are kinder options? I don’t think we should be asking why shaming has gone out of fashion, because I really don’t think it has. Why had kindness gone out of fashion?

Just to note - some of my language might come across harsh or too critical of you. That is not my intention, and I apologise if it seems otherwise.
 
I’m kind of surprised that the original post says that the church says that we shouldn’t shame people, and a priest chimed in to post that we shouldn’t shame people, but there are still people in this thread that are still full steam ahead on the shaming. If the church says no, why are we still talking?
 
ThoughtfulMind said:
And honestly I would prefer, if something like this happened to me, to not be approached directly. Because then you have to face the person and it would be way more humiliating… at least for me.
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I’m the opposite. I’d prefer being approached directly to pointed comments.
 
Lookingforjoy said:
I’m kind of surprised that the original post says that the church says that we shouldn’t shame people, and a priest chimed in to post that we shouldn’t shame people, but there are still people in this thread that are still full steam ahead on the shaming. If the church says no, why are we still talking?
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I actually think this thread is giving the impression that it is okay or at least within the realm of discussion to bully and harass people. It’s extremely unnerving to me that CAF is allowing this thread to continue.
 
This is called discusion. I know a lot of people here love to shut peoples opinions just because they don’t like it, but hopefuly moderators won’t. I was merely discusing the other side of the coin… There can be bad things which might be used for good - if it’s not your opinion, then okay, but don’t censor other opinions.
 
This is a Catholic forum. People who read this forum get the impression that views here are shared by Catholics.

When someone is espousing an un-Christian or rude or bullying or harassing behavior as being a perfectly good and positive thing from a Catholic standpoint, it reflects badly on the faith, as well as creating discomfort for others.

Hiding behind the position of “it’s just discussion” and “don’t censor viewpoints” ignores the fact that there are actually material and viewpoints deemed inappropriate for this forum. Also, nobody’s discussion (name removed by moderator)ut is that super special that we have to have it here. It seems often that everybody who wants to discuss a pet topic, whether it’s shaming women for their clothes, or the social perception of furries, or something they think their priest did wrong, thinks their topic is very important and appropriate and just can’t grasp that sometimes the group and/or the mods feel differently and there is no First Amendment protection here.
 
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ThoughtfulMind said:
We understand that thousands of years of using it is probably making it more reliable than last 40 years of people trying to put something upside down. I can see the kids of parents who do not slap their kids butts in my church - they are shouting, running around, banging on things and their parents do nothing because
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Pleade tells me you don’t have children.
 
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