i just think i should have the power to control thousands of knives, swords, or perhaps shards of glass synchronously with my mind. i will use this ability purely for culinary endeavors. you can trust me
Not that anybody asked, but I think it's important to understand how shame and guilt actually work before you try to use it for good.
It's a necessary emotion. There are reasons we have it. It makes everything so. much. worse. when you use it wrong.
Shame and guilt are DE-motivators. They are meant to stop behavior, not promote it. You cannot, ever, in any meaningful way, guilt someone into doing good. You can only shame them into not doing bad.
Let's say you're a parent and your kid is having issues.
Swearing in class? Shame could work. You want them to stop it. Keep it in proportion*, and it might help. *(KEEP IT IN PROPORTION!!!)
Not doing their homework? NO! STOP! NO NOT DO THAT! EVER! EVER! EVER! You want them to start to do their homework. Shaming them will have to opposite effect! You have demotivated them! They will double down on NOT doing it. Not because they are being oppositional, but because that's what shame does!
You can't guilt people into building better habits, being more successful, or getting more involved. That requires encouragement. You need to motivate for that stuff!
If you want it in a simple phrase:
You can shame someone out of being a bad person, but you can't shame them into being a good person.
👆note that the reason that shaming/guilt trips are common is not because the person “doing them” to others necessarily expects them to be effective. People posting guilt trip activism aren’t going “oh gosh I really hope this methodology will help people the most.” (Because it doesn’t.) but laying shame on others does give some feelings of power and control. And many times that isn’t bad. For people who are powerless and have little control, it is understandable! Shame is a shortcut button you can press to try to get people to stop doing stuff. Often the stuff they’re doing is horrible. It’s natural to reach for it.
However…
That’s not to say it’s bad or done by bad people. Often it IS venting. Saying “shame on you” is cathartic. Many people posting guilt trip activism are beaten down or burned out. They might feel like shame is the only tool left in their box, or they might just need to vent. Calling out shameful behaviour is not an inherently bad thing.
But it’s important to remember that the impulse to shame others - especially if they listen, especially if they change - is a nasty rewarding little bastard. It’s rewarding, it feels good, it gives that person power and control. It’s a shortcut button! It’s an addictive one!
we can picture a parent/educator/leader who uses shaming too much as a tool, and we can understand how ineffective they are (and sometimes, how effective they are!) and the negative impact that they have on people. Leaning on the shortcut button is bad for your own character, too - it means you don’t develop your skills beyond shaming.
The trick is to disengage from that cycle of shame and reward; don’t let it become the only tool in your box! It’s bad for you as well.
Zooming out, shame is a dominance behaviour that relates to the rules of the society the person operates in. It’s tremendously ineffective to shame me for (for example) being bisexual, because according to my rules , it’s highly embarrassing and sad to be anything else. There are cultures with a framework that makes it extremely shameful to be bisexual, and people who are abused to make them fit into the framework; all of society is expected to participate in regular shaming and censure and guilting to ensure that nobody expresses bisexuality. Effective shaming requires there to be agreed-upon rules of what’s unacceptable; using shaming as a tool shows the framework of what’s considered unacceptable, and REQUIRES the framework to be in place.
It’s damn hard to kinkshame or bully furries on tumblr. Everyone has agreed that they aren’t doing anything shameful. But it is easy to shame them in an American megachurch.
But historically shame has worked, hasn’t it? How come you can easily picture a Victorian female activist shaming the powerful men of Parliament for their treatment of orphaned children? How come you can picture it working? Because they all operated in a Christian framework that stated children should be cared for, and women appealed to the religious authority as being above the authority of the state. Religious appeals have been effective in the past, offering a separate set of rules to control behaviour, hence the rise of right-wing attempts to consolidate religious power as well.
From this flow a couple of things:
1. a culture that relies on shame (and disgust and fear) to control people is going to be more oppressive than one that doesn’t. It’s also going to have very controlling, very detailed, very specific frameworks in place. To shame Gays, it has to be agreed-upon that it is Wrong to be Gay, so they’ll install a framework of Being Illegal to be Gay. You have to install the buttons in order to press them.
2. At any point, people can simply decide not to be ashamed. Despite tremendous social pressure in times and places, queer people have been proud. Despite knowing exactly what the public think of them, people practice hobbies, kinks, fashion, beliefs, and behaviours that other people don’t like. They always do and they always have. Shame stops being a weapon when people don’t care; they can simply decline to hold the button for you to press any more. Shame requires that everyone consent to the framework! Hence the anxiety about “normalising” queer liberation, or the existence of trans people - the fear is that if trans people stop being afraid and guilty, the buttons will break, and there will not only be more trans people, but they’ll be hard to control.
What flows from that are that people can resist shame effectively if they have a community that supports them. You can find this sympathetic (queer people support each other and resist shame) or distressing (a loved one falls down a conservative social media rabbit hole that turns them into a horrible person.) but it shows that shame wears off as a tool the instant that people decide to stop caring, especially if they have help. “Who cares if I lose YOUR good opinion, when that gives me THEIR good opinion?”
But finally - the reason shaming hasn’t fixed the world yet (by anyone’s definition) is because truly powerful people just don’t feel much shame. They don’t consent to the framework where other people’s opinion have any weight. They believe they’re in charge of society and therefore free of consequences or needing to care. Their first step when installing frameworks and buttons is to make a rule saying “I don’t have any buttons and nobody is allowed to press them.” This is what exactly why they sought the power to begin with. Shame requires that everyone agree that we are all social animals and our opinions of each other are worth something - powerful people do not think we are worth anything.
Conclusions: online activism using shame is ineffective for many reasons, including the fact that it’s a stopping behaviour and that people don’t really make positive actions based on it. it’s understandable why people do it, though. It’s one of the only real “rebalancing” tools for powerless people - if their society has frameworks that allow for the rebalancing of social power. Next, shaming feels good, especially when it works. It’s understandable to reach for it as a shortcut, but good leaders shouldn’t rely on it. Shame stops working when people stop caring about it. People can resist shaming with support, if they don’t care about other people’s opinions, or if they have enough power to insulate themselves. Powerful people have already decided that they do not care about being shamed.
people on the subway train are alwaus looking at their phones well we should look to eachother and build a community that lives on trains and be like a siphonophore that uses the train as a shell . and float through the pelagic zone and share the seas nutrients such as small fish and crustaceans among our linked bodies
Me: *looking at a porcelain hand in the home decor aisle of a store* if I lost my hands in some kind of tragic accident, I’d decorate my entire home with hand-shaped things. Then I’d invite guests over for like, dinner parties and such and sit there expectantly just basking in their discomfort.
My boyfriend: Do you hear what you say when you talk? Do you know what you just said to me?
YOU WILL FIND A WAY!!!! YOU WILL FIND A WAY . You will find a WAY ….. you WILL find a way . You will find a way you will find a way……!! YOU WILL FIND A WAY YOU WILL FIND A WAY you will find a Way you will (find) a way you will find. a way you will find a way YOU WILL FIND A WAY!!!!!!!
can’t believe tiktok is actually getting banned, twitter is infested with bots and brainworm-infested musk bots, facebook is king of QAnon, instagram caught the plague from facebook and is dying a slow death in real time… and as the dust settles… only Miss Tumblr is left standing… failing upwards once again
cats being capable of understanding accidents and even giving you a little head bonk to let you know you're still cool makes it infinitely funnier that they don't understand when you're trying to help them
cats when you step on their tail: i'll admit that was rather ouchie, but given the lifetime of goodwill and trust between us, one must conclude this booboo is but a fluke.
cats when you try to get their claws unstuck from the couch covering: this nefarious bitch has never had a single honorable intention in their dishonest and shameful life, this must be one of their sinister plots or perhaps even an attempt on my life,
despite everything, it’s still you @veggiedaddy - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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