Shame serves as a crucial tool for the enforcement of social norms. For our ancestors, maintaining social cohesion was often a matter of life or death. Consider the almost ubiquitous social rule that states stealing is wrong. If a person is caught stealing, they are likely to feel some degree of shame. This emotion plays a significant role in regulating behavior and ensuring that individuals adhere to the values and expectations of their community.
Shame originates from deep within oneself; it is the result of a breach of one’s personal ethics. As one of the most powerful emotions, shame arises when an individual violates social or cultural values through their thoughts or behavior. It differs from guilt, which is the regretful violation of one’s own internal values. While guilt is intensely personal, shame not only encompasses a personal dimension but also contains a public element.
Through the lens of evolutionary biology, shame evolved to encourage adherence to beneficial social norms. In the context of human evolution, this emotion helped early humans maintain social order and cohesion, which were vital for survival. By promoting behaviors that were advantageous for the group, shame played a key role in the development of complex social structures.
In fact, if we adapt the concept of shame for the current era, it can help us address some of the most pressing problems we face today. Shame gives the weak greater power by enabling them to hold powerful individuals and institutions accountable. The difference is that we must shift the focus of shame from individuals to institutions, organizations, and powerful individuals.
Shaming is an instrument through which those in power are exposed for unethical and abhorrent behavior. Transgressions are often concealed from the public eye as those in power abuse their position, often by preying upon the most vulnerable members of society. By sacrificing their publicly stated principles, such individuals and organizations betray those who entrusted them with power and responsibility. Their detestable behaviour epitomizes the corruption and injustice that our society actively fights against.
The aim of shaming is to place pressure on these people to change their behavior to align with community expectations of someone in a position of power. It seeks to invoke shame—the personal feeling of internal revulsion and self-condemnation that is the direct consequence of rejection by one’s community. By publicly shaming individuals and organizations, society ensures that powerful members are held accountable for their actions.
However, we currently live in a nihilistic post-shame world. We now embrace behaviours and actions that we previously and unequivocally condemned. This shift raises the question: Is there anything we might all get mad about together anymore? Unfortunately, it seems unlikely. Instead of outrage, we often witness people intellectualizing, rationalizing, and embracing actions that would have disgusted almost every reasonable person not long ago.
We are reached the pinnacle of a post-shame society, forged by politicians and reinforced by businessmen and the judiciary.
While politicians may represent the most extreme example, they aren't the only group that has realized a lack of shame can be a survival skill.
The "never back down" phenomenon has spread to corners of the business world—led by billionaire loan defaulters, public service, judiciary, and even religion in recent years.
The politicians' playbook shows that for some people at the apex of power, every scandal you survive makes the next one a bit less damaging.
Shame has historically been a powerful force in maintaining social norms and ethical behaviour. While it can be adapted to address modern issues by holding powerful individuals and institutions accountable, the current societal trend of embracing previously condemned behaviours challenges the effectiveness of shame as a regulatory mechanism. To reclaim its role, we must reinstate a collective sense of outrage and rejection of unethical actions, ensuring that shame once again serves as a tool for promoting integrity and accountability.
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