When it comes to who you are or how you choose to express your individuality, shame is absolutely a violent thing. The suicide rate for trans people is as high as it is almost ENTIRELY because of shame - shame from others and society that becomes internalized. LGBT people have had to form whole alternate communities because of shame. For many of us our relationship to shame forms large parts of our personality.
> Calling shame "violent" is dismissing actual violence.
I agree if you're dealing with the idea of "all" shame, but in a lot of contexts is just as or even more harmful. Being punched is less harmful to a person than feeling like they're rejected by the whole of their community.
It's not clear to me how you can confidently state something like this. The difficulty of coping with gender dysphoria could just as easily explain the high suicide rate among trans people.
> LGBT people have had to form whole alternate communities because of shame. For many of us our relationship to shame forms large parts of our personality.
Like the article says, shame is amoral. It's a tool, a necessary one, and it's not helpful to label shame as "toxic and destructive".
> I agree if you're dealing with the idea of "all" shame, but in a lot of contexts is just as or even more harmful. Being punched is less harmful to a person than feeling like they're rejected by the whole of their community.
Punching someone is violent. Disapproving of someone's sexual orientation is not. The fact that the latter is likely more harmful than the former does not make it violent.
It's also quite easy to imagine an act that is very harmful but is neither violent nor wrong.
While you're right that dysphoria over physical manifestations of the wrong gender can be traumatic, in my experience its usually the experience of social shame.
> It's a tool, a necessary one, and it's not helpful to label shame as "toxic and destructive"
I didn't.
> The fact that the latter is likely more harmful than the former does not make it violent.
There's the 2nd definition in the dictionary: "strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force". Shame is a violent force.
Telling a child that having rotten teeth, unkempt hair, and filthy clothes will be met with social disdain is a form of shame, and it's also the truth. A little bit of awareness of the consequences of their actions in terms of how others will perceive them might aid them.
Telling a child they're a horrible person for traits beyond their control, and whatever obtuse and vile repercussions the parent imagines as a result is abusive. It is probably true that the child may encounter social disdain, but the causal factors are beyond their control. Shaming them will not aid them, it will only harm them.
citation needed. There are a lot of things happening internally as well.
I’m from an Asian society and I’ve seen the pain the strict social framework can cause people who biologically cannot conform to social expectations. However, I feel like your phraseology sweeps more broadly than necessary. Society should think very hard about what would be good social norms, and evolve them as appropriate. (For example, the social norms against women on the front lines may need to be re-evaluated in the age of fly-by-wire F22.) And society should accommodate people who for biological reasons are different.
But that does not require unstructured, wholesale accommodation of how people “choose to express their individuality.” You can accommodate people without abandoning the rule that, “in general, society expects you to be a certain way and do certain things.” Abandoning that rule is a recipe for unhappy, directionless people and a disharmonious society. The fact of the matter is that (1) society is better and more well functioning when people conform; and (2) most people are pretty similar and will be made happy by the same things. The stunning irony of millennials is that they were raised to “follow their bliss.” But they grew up, and what’s their number one complaint? That they can’t find steady work that will let them afford a house in the suburbs and a couple of kids.
> The stunning irony of millennials is that they were raised to “follow their bliss.”
Citation please! Not my experience.
> But they grew up, and what’s their number one complaint? That they can’t find steady work that will let them afford a house in the suburbs and a couple of kids.
Citation please! Not my experience. Just complaining that it takes a 90th percentile income to afford housing in most areas now instead of 60th decades ago.
It's worse than that. Calling words violence justifies the use of "defensive", actual violence against someone that has used "violent communication" – whatever the hell that might mean at the moment.
Where I grew up this was the norm. There were things that could only be said with full understanding that physical violence is the only possible response. And while I do not condone violence and would not want children to grow up in the same environment, I have to admit that the possibility of things escalating from words to punches did act as a deterrent. I also wonder if the modern zero tolerance attitude to violence is the reason for such wider spread bullying problem.
I've heard quite a few times (especially for older generations) that one learned to behave well because their parent beat them. I was raised in a guilt (rather than shame)-driven culture (Catholic), and well, while this is effective, it takes decades to undo the damage.
> It's also highly preferable to violence.
And my point is, that shame is a form of violence (not all violence is physical). Yes, it can be justified on occasions. If you dislike the word violence (in this context), then consider intentionally making someone suffer.
For using shames, when it hurts beyond proportions, "How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life" (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-t...) is worth reading.
All violence is physical. Metaphorically speaking of shame as violent is an attempt to make shame sound inexcusable when, in reality, shame is necessary.
I don't think it's possible to do a good job raising a child without intentionally making them suffer in order to teach them things. The issue is making someone suffer more than is necessary or making them suffer for the wrong reasons. The suffering part isn't the problem.
The other definitions are metaphors.
Agreed. I just think that most people would call causing suffering more than is necessary and for the wrong reasons "violent".
If not "violent", what would you call a shame based intervention that causes unnecessary suffering or is done for the wrong reasons?
(It is in almost all ethical and moral systems.)
You can also call it immoral and a few other adjectives.
And for added irony, it should also be shameful.
When you feel shame it's because you accept external judgements. If you didn't accept those judgements then you wouldn't feel shame, you'd just be angry. Accepting external judgements is healthy and necessary because our self-worth is derived from our perception of how other people view us.
Like any tool, shame can be misused. But, as the article lays out, it's a necessary tool. It's also highly preferable to violence.
> In Not-Violent Communication Marshall Rosenberg considers shame (and guilt) to be one of the violent ways to change people's behavior.
Calling shame "violent" is dismissing actual violence.