We Need More Shame

Many media observers were shocked by an utterly moronic opinion piece from the New York Times' editorial board last month ("America Has a Free Speech Problem") where they lamented, "Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country:  the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions without fear of being shamed or shunned."  The board thought that it was a grave social problem that 55% of survey respondents said that they had held their tongue over the past year because they were concerned about retaliation or harsh criticism."

If anything, I would think that number should be much higher.  I would hope that all of us would have second thoughts about our opinions before we go shooting off our mouth. It may have been too many years since I was in college, but I thought freedom of speech meant that you have the right to speak your mind without fear of retaliation, censorship or legal sanction by the government.  It doesn't mean that you are shielded from the consequences of your words by law-abiding citizens.

And of course, there is no constitutional right to "feeling good" as a result of your speech-- and thank god, we finally have an opinion writer at the NYT who comes out and says that.  In "What's Shame Got to Do With It", University of North Carolina professor Tressie McMillon Cottom writes, "[shame] can be functionally good, like when it keeps your pants on in public.  Despite the bad rap that shame gets in our overly psychoanalyzed culture, it is merely a feedback loop that tells you something about your behavior as well as the expectations of others . . . it is bizarre to think that we should legislate, regulate or condition away an emotion."

What's even more important is the distinction Cottom makes between shame and stigma, pointing out, "When we elevate shame from psychological state to social problem, we value systems of oppression that stigmatize those with the least power." Read the piece here.