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.
It was nice to see this put so clearly. This election cycle has left me exhausted and demotivated, and this hits it square on the head.
stolen from https://grungekitty-77.tumblr.com/post/754482938951892992/fun-fact-that-was-literally-what-inspired-me-to
Guilt and shame are unpleasant, but completely normal human feeling. They’re only harmful to us when it gets pathological (which is very common probably at least in part due to how it gets misused).
I don’t care about swearing, but if a kid has done something legitimately bad like bullying or harming other kids, telling them they should feel guilty or shameful about that isn’t violence or harming the kid in any way, and is just a necessary part of helping them grow up.
Yes, as I said in another comment, humans will feel these emotions by themselves when they understand that they did wrong. But trying to force shame onto someone who doesn’t understand why they did wrong is manipulative and violent. And if someone is unable to realise what wrong they did that means they need some real psychological help
Switching it around on the theme of misuse - motivation and praise might sometimes fit as violence (though one whose damage is probably delayed temporally). Army Recruiters seeming to be a very easy example.
Yeah I agree with both of you kind of. Shame has a place but it should be used very carefully, and only on materially bad behavior like harassment or bigotry.