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0 pointszer8k2y ago0 comments

> Simply put: fuck the social contract. I didn't sign it. It doesnt get me any benefits, and all it is a whole lot of "costs", all of which are ill defined.

All of your "polite" behavior is modified by shame. To use an extreme, contrived, example if you shit on the floor your parents probably shamed you into using the restroom properly. You can, of course, continue to shit on the floor but you also can't act with such righteous indignation when no one wants you around. Perhaps you find a group of people who shit on the floor. But then they, too, will have their own shame-based norms that will you either comply to or be ostracized from the group.

Now, scratch the example of shitting on the floor and replace it with any other behavior. Depending on the group you belong to (or are trying to belong to) shame is an effective way in enforcing expected behavior. It's one of the things that separate us from other animals. If you don't respond to shame (rather than just acting like it) you are not quirky and original you are likely a sociopath.

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8 comments · 4 top-level

op00to2y ago· 4 in thread

Uh, as a person who recently potty trained two people, I did not use shame to teach my kids how to use the toilet.

When a child had an accident, we acknowledged it, cleaned up, and moved on. No punishment, no shame.

wkat42422y ago

Exactly. Shame is abused way too much to enforce conformity. Anyone growing up in a Catholic society knows what I mean.

Behavior if (and only if) it really needs correcting is better corrected by understanding the reasons behind it and helping each other.

ClumsyPilot2y ago

If your daughter was raped, she brought shame to your family and you must kill her. That’s a belief and is obviously abuse of shame.

Overall shame did more harm than good

swat5352y ago

Did you encourage them or told them not to do it again? If you did the latter, you shamed them using social norms.

People need to feel shame and negative emotions to a degree in order to function in society. You can't simply embrace and reward everything.

op00to2y ago

> Did you encourage them or told them not to do it again

Not do what? Shit their pants? I don't need to tell my kid to not shit their pants. Being covered in shit is uncomfortable for them, and it's clear early on babies do not like the feeling of their ass covered in shit. Do you have /any/ experience with children?

> You can't simply embrace and reward everything.

In no way did I say I embraced and rewarded everything. However, negative emotions other than the discomfort of having a shitty ass should not be part of toilet training.

You can't force a child to be toilet trained. There's a combination of factors that all need to be aligned before a child is able to physically control their bowels let alone be intellectually and emotionally ready to stop whatever fun thing they're doing to take a dump.

So no, if my kids "missed the mark" in one way or another on their journey to potty training, I did not scold them "don't shit your pants".

lIIllIIllIIllII2y ago

There's a bunch research indicating that shame is not really a useful tool. Correlation with depressive symptoms etc. Hopefully anyone with kids should have realised that making e.g. toilet training more stressful, surprise surprise, is completely counter-productive, but who knows.

If the kid knows that they're not supposed to do something, that's enough - they experience their own internal feeling of failure strongly. I've found that the opposite is usually true, that kids never understand that learning things always involves failing a bunch of times, which is the imore important meta-lesson

Flipside, if they don't care about doing something wrong and you shame them, in my experience they often simply don't give a fuck. Maybe that's my own genetics though. Admonishment and punishment is more useful.

MobiusHorizons2y ago

Society certainly still tries to impose the contract, we just don't seem to agree on what it is. Think about how people reacted (both on the right and the left) to covid restrictions. In some communities you were a pariah if you wore a mask in any context, and in others you were a pariah if you didn't get the vaccine. Regardless of what you think the correct behavior there was, there were very strong pockets of society where shame was being leveraged for some form of social contract, the contract was just not the same everywhere. I believe the same dynamic is true (although thankfully somewhat less charged) when it comes to opinions about various political issues or beliefs.

ryanwaggoner2y ago

It’s kinda horrifying that you think shaming kids is how you teach them anything.

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