Shame, Stigma, and Social Engineering

Over-the-pulpit sanctions combined with on-the-ground support: is it possible to have both at once? I hope so, but all too often we fail to negotiate the tension. The human cost of community failure in this regard is very high, and it falls with terrible injustice on the most vulnerable. Those of us who are lucky enough to find ourselves on the comfortable side of social sanctions have the weightiest moral obligation, imposed by precisely those same sanctions, to minister to those who are not so lucky, to defray the painful personal costs of the social tax. If we are not willing to bear the burdens of the stigmatized, the very burdens imposed by the stigma, if we are not willing to mourn with them and comfort them and stand with them, then we do not have the moral authority to impose the stigma in the first place. Absent robust on-the-ground support, I agree fully with those who call for an end to shame-based social sanctions. The human costs are just too high.

But given the presence of that support, this is one provisional case in favor of informal social sanctions and the careful deployment of shame: to nudge us toward beneficial behaviors when possible, and to offer a degree of moral protection (while exacting a social cost) when compliance is impossible. This is hardly the whole story about shame, of course: while it may work on the front end to steer us away from unwise choices, it tends to make things worse once the choice has been made, driving the behavior ever deeper into secrecy and hindering us from seeking help. This is why I remain conflicted about the use of shame as a social instrument. It's the worst form of social engineering, except perhaps for all the others.