As I was reading through a book on coding today (Saldana's, for the record), I was reminded of an idea I'd had previously. He used an example a study on oppression among teenagers. This reminded me of a previous roommate of mine who did her thesis on the presence of shame and its effects in certain situations. In reflecting on that idea since then, I've realized that we as a society sometimes use shame to modify behavior. For example, if someone is wearing an outfit or sporting a hairstyle we consider strange and thus socially unacceptable, we ostracize or verbally demean them.
The shocking thing? Using shame as a modifier has little to no effect on behavior that I've ever observed. However, our attempts to reform someone through applying shame seem to take effect in the way they feel about themselves. It is obviously not an effective strategy and shouldn't be employed even if it was. Awareness about this issue might prove helpful not only to adults, but especially to children.
The shocking thing? Using shame as a modifier has little to no effect on behavior that I've ever observed. However, our attempts to reform someone through applying shame seem to take effect in the way they feel about themselves. It is obviously not an effective strategy and shouldn't be employed even if it was. Awareness about this issue might prove helpful not only to adults, but especially to children.
Now that I've posted, I can finally see clearly what I should have said! Said another way, I believe we use shame as a form of oppression.
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