Jacquet - Is Shame Necessary

Just a quick note about Jennifer Jacquet's "Is Shame Necessary? New uses for an old tool".

 

It's an interesting, quite quick read, which, at first glance, seems to be about shame, but it primarily about effectively shaming or deploying shaming as an effective tool for addressing norm violations (and, interestingly, establishment).

Like Thompson's essay I recently read, its subject isn't really the primary focus of this blog (i.e. the experience and nature of the emotion of shame itself), still, there was a fair amount to think about.

Her history of how individual guilt has been coopted by norm violators to allow them to continue to violate mostly unimpeded was fascinating, linking individual guilt and neoliberal economic's focus on freedom of choice.

She has also peppered the book with multiple fascinating examples of how shaming has been a vehicle for change in different contexts.

Still, it's a popular book, and I think that the primary arguments would likely have been better presented in a 30 page paper (at least, better for my own use).

I did really enjoy reading it though - I do hope that Jacquet has written more on shame in the academic literature.

I'm likely to cover a number of the experiments she has been involved in, as these were, for me, some of the most insightful things in the book.

 

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