The strange pronouncement “shame on you!” hints at the oppressive character of shame—a deeply internalized emotion imposed by others. Shame on you. Unlike guilt, shame publicly stigmatizes individuals rather than actions. It assails self-worth, using emotional pain to punish nonconformity. Psychologist Patricia DeYoung describes it as “the enemy of well-being.” There is a barbarism to public humiliation that seems to belong to an age of pillories and dunce caps. But Jon Ronson, in So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, chronicles “a great renaissance of public shaming” in this century. Fueled by angry politics and a brutal online peanut gallery, it has burgeoned as the penalty for many perceived transgressions. Sometimes the justification seems irrefutable: #MeToo throws off the victims’ shame and places it on its proper recipients. When laws don’t This story is from Kinfolk Issue Thirty Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 26 The History of Bad Advice The diet industry mines the deep seam of emotion that surrounds our eating habits to sell a precision-calibrated hope. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Close Knit Close Knit: Meet the weavers keeping traditional Egyptian tapestrymaking alive. Arts & Culture Issue 50 The Old Gays Inside a Californian TikTok “content house” of a very different stripe. Arts & Culture Issue 50 New Roots The Palestinian art and agriculture collective sowing seeds of community. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Angela Trimbur An all-out tour de force. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Peace & Quiet In the UK, a centuries-old Quaker meeting house encourages quiet reflection.
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Arts & Culture Issue 50 Peace & Quiet In the UK, a centuries-old Quaker meeting house encourages quiet reflection.