To Shame Or Not Is My Question?

I just happened to come upon this interesting article. It says Sweden cut prostitution in half over the last 10 years, not seemingly by further criminalization and neither by stiffening their penalties, fines have been kept rather low, but by public exposure of the buyers of sex services and economic support and education for the sex workers. Could or should public shaming be an answer? 

Locally, one of our judges shamed inmates with the wearing of color coded hats that exposed the nature of their offenses to the general public during their community service, like the picking up of litter along our main drag. The judge got in to hot water for keeping lousy records, maybe falsifying some, and steering income to her helper in court, so the hats did not last long enough to deduce their effect. The judge, not a lawyer, has since moved on to become a beautician and avoided a future as a check-out girl at Safeway (worries the lady expressed in one of her interviews after her fall from grace.) I like to add that this very same judge saved me from a steep fine, received during an all out effort to reduce speeding with traps, and instead got me in to a defensive driving course which impressed me a lot more then any fine ever would have and got me to watch my speed closely ever since.

Could or should a society resort to shame as a means of keeping it's members in check?
Up until now my understanding of shame was to drive whatever the it might be in to the psychological shadows, out of sight, but not necessarily out of mind (in the spirit of Bradshaw's toxic shame.) I am no fan of suppression or the splitting off of psychological aspects of one's personality. And I have little tolerance for the shame induced by religious doctrines, especially when their leaders lead lives too often of excesses and secrecy. 

But I wonder if today's modern society allowed boundaries of right and wrong to become too permeable? Could shaming offer guidance in the judgment of what is right from what is wrong? Craigslist took out their adult service section or sex ads and left a banner that says "Censored". Personally I was glad to hear that news. Human trafficking and child porn are wrong not to mention killing. The guy that killed a massage therapist he contacted on craigslist was to face trial, but suicided and yes, spared in doing so a whole lot of expense to society. I loath the proximity of such perverts, deviants, sickos when I scour Craigs listings. 

As a society how do we balance personal freedom with protecting the vulnerable? Of course there are those that want no one to interfere with what adults chose to do with other adults, least of all the government. Freedom reigns supreme to them, maybe to me too.

But I am reminded of myself in my late teens smoking downstairs, waiting for my audition with the guru, the teacher, yes, it was the early seventies. I was introduced to Asanas, yoga positions. The guy, the guru's helper, a ruddy, orange haired and rosy cheeked Austrian with bright blue eyes and freckles, expressed such dismay over my supposed lack of flexibility, mostly with his eyes and maybe a few disapproving grunts or some such, that when I walked away from that experience I had lost my appetite for smoking, just like that! Cigarettes were never mentioned. But somehow I was very effectively shamed in to making a very good and healthy decision and that not just for myself but the world at large. (Imagine the pollution from 1 pack of Gaulloise a day less in the atmosphere, not to speak of the likely health costs I might have burdened my community with.)

I hate making decisions, don't trust I can stick with any of them, so avoid them. But the humiliation somehow got to me, convinced me, to do the 'right' thing. I am so grateful that now as an older adult I do not have to struggle with the breaking of a smoking addiction. I am grateful to the guy that showed me his disdain. In fact I happened to come upon him a few years later in Amsterdam and we had a very amicable exchange, where I was able to thank him for the profound effect he had upon me.

I wonder if modern society just has lost a sense of accountability. Boundaries have become too permeable, right and wrong have become too exchangeable, wrong too easily justified, or tolerated. As an adult I am no longer welcome to connect to a kid of strangers. The saying that it takes a village to raise a kid has no meaning in our modern society. I am not to interfere with a parent's right. The effect must be that kids are never exposed any more to approval or disapproval from strangers and society at large. To not appear too simplistic I link this article, sorry in German, because it  laments idiotic statements of strangers to mothers and lists the 15 top annoying or weirdest ones in opposition of what I just wrote above.

I love my friend Emily, the only one that actually will respond to my dogs and treat them at opportune moments as if they were hers, corrects them, relates to them and does not wait for me to mediate between them. I love that. It is rare these days. Only today I came upon a young kid smoking a cigar while walking his dog at the park. In a friendly tone I congratulated him on choosing the open space to smoke (I endured cigar smoke from an inconsiderate jerk in a crowded small dance space.) I did want him to know though that I did not approve of smoking, that I knew and I hoped he knew about the ill effects of smoke to his lungs and health in general. Of course he has his choices, but I too have my opinions and I chose to express them. Partially in hopes that like for me, someone just may feel an effect, an impulse for the better for themselves and the world at large.

The truth is we do have an effect upon each other, we are so permeable and what we do or do not do causes ripples all around us. We can not escape our interconnectedness, cognizant of such or not. I believe in openness and  civilized expression of self to others.  

I am still not sure about there being a role or not for shame in a modern, psychologically enlightened society? Maybe my generation, us Hippies, threw the baby out with the bath water? In our attempt to cast the shame of our childhoods, off our backs, and out of our marrow, we may have neglected an aspect of social consciousness important to all civilizations?

My Indian facebook friend Manav contemplated along similar lines, at roughly the same time from the perspective of a different culture: .."guilt is a normal and natural reaction to us giving ourselves pleasure at someone else's expense..." That has the ring of truth, doesn't it?

Wanting to please ourselves is most natural to all organisms. While dogs may look guilty to us under our disapproving eyes, science has proven they feel no such thing. Guilt is not part of the canine vocabulary, and shame should not be part of the human experience. I guess because shame implies that we in our being, rather then in our actions, are bad. We can change our behavior, but we can not change who we are. We really have to eradicate this kind of toxic guilt. Good psychotherapy goes at the root of such, was made to remedy such and free us, thanks to Freud and Jung and all those that followed.

So how come the Swedes, a sexually liberated society we are told, feel guilty about paying for sex? How come public humiliation worked in the effort of curbing prostitution? Questions well worth pondering, what do you think?