>I keep seeing this narrative, that shaming is the most effective strategy
I never said it's the most effective strategy. I said, it's more effective than just talking.
>If shaming works, when why hasn't it worked yet? Where are the results?
As far as i'm concerned, this question is like someone doubting the existence of gravity. The effects of shaming is all around us.
Fashion is an industry that built its foundations on shaming. Kids are shamed into buying iphones, and designer shoes. Millions of kids are being shamed into early sex (ashamed of being virgins), and trying out drugs to be deemed COOL.
For programmers - PHP programmers are being shamed right here on HN.
When Google and other high profile companies do something really stupid like locking someone's account unjustly or some new policy, Twitter and Hacker news use shaming to get these guys to speedily reverse course.
>The video of George Floyd is powerful because it shows us the truth.
Isn't the video in question is an example of shaming - the police?
Why do you think police, FBI and the rest works hard to bar public access to ALL their activities?
Shaming someone hardly ever changes their mind; it can change their behavior, but usually only their public behavior.
>> The video of George Floyd is powerful because it shows us the truth.
> Isn't the video in question is an example of shaming - the police?
The people whose minds were changed by the video were people horrified by it, not people shamed[1].
> Why do you think police, FBI and the rest works hard to bar public access to ALL their activities?
Because all this shame hasn't changed their mind a single bit, it just makes them want to hide what they are doing.
----
1: Most police already knew shit like this happens, and most of them are already ashamed about it. However, they also know that their reports better include whatever makes the department the least legally liable, rather than the truth. Reporting a truth that causes the department to have to settle a lawsuit for more than they thought they could is the #1 career limiting move a cop can make.
Reporting bad behavior of coworks is a tough call to make in the best of situations. Mix in the following and it takes people of unusually strong moral-fiber to do it:
1. You will get fewer hours of OT (a de-facto pay-cut)
2. You will be passed over for promotion down the road because of it.
3. The coworker you reported on is very unlikely to be fired so you will be working along side them, quite possibly for many years.
Shaming is a very effective technique to maintain cohesion in a social group, but a lot of your examples are using the word wrongly. If I were to guess, you might be confusing 'shaming' with 'talking about problems' which are not the same thing at all. Shaming is an emotional and social phenomenon, linked to concepts of guilt and shortcoming.
Google & other companies for example are incapable of feeling shame - or indeed any other emotional response. They are incapable of making decisions due to a sense of shame. Therefore shaming is not especially effective against them.
> Fashion is an industry that built its foundations on shaming.
This one in is also off target. Fashion isn't built on shame at all. Fashion is built on giving people with wealth an ability to show it and to maintain a repertoire of signals to communicate with. The fashion industry is built on aspiration. Some people might feel ashamed that they aren't very important to the world, but that isn't where the fashion industry makes its major profits.
> Isn't the video in question is an example of shaming - the police?
It is evidence of activity that looks criminal. Police feeling ashamed isn't the thing that is going to drive the response there. I don't think anyone particularly cares if the police feel ashamed or not, they want that not to happen again and are going to be more than happy to make legal/political changes to do so. Sharing that video wasn't done informatively, it was done as a call to action to do something.
> As far as i'm concerned, this question is like someone doubting the existence of gravity.
Please leave comments like this out in the future. It adds nothing to the conversation, and escalates people's emotions pointlessly.
Every single example you've given is a very complex situation where shaming isn't the most relevant thing:
> Fashion is an industry that built its foundations on shaming.
Maybe in part, but there's a lot more going on there--a lot of it is just getting stuff in front of people. The original idea of having a skinny model was actually not about body shaming people or even about the model being attractive (that wasn't what was considered attractive at that time). It was about having someone the clothes hang off of so that the focus on the clothes and not the person (this became complicated as standards of attractiveness changed).
> Kids are shamed into buying iphones, and designer shoes.
Shamed by wbom? I don't see much ads these days, but the last ad I saw for an iPhone was literally just them showing a disembodied hand using the iPhone to do something. They have a damn good product and they know it, so to sell it they just show that it's good. No shaming needed.
Designer shoes: shame isn't the emotion I'd associate with that. Pride, actually, makes more sense.
> Millions of kids are being shamed into early sex (ashamed of being virgins),
If we're comparing things to gravity, sex drive is pretty arguably a force of nature. We've had millions of years of the genes for people who don't want to have sex literally removed from the gene pool.
> and trying out drugs to be deemed COOL.
Maybe they're trying them out because they think they're cool? Because they're curious? Because doing drugs obviously is fun (at least in the short term)?
I've been in some pretty druggie cultures (i.e. Burning Man, lots of similar smaller stuff), and literally never felt shamed because I didn't do drugs.
> For programmers - PHP programmers are being shamed right here on HN.
Where?
> When Google and other high profile companies do something really stupid like locking someone's account unjustly or some new policy, Twitter and Hacker news use shaming to get these guys to speedily reverse course.
This may be the best example on your list. But realize that that public shaming a company whose business is based on users, isn't targeted at the company, it's targeted at users. So the applicability here is pretty limited.
> Isn't the video in question is an example of shaming - the police?
No, it's very much not.
We're not trying to make the police feel ashamed. We're trying to put the police who did that in jail, and we're doing that by making sure that everyone knows they are murderers, because they can see it. And in a larger sense, we're not trying to shame police so they behave better: it's clear the police aren't going to change their behavior. It's to show people that the idea that police protect and serve is wrong, so that we can persuade people to reduce the power we give to police and have more accountability, without the permission of police.
Do you really think the police feel shame about any of this? If so, they certainly haven't acted on their shame. Their reaction has not been shame, it's been defiance and violence. Shame has no relevance here.
I never said it's the most effective strategy. I said, it's more effective than just talking.
>If shaming works, when why hasn't it worked yet? Where are the results?
As far as i'm concerned, this question is like someone doubting the existence of gravity. The effects of shaming is all around us.
Fashion is an industry that built its foundations on shaming. Kids are shamed into buying iphones, and designer shoes. Millions of kids are being shamed into early sex (ashamed of being virgins), and trying out drugs to be deemed COOL.
For programmers - PHP programmers are being shamed right here on HN.
When Google and other high profile companies do something really stupid like locking someone's account unjustly or some new policy, Twitter and Hacker news use shaming to get these guys to speedily reverse course.
>The video of George Floyd is powerful because it shows us the truth.
Isn't the video in question is an example of shaming - the police?
Why do you think police, FBI and the rest works hard to bar public access to ALL their activities?