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The Rise of the Shame Society: America’s Change from a Guilt Culture into a Shame Culture

By (author) Marcel H. Van Herpen

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| book description |

American society is often characterized as a â€œguilt culture,â€ as opposed to non-Western â€œshame cultures.â€ But is this distinction still valid today? Through examples like shaming penalties in criminal law, â€œfat shaming,â€ and cyberbullying on the social media, The Rise of the Shame Society: Americaâ€™s Change from a Guilt Culture into a Shame Culture shows how shame is increasingly invading our lives, leading to feelings of humiliation and depression. Marcel Van Herpen identifies three causes of this phenomenon: new childrearing methods, the advent of the social media, and a transformation of Western individualism. He weighs the arguments for and against a shame society and concludes that a guilt-centered approach remains preferable. Although shame increasingly permeates everyday life, the author argues that its rise is not a fatality. He emphasizes that shame is a dynamic phenomenon and that one can observe trends which lead to an increase of shame, as well as to its decrease. Examples of the latter are a growing sensitivity to the pain caused by anti-Black racism, the decrease of anti-LGBTQIA+ prejudices, and efforts to end the stigmatization of people with disabilities. Along with exploring its increase, The Rise of the Shame Society demonstrates that there are ways to overcome shame.