Due to the internet, where ideas can spread rapidly without much obstruction from gatekeepers, and strong communities can form easily around these ideas, some things aren't as shameful as they once were.
Shame is a crude but often very effective way of preventing bad situations, such as civilisational decline and mental / physical disease.
Shame can be used to help build someone up, or bring them down to a point where they can't get up by themselves.
In this forum post, we'll be exploring the nature of shame.
Electric Fence
Shame is like an electric fence- if it encircles a big hole in the middle of a sheep field, this is very good for the sheep.
Whether they're grateful for being zapped depends on whether they're aware of the hole.
For the sheep, there is some short-term benefit of removing the electric fence, as they get to experience how it feels to go where they want, but they will not be protected from the real dangers in the world.
This is the perennial problem of freedom VS control: how much should we protect people from dangers they can't see? Who determines what the dangers are? How much should we let people let from their own mistakes?
Unhealthy shame
An example of an unhealthy use of shame is bullying, which is evil and cruel- like pressing a piece of electric fence upon a sheep. In this scenario, the sheep is not feeling protective pain, it is just feeling pain to feed the demon within the evildoer.
This is 'pointless' pain, and can allow a person to feel like they're living in hell.
I put quotation marks around the word 'pointless', because, as explained above, their pain is not actually pointless, although the insight which would free them of this demon is very obscure and counter-intuitive:
The pain of someone who is being bullied seems pointless until they understand the nature of the evildoer, and that they have been 'possessed', for lack of a better word. They are in the unfortunate situation of having such a low Usual Energy-Level that in order to stay energetically-afloat, they must steal energy from others.
There is a forced energetic transaction between a bully and a victim, and it cannot continue if someone is there to stop it who is sufficiently courageous and energetically-aware.
Another term for shame could be 'protective pain'.
Healthy Shame
An example of experiencing protective shame would be being called a 'creep' / 'loser' for watching pornography.
If a teenager has friends who mock him for watching pornography, this is very good, as they are trying to protect him from becoming a creep / loser. If he chooses them over pornography, he is likely to never become one.
Another example of experiencing protective shame would be being called 'fat' or something else, for not eating healthily or exercising.
If an obese teenager has friends who mock him for not eating healthily or exercising, this is good because they're trying to protect him from all the bad things that come from being overweight.
It would only be bad if someone continues to berate him relentlessly about it.
Rather than stick around, these friends will rightfully leave the person who does not change an unhealthy behaviour. Some people who have the time will do extra things to help him quit the unhealthy behaviour.