{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "The more anomie there is in a society, the less effective \u201cshaming people into virtue\u201d becomes.\n Shaming assumes that the people...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/137401162983/", "html": "

severnayazemlya:

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91625:

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severnayazemlya:

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honestlymellowstarlight:

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raggedjackscarlet:

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The more anomie there is in a society, the less effective \u201cshaming people into virtue\u201d becomes.

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Shaming assumes that the people being shamed know in the back of their minds what they should really be doing, i.e. in the back of their minds they are aware of the acceptable social scripts to follow, and all you have to do is make not following the script more painful than following it.

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But when those social scripts disappear, then shaming becomes little more than angrily gesturing towards a rulebook whose pages are too faded to read.

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In a society deep in the throes of anomie, virtue inculcation by necessity involves much more hand-holding and explicit instruction. Much more \u201cComplete task N by following steps A, B, and C for reasons X, Y, and Z.\u201d

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But disciplinarians find hand-holding icky. So nothing changes.

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Counterargument: the more anomie the is in a society, the more insecure people are in following a social script they can barely read/remember, the more susceptible to outside voices shouting as though there is a script. Most people aren\u2019t that meta.

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The more anomie there is in a society, the more disposable/interchangeable people are, the more people have to keep up for fear of being discarded.

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Dude. That\u2019s not what anomie means.

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It was always explained to me as\u00a0\u2018lack of shared moral values/definitions of virtue\u2019, and that\u2019s the sense @raggedjackscarlet is using it in \u2013 he can\u2019t be taking it to mean\u00a0\u2018lack of shared values\u2019 in general, because that would be absurd. There are shared values in the subcultures he\u2019s talking about; it\u2019s just that no one outside them could ever believe them to be connected in any form to anything other than fashion.\u00a0

(Inside the subcultures, fashion is identified with morality and virtue, and there\u2019s literally no concept of morality or virtue outside fashion.)

Encyclopedia Britannica:

Greater emphasis on ends rather than means creates a stress that leads to a breakdown in the regulatory structure\u2014i.e., anomie. If, for example, a society impelled its members to acquire wealth yet offered inadequate means for them to do so, the strain would cause many people to violate norms. The only regulating agencies would be the desire for personal advantage and the fear of punishment.

Note the last sentence \u2013 that\u2019s precisely the condition I\u2019m talking about.

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