The shame machine : who profits in the new age of humiliation

Title:

Author:

O'Neil, Cathy,

ISBN:

9781984825452

9780593443385

Edition:

First edition.

Publication Date:

2022

Physical Description:

255 pages ; 22 cm

Language:

English

Subject Term:

Shame -- Social aspects -- United States.

Blame -- Social aspects -- United States.

Social problems -- United States.

Blame -- Social aspects. (OCoLC)fst00834117

Shame -- Social aspects. (OCoLC)fst01115190

Social problems. (OCoLC)fst01122778

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Discrimination.

PSYCHOLOGY / Social Psychology.

PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy.

Contents:

Introduction -- Tipping the scales -- Shifting the blame -- The undeserving poor -- "Your vagina is fine" -- Click on conflict -- Humiliation and defiance -- Rejection and denial -- The common good -- Punching up -- Under the knife -- Conclusion.

Summary:

"A clear-eyed warning about the increasingly destructive influence of America's "shame industrial complex" in the age of social media and hyperpartisan politics from the New York Times bestselling author of Weapons of Math Destruction. Shame is a powerful and sometimes useful tool: When we publicly shame corrupt politicians, abusive celebrities, or predatory corporations, we reinforce values of fairness and justice. But as Cathy O'Neil argues in this revelatory book, shaming has taken a new and dangerous turn. It is increasingly being weaponized -- used as a way to shift responsibility for social problems from institutions to individuals. Shaming children for not being able to afford school lunches or adults for not being able to find work lets us off the hook as a society. After all, why pay higher taxes to fund programs for people who are fundamentally unworthy? O'Neil explores the machinery behind all this shame, showing how governments, corporations, and the healthcare system capitalize on it. There are damning stories of rehab clinics, reentry programs, drug and diet companies, and social media platforms -- all of which profit from "punching down" on the vulnerable. Woven throughout "The Shame Machine" is the story of O'Neil's own struggle with body image and her recent decision to undergo weight-loss surgery, shaking off decades of shame. With clarity and nuance, O'Neil dissects the relationship between shame and power. Whom does the system serve? Is it counter-productive to call out racists, misogynists, and vaccine skeptics? If so, when should someone be "canceled"? How do current incentive structures perpetuate the shaming cycle? And, most important, how can we all fight back?"--

Added Author:

Baker, Stephen, 1955 November 15-

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Summary

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE * A clear-eyed warning about the increasingly destructive influence of America's "shame industrial complex" in the age of social media and hyperpartisan politics--from the New York Times bestselling author of Weapons of Math Destruction

"O'Neil reminds us that we must resist the urge to judge, belittle, and oversimplify, and instead allow always for complexity and lead always with empathy."--Dave Eggers, author of The Every

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Times (UK)

Shame is a powerful and sometimes useful tool: When we publicly shame corrupt politicians, abusive celebrities, or predatory corporations, we reinforce values of fairness and justice. But as Cathy O'Neil argues in this revelatory book, shaming has taken a new and dangerous turn. It is increasingly being weaponized--used as a way to shift responsibility for social problems from institutions to individuals. Shaming children for not being able to afford school lunches or adults for not being able to find work lets us off the hook as a society. After all, why pay higher taxes to fund programs for people who are fundamentally unworthy?

O'Neil explores the machinery behind all this shame, showing how governments, corporations, and the healthcare system capitalize on it. There are damning stories of rehab clinics, reentry programs, drug and diet companies, and social media platforms--all of which profit from "punching down" on the vulnerable. Woven throughout The Shame Machine is the story of O'Neil's own struggle with body image and her recent weight-loss surgery, which awakened her to the systematic shaming of fat people seeking medical care.

With clarity and nuance, O'Neil dissects the relationship between shame and power. Whom does the system serve? Is it counter-productive to call out racists, misogynists, and vaccine skeptics? If so, when should someone be "canceled"? How do current incentive structures perpetuate the shaming cycle? And, most important, how can we all fight back?

Reviews: (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Data scientist O'Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction) takes a thought-provoking look at shame in contemporary America. Typically understood as the feeling derived from a conflict between the individual's desires and society's norms, shame in the digital age is "manufactured and mined" by "giant sectors of the economy" that want to "harvest something of value from us," O'Neil argues. These "shame machines" include social media platforms, the health and wellness industry, and programs ostensibly created to help the poor that require drug testing or immense bureaucratic burdens, and only serve to perpetuate dysfunctional status quos. O'Neil explains that when shame is used properly--by punching up instead of down--it can help to ensure fairness and justice. Online shaming, however, tends to be counterproductive. Interwoven with illuminating case studies of teenage girls in Manhattan private schools, the hikikomori movement of shut-ins in Japan, and incels on Reddit are O'Neil's reflections on the experience of being conditioned to feel bad about her weight. She tells these and other stories with grace and wit, and effectively disputes the "phony science, cognitive dissonance, and self-preserving flattery" often used to justify shaming others. This is a unique and riveting look at a crucial yet little understood aspect of modern life. (Mar.)

Kirkus Review

A flinty look at a culture and economy based on the premise that there are points to be scored and dollars to be made by shaming people. "Shame is a policing tool," writes data scientist and mathematician O'Neil, "and it has been one since the first clans of humans roamed the savannas of Africa." As a means of reinforcing taboos and social norms, shame has its uses. Yet, as O'Neil gamely writes, there's a "shamescape" at work, "always brimming with opportunity." If there's a diet on the market, there's a huckster out there to flog it, always playing on the shame of a person who believes they are heavier than what cultural and social norms consider acceptable. In one of O'Neil's most unpleasantly pointed examples, she examines the whisper-of-shame subeconomy surrounding female genitalia and the horror that an odor might be detected. Lysol, she notes, was originally marketed in a campaign that "shamed half of humanity for the by-products of a functioning reproductive system" and was laced with chemicals that caused burns and even death. Our sexual organs, she writes, "generate profound fears and insecurities within us. Even in these more sexually liberated times we tend to envelop them in secrecy." O'Neil takes a philosophical turn in her discussion of the acceptability of shaming, arriving at a standard whereby those who can do nothing about a condition should be shielded whereas those who might be able to adjust--incels, for one, who "are not hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world"--might understandably weather a few shame-based nudges to grow up. Whether it's smoking in public, masking against Covid-19, or promulgating political lies, O'Neil allows room for shame while also urging readers always to "punch up" at the social and economic machine and its masters rather than down at the vulnerable. A thoughtful blend of social and biological science, history, economics, and sometimes contrarian politics. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

In this wide-ranging, global consideration of shame, O'Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction, 2017) advocates for detoxifying shame by dismantling profiteering "shame machines" like the diet industry that "punch down" on the powerless to compounding effects. In contrast, she argues that healthy shame, or "punching up" at the voiced and powerful, is a useful tool to create needed change. A lifetime of fat shaming shaped O'Neil's thinking. She opens with a shame-shock incident at a grocery store checkout and closes with her choice to have bariatric surgery. While the argument's core is solid, some examples equivocate and oversimplify. One problematic emphasized takeaway in the retelling of white woman Amy Cooper calling the police with false attack claims about Black Central Park birdwatcher Christian Cooper, for example, is that in the era of instant communication of networked shame, "people have less time to catch up to the new standards and adjust their beliefs and behaviors." Readers will be taken on a broad and meaningful survey of the "shamescape" from incels to Google AI to masking and vaxxing to addiction recovery.

Choice Review

Focusing on shame as experienced in various dimensions, such as in person, online, through "punching down," and "punching up," this is an engaging, if slightly superficial, introduction to structural social practices that promote and feed on shame. Though a primary focus is the author's own experience of being fat-shamed, best-selling author O'Neil--who also wrote Weapons of Math Destruction (2016)--draws examples from many areas, such as criminal justice, social media, political activism, and public health. Some examples that focus on Indigenous, Black, and marginalized populations and people from non-Western cultures may appear superficial or appropriative to readers whose work focuses on these groups, but they can be seen as examples that show how this issue crosses cultures and geographies. Examples of both destructive (e.g., poverty shaming) and constructive (e.g., #MeToo) shaming are explored and discussed to illustrate their impact on people. This book would work best as an opening provocation, encouraging students to grasp structural factors that influence human social behavior, whether in anthropology, sociology, liberal arts, or related courses. The writing is approachable and easy to follow, making this a good choice for undergraduates, students at community colleges, and general readers. Instructor or facilitator framing will increase the value of this text in any course. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Sabrina M. Weiss, independent scholar

Excerpts

Chapter 1 Tipping the Scales I was jubilant. On a gusty autumn day in Cambridge, Massachusetts, word arrived that I'd passed my "qual," or qualifying exam. This was a crucial step toward earning my mathematics PhD. With my doctorate halfway in the bag, I was primed to celebrate--by baking a batch of cookies. In the sunniest, most triumphant mood I went to the Get-N-Go, a bodega next door to my Somerville digs, for ingredients. I knew the clerk there. He'd always been friendly. But when I placed the flour, sugar, and chocolate chips on the counter, he shook his head and said, "Why are you buying that? Don't you know you're fat?" I felt as though he'd slapped me on my double chin. My heart raced; tears leapt to my eyes. I was speechless, but I knew what this was from experience, and from an early age: shame shock. Much of the suffering from being fat occurs on a gentler and more subtle scale. It's the looks people give you in hallways and on airplanes, the waiter's uneasy pause before asking if you want to see the dessert menu. Those microdoses of shame keep low-level misery and self-hatred on a steady course. Shame shock, though, is an explosion. It often occurs when someone confronts you, head-on, about your deepest shame. When you're exposed. At that moment in the bodega, all of the shame's poison coursed through my body, leaving me frozen, disoriented, in pain. In this state, I lost track of who I was. I felt worthless, a flop, unloved. I gathered the ingredients and made my way out of the bodega without saying a word. Even as the initial shock wore off, I remained under its spell. During the aftershock, it felt as if I were sinking, and I desperately worked to right the ship--propping up my own self-worth. I was getting a PhD, I told myself. I had a boyfriend. I was kind to people. Such counterarguments ping harmlessly against the edifice of shame and dissolve. Shame transcends mere logic and extends its roots into biology. It stirs up hormones, tightens the jaw, turns the stomach into knots, triggers pain receptors in the brain, and, all the while, pummels self-esteem into mush. To a lot of readers, this may sound extreme. Many people never experience a powerful shame shock, or don't remember it too well. For quite a few, no doubt, the concept of shame might resuscitate awful memories from the past--middle school embarrassments, awkwardness in the mating game, a demotion at work. But this week, perhaps this year if they're lucky, shame may appear to hover safely at bay. Someone else's problem. However, as we'll see in this book, shame is a quietly active force, even among people who cannot recall being recently shame-shocked and claim to feel fine about themselves. After all, shame--both in the giving and in the receiving--does most of its nasty work in the dark, often tiptoeing around the edges of the conscious mind. We tend to forget how bad it feels. Still, whether it's a full-blown case of shock, as I experienced in the bodega, or deeply buried feelings of worthlessness and vulnerability, the crucial question becomes urgent: What did I do wrong? There seems to have been a choice, a fork in the road. Every healthy and self-respecting member of society followed the right route, and I took the wrong one. Maybe I was weak, lazy, or stupid. Whatever the reason, I feel ashamed, because I screwed up. The entire shamescape hinges on this idea of choice, which is usually false. Millions of us carry around the enduring pain of making the wrong choice again and again. We harbor an abiding fear that shame will explode, as it did on me in that Somerville corner store, and that we'll be unmasked as losers. And we hold out hope that by pursuing the right choice, we can free ourselves of shame. My own story is a case study in how shame is born, how it's sustained, nurtured, and monetized. Fat shame conditioned my behavior, step-by-step, year by year. This is the journey that opened my eyes to the insidious dominance of shame in our lives. It began forty years ago, when I was a pudgy girl living with her two overweight parents in a Boston suburb in the 1980s. Always big for my age, I was already the size of a grown woman by the time I reached fourth grade. At my Lexington public school, I was an outcast, the kid who got picked last for the team, who sat alone in the cafeteria. My size appeared to signal that I was a reject. I suffered plenty of humiliations in gym class, but the most excruciating was the yearly weigh-in for the Presidential Physical Fitness Test. I remember standing in line in the gym for my turn to be weighed. As each child ahead of me stepped onto the scale, the nurse shouted out the result to the gym teacher, who wrote down the numbers on a pad. My classmates all seemed to weigh about seventy pounds. I was well aware that I weighed more than one hundred. As I stepped onto the scale, I bowed my head in shame--my face hot, my stomach in knots--bracing myself for the nurse to call out the embarrassing number. For days afterward, the other kids taunted me: "Do you really weigh that much? 105 pounds?" Something had to be done. So at age eleven, I was ready and willing when my parents told me I'd need to go on a diet. They sat me down and explained that calories were units of energy. If we could control them--making sure we ate less than our "maintenance amount"--we'd lose weight. Burn more calories than you consume, you drop pounds, my dad explained. Easy peasy. The diet promised a pathway from shame. The implicit assumption was that from my earliest years I had screwed up by overeating. Given a choice, I had followed my appetite and selfishly opted for gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. But I could return to the norm by shackling my hunger. All I had to do was follow the rules. As a budding mathematician, logical rules were my specialty. My parents were both PhD mathematicians. Science and math were the ruling belief systems in our household. Whether it was the weather outside or human evolution, my parents believed inherently in the objectivity of facts--it was their religion. Naturally, they followed science, as they saw it, in their meticulous approach to dieting. They kept a towering doctor's office scale in the bathroom and updated weight charts on graph paper, noting every pound lost, every pound gained. I had watched this process for years. Now I was joining the effort. My goal was to lose two pounds a week. That translated into cutting my consumption by one thousand calories per day. For a young nerd like me, this was exciting. Not only was I going to lose weight, I could use my math skills in the process. We had a calorie-counting book on a shelf in the kitchen. I looked up the value of everything I ate in it and then added it all up. By subtracting this sum from my "maintenance amount," I calculated how much more I could eat. My father explained that if I succeeded in limiting calories I could reward myself at the end of the week with a candy bar of my choice. If I failed, I'd lose my allowance that week. He wielded carrots and sticks to make sure I understood the urgency of the problem. At first, I loved dieting. Each Saturday, my mom weighed me on our special scale to check on my progress and determine whether I deserved punishment or reward. The scale had two beams, the big one for increments of fifty pounds and the smaller for single pounds. I stepped up, hearing the thud of the scale as it balanced, and watched in anticipation. When I saw that my weight had gone down, the feeling of achievement was intoxicating. After those first few successes on the scale, I became relentlessly focused on food and my future thin self. I ditched regular meals and instead ate multiple packages of hundred-calorie "fruit snacks," as those made counting calories even easier, and the tiny, bite-sized amounts helped me to slow down my enjoyment. I felt elated, empowered--and totally in control of my body for the first time in my young life. This dieting honeymoon didn't last. A couple of months into the process, something weird began to happen. I'd start the day strong but by the afternoon I struggled to remember what I'd eaten, or how many calories I'd already consumed. By the end of the day, I'd lost count completely, my precious numbers slipping away from me. Many readers at this point are no doubt thinking that I was just one more failed dieter, and that I clearly lacked self-control. That is the universal tenet of fat shame: Diets work; dieters fail. And believe me, I embraced this credo as fervently as anyone. As my lost pounds returned, I began to dread the weekly weigh-ins. Each Saturday, I'd wake up before dawn feeling dark and broken. In hindsight, I know this was shame. But in those early mornings lying awake in bed, I only knew that I was miserable. Excerpted from The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation by Cathy O'Neil, Cathy O'Neil All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.