Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
-
posts about #howtobehave more → 
What American Business Needs Is More Shame
New York, 3:24 AM
Tue Dec 8
50 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder |
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield |
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate |
Media:
Hamilton Nolan |
Politics:
Alex Pareene |
Investigations:
John Cook |
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan |
Nights:
Adrian Chen |
Azaria Jagger |
Ravi Somaiya |
Weekends:
Foster Kamer |
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley |
| posts about #howtobehave more → |
What American Business Needs Is More Shame |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
They've since stowed them at the Historical Society, but shame really was deeply built in to the English settlers, it was a tool of social control, well into the twentieth century . The Japanese have nothing on the WASP establishment when it came to shame, humiliation, the consequences of bad behavior, in business or otherwise. It's a very recent thing, the last fifty years or so where this ethic has unravelled, been made a dinosaur. Shame was a powerful form of social control in that segment of society for centuries, here.
11/20/08
I'd really rather not go back to it. Shame is powerful, but it's also deeply flawed. Remember that the mob can shame you into those shackles for any reason at all, right or wrong. The irresponsible, baseless persecution behind the "shame" that those Puritans visited on homosexuals, blacks, "loose women" etc. is as much a lesson as the positive impact it had on people who were truly evil.
That's why trying people in the media is wrong, why Gawker is flawed, and why I wish we'd all be a bit more logical and dignified.
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
It was brutal. We've all read The Scarlet Letter. But there were good things in a way, about shame keeping people civic-minded rather than greedy. We've amicably discussed the very great things responsible wealth bestowed on NYC- the Met, Grand Central, NYPL, a great deal of civic good that persists.
Granted, there was greed and clannishness too. But in a way, there was a price for grasping, overreaching, not approaching business as a gentleman would, in the late 19th c. world that formed the city. There was a bit of good there. Great power, great responsibility, so to speak. Achieving great financial power with intense selfishness was frowned upon. Shame had its uses.
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
Face it: we are all getting exactly what we deserved.
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
"The Pear of Anguish was used during the Middle Ages as a way to torture women who conducted a miscarriage, liars, blasphemers and homosexuals.
"A pear-shaped instrument was inserted into one of the victim's orifices: the vagina for women, the anus for homosexuals and the mouth for liars and blasphemers.
"The instrument consisted of four leaves that slowly separated from each other as the torturer turned the screw at the top. It was the torturer's decision to simply tear the skin or expand the "pear" to its maximum and mutilate the victim.
"The Pear of Anguish was usually very adorned to differentiate between the anal, vaginal and oral pears. They also varied in size accordingly."
11/20/08
11/20/08
The Pear of Anguish is also known as the Cheney Cherry.
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08