"Today, we are caught in a shame spiral--a vortex of mutual shaming that pervades everything from politics to social media. We are shamed for our looks, our culture, our ethnicity, our sexuality, our poverty, our wrongdoings, our politics. But what is the point of all this shaming and countershaming? Does it work? And if so, for whom? In Shame, David Keen explores the function of modern shaming, paying particular attention to how shame is instrumentalized and weaponized. Keen points out that there is usually someone who offers an escape from shame--and that many of those who make this offer have been piling on shame in the first place. Self-interested manipulations of shame, Keen argues, are central to understanding phenomena as wide-ranging as consumerism, violent crime, populist politics, and even war and genocide. Shame is political as well as personal. To break out of our current cycle of shame and shaming, and to understand the harm that shame can do, we must recognize the ways that shame is being made to serve political and economic purposes."-- Amazon.com.
"In The Politics of Shame, Keen explores the functions of the modern epidemic of shaming. He shows how shame has routinely been weaponised during civil wars, and how the public and private shaming of women has, for centuries, been a major tool of patriarchal control. He examines how and why people are shamed into purchases they cannot afford by a society and economic system predicated on continuous consumption. And he considers how social media has contributed to a spiral of shame, in which those who have been shamed often react by shaming others. Crucially, he also considers the interplay between shame (as a positive and progressive emotion, indicating a desire to move towards collectivism) and shamelessness (as a negative and regressive emotion, indicating a preference for individualism), and whether shame works to improve or worsen behaviour. Keen's narrative is informed by an engaging combination of fieldwork, interviews, and analysis of the theoretical literature on shame across multiple disciplines"-- Provided by publisher.
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