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Entry: Freedom from shame? Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/freedom_from_shame#32384 Post contents: Well, the disease called feminism seems to have done its work even among "conservative" women, as even here on Taki's we see it in action. Note the "faux" realism on display here: "Biology is what it is... and no amount of "shame" will change that." Nice. Now let's try that in the tendency to murder or incest. After all they, too, are "natural," and biologically driven: if I kill my grandmother to grab her money, and then marry my sister, biology being what it is, no amount of "shame" will change that. And true "enlightenment" will come only after a psychotherapist lectures me for 2157 hours that it is wrong to kill my grandmother and marry my sister because... well, it's kinda not nice since my sis is kinda aching for that jock in school, and my granny is kinda dead. That's very enlightened of you, Maria. I can feel your intellectual and moral supremacy right here, from Istanbul, 10,000 miles away. I'm slapping my forehead "drats, why didn't we ignorant, unenlightened unwashed think of that? It has nothing to do with shame, because people want to have sex due to biology. They can't help it. And we thought people learn sex after going to grammar school. So all those rumors that those who don't attend grammar school remain barren, even asexual were just that: rumors." And let's not skip the fact that the ultimate purpose of "shame" is to change biology. For instance, we primitive "Muzzies" (it feels wonderful to put us down with this one, isn't it, Maria? "See, those terrorist cultures use shame to regulate people's behavior? Don't you see how unenlightened, ignorant, primitive they are?," that sorta thing)... we have become so steeped in the shame culture, that just by using shame "tactics" we can change the way our kidneys or oesophaguses work. Try it. If you can get the hang of it, you save tons on doctors' bills. Only sex has turned out to be totally intransigent, drats. We have tried and tried and still people want to have sex. Go figure. Any other brilliant "insights," Maria? Look, "shame" is a way of creating a "slate" for someone by one's reputation in the community. No one on earth thinks sex is anything other than what it is. In fact, it's amazing you don't see the fallacy of your logic here: it is exactly because biology is what it is, that we, as societies, have developed a social control mechanism with the label "shame" to keep it under tabs. Shifting it to "community service" is not just more expensive and pointlessly-elitistic-ego-trip-y: it will NOT work. Shame depends on empathy, something which even smart breeds like dogs are not capable of (point your finger to something, and the dog will look at your finger, not what you point at). Shame depends on inculcating in someone that if one acts one way, one will have to face consequences. And no, "young lady, you're grounded for 5 weeks for getting pregnant at age 15" is not a *consequence*. It's a joke. Shame is possible only in societies where such "mistakes" are followed by very severe consequences. Only then people are able to get it into their thick skulls, by empathizing with those who suffer those consequences and learning to *fear* them, that they feel shame when they are warned that if they head in that direction they'll be the next one facing those consequences. Alright, dearie? Save the bloody phoney, more-realistic-than-thou lecture on biology. Sent at: 2008 12 01