August 27, 2009
Shame and Poor People
Hi, this is T. AKA Ricky Raw of the blog The Rawness, a blog about human nature and sexual politics. Karol asked me to guest blog here this week, which is awesome because I rarely blog about politics any more and I miss it from time to time.
I envy bloggers like Karol who can prolifically blog pithy missives daily, but alas, that's not me. I'm more of a once-a-week blogger who just blogs infrequent, but lengthy rambling discursive rants. Which is why you are only just hearing from me today.
But anyway, the point of this post: Shame and poor people.
Several months ago I came across a blog debate between Adam Serwer and Megan McArdle. Adam Serwer objected to the use of shame as a method for motivating and improving people:
Conservatives regularly overestimate the beneficial effects of shame. Shame provokes response in the form of impulse, not long term planning. A person who is ashamed isn't going to think, "I'd better get a degree" or "I'd better get married," they're going to think in the short term about what they can do to rectify their sense of self-worth.How do you see people--men in particular--act when they're ashamed? You rarely see them do something like get married or get a fantastic job; usually they're going to hurt or exploit someone, make them feel as low as they do--this is the lesson learned by the shamed from the shamer, regardless of the lesson the shamer thinks they're teaching the shamed.
There's something weird about the way conservatives approach social problems like out of wedlock birth or poverty, as if the people with such problems glean some kind of orgasmic pleasure for struggling for cash, or raising a child as a single parent. These things are hard enough without shame, and while I agree with Dreher and Peggy Noonan that what "you applaud, you encourage," I'm very skeptical about the idea that shame can produce productive behavior. Dreher's argument assumes that the people in question aren't already ashamed, or have failed somehow to internalize society's larger values about family. I generally find that the opposite is true, they've internalized them to a fault. It's one thing to encourage marriage through positive reinforcement, it's another entirely to punish people for being unmarried and think that has a beneficial effect on society.
Megan McArdle gives her response on why shame is indeed necessary:
Serwer is right that shame makes a hard lot harder. But I don't think he is right about the value of shame. Without shame, what are you left with? It's accepting that you have no way to regulate peoples' behavior within the social network short of brute force or bribery...[T]he fear of shame triggers a deep, probably pre-verbal, instinctive part of our brain. Think about a time when you were publicly caught doing something you shouldn't have--your heart rate increases, the back of your neck crawls with the beginnings of a blush, you instinctively look away from wherever your eyes were just focused. No one has this sort of immediate and uncontrollable physical reaction to the prospect of a tax deduction a year or more hence.
That's why shame is a more powerful counterweight to, say, having unprotected sex in a mad moment, or moving in with your boyfriend, than less punitive measures. It's a more powerful counterweight than the distant, fuzzy knowledge that babies are sometimes expensive and tend to scream a lot. It works because it hurts. And pain is nature's way of saying, "Don't do that!!!"
The problem is that for the percentage of people who ignore social strictures and do something that is pleasurable in the short term while producing bad long term results, such as knocking over a liquor store, shame makes things even worse: you're in prison, and everyone's mean to you about being in prison. The problem is that if you don't stigmatize being in prison, or God forbid make it cool and authentic, then other people won't mind going to prison so much, and more kids will a) do something bad and b) screw up their own lives in the process.
I think they're both wrong and both right, which is why they (and most liberals and conservatives on this issue) end up arguing past each other. What's missing from the discussion is the concept of locus of control. From the linked page:
A locus of control orientation is a belief about whether the outcomes of our actions are contingent on what we do (internal control orientation) or on events outside our personal control (external control orientation)." (Zimbardo, 1985, p. 275) Thus, locus of control is conceptualised as referring to a unidimensional continuum, ranging from external to internal. External Locus of Control: Individual believes that his/her behaviour is guided by fate, luck, or other external circumstances. Internal Locus of Control: Individual believes that his/her behaviour is guided by his/her personal decisions and efforts.
To illustrate, a couple of years ago I read a study on the most satisfying professions versus the least satisfying professions. Attorney was among the least satisfying jobs. That's not surprising. After all, the attorneys in the study cited having a lot of responsibilities and a high workload as their reasons for high dissatisfaction. What was surprising however was that commercial airline pilot and surgeon were among the high satisfaction jobs. Yet these jobs have a much higher level of responsibility than your average attorney. They literally hold the power of life and death in their hands, and in the pilot's case, hundreds of lives at a time, including his own, are at risk every time he takes off and lands. Why such a difference in job satisfaction then?
What researchers concluded the difference was was locus of control. Lawyers feel like they have little personal control over outcomes, that most of the locus of control in their job is external. They have a ton of responsibilities and a big workload, but the outcome is dependent mostly on outside forces, be it the client's decisions, the jury's deliberations, the judge's rulings, and the supervising partner's direction. Surgeons and pilots feel like they have a very internal locus of control. They have a feeling of autonomy and the belief that it is largely their own decisions that determine the outcome of the process, and that makes the high responsiblility load much easier to bear. So basically, when one feels like they have a highly internal locus of control, high levels of personal responsibility become much easier to bear. And when someone feels like they have a highly external locus of control, high levels of personal responsibility are harder to bear and lead to anxiety, depression and stress.
Going back to poor people, the reasoning behind subjecting them to shame is to make them take responsibility for improving their own lives. The problem is, for the reasons I describe above, high levels of personal responsibility only work on people who believe they have a highly internal locus of control, and poor people tend to have a highly external locus of control. People who believe they have a highly external locus of control find personal responsibility to be a stressful, anxiety-causing burden. Since they believe they are powerless to change their lives for the better, increasing their shame only makes their mental state worse.
Why do poor people view themselves as having such an external locus of control? The answer is easy. Democrats, the media, community activists, race hustlers and guilty white liberals have spent decades convincing poor people that external forces are primarily responsible for their sorry state. A corrupt, racist government has and continues to oppress them. Capitalism is a system inherently rigged against them. They are told their schools are so crappy that no one can get a good education in them. They are taught that success is a zero-sum game where so long as other people are rich and successful they are destined to be poor and destitute. They are taught to believe in institutional racism. They are told the game is so hopelessly rigged against them that it's not even worth their effort to play. Even most of their popular culture from the most violent gangsta rap to the most "positive" hip-hop music reinforces this hopelessness. Their gospel music and churches tell them that their life is in God's hands.
When you introduce shame into such an environment of external locus of control, you don't get self-motivation, you get extreme desperation, stress, anxiety, substance abuse and more self-hatred. (Speaking of substance abuse, given the high level of responsibility and highly external locus of control they have, is it any surprise lawyers have such a bad substance abuse problem to go along with their anxiety and stress levels?) In addition, shame and personal responsibility drives people to move toward avenues where they feel they can exercise internal locus of control. If you believe that working within the rules of society, the education system and the capitalist workforce offers that internal locus of control, the sense of shame and personal responsibility will drive you to work harder in that direction. If you feel your only avenues to exercise internal locus of control are crime, hustling, having kids and other short-term strategies, that's where the sense of shame and personal responsibility will drive you.
As a power play, it makes sense for Democrats and race hustlers to encourage external locus of control in people. People with highly internal locuses of control welcome more personal responsibility, and people who perceive themselves as having highly external locuses of control find personal responsibility to be a soul-destroying burden. If a politician want the state to gain more power by having increased responsibility for people's lives, what are his options? He can take the power by force, but this will build extreme resentment and can lead to eventual revolt and civil unrest, and the American system doesn't make this possible anyway. An easier way is to get people to willingly give up the power and responsibility over their own lives to you and make them think you are doing them a favor in the process. What better way to do this than create the perception of an external locus of control in them? With that in place, they'll do anything to avoid shame and personal responsibility. They'll gladly give responsibility of their own lives over to the state in such a mindset.
This is why shame alone won't work on poor people until you change how they perceive their own locus of control. If you look at all the poor choices poor people habitually make, they make them because they view these mistakes as being within the few arenas where they can exercise a highly internal locus of control. The "system" may be hopelessly rigged against them and they have no control in the big picture, but in their minds, working outside the system does provide them a highly internal locus of control so they'll take it. They focus on short-term gratification rather than long-term achievement because that is where they feel their locus of control lies. Having kids frequently is a way they can feel most control over their bodies and lives, where they feel a highly internal locus of control, so they indulge in that. Violent crime provides them a feeling of internal locus of control where they feel control of the actions around them, so they indulge in that. Guns increase the feeling of internal locus of control so they especially gravitate toward that. Working within educational system and capitalist economy that they perceive are rigged against them by outside forces provides a lot of responsibility combined with an extremely external locus of control, so they avoid that route. Increasing their level of shame and personal responsibility won't drive them in the direction of that external locus of control, it will drive them further in the direction of internal locus of control, which in their minds is having kids, doing crime, substance abuse and hustling.
The problem many Republicans have is that they have such a highly internal locus of control in themselves and their social circles, they take it for granted, similar to how fish take water for granted becuae they've been immersed in it their whole lives since birth. Because they already have internal locus of control, shame works on them wonderfully, and they expect it to work on poor people just as well, because they don't fully comprehend the mindset of someone who exists predominately in a mindset of external locus of control. If Republicans want to really elevate poor people and get them to accept personal responsibility and pursue success legitimately, they have to introduce to them the concept that they can maintain a highly internal locus of control by playing within the system. Once they have this highly internal locus of control when working within the system, then and only then will shame work on them.
Posted by T. at August 27, 2009 10:40 AM | TrackBackTechnorati Tags:
Hey, welcome to the party. You can use that second big text box down on the Movable Type to put content "below the fold," if that's what you'd like to do for a longer post.
Posted by: BG at August 27, 2009 11:16 AMAh, thanks BG!
Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw at August 27, 2009 11:25 AMIf Republicans want to really elevate poor people and get them to accept personal responsibility and pursue success legitimately...
I'd argue that, in a vacuum, the pursuit of success is something that both parties would like to put in front of voters as a realistic and achievable path to wealth, growth and security - if not in reality, at least selling them the idea as a reasonable aspiration.
That being said, the maximum potentials of "free market" and "growth" as desirable outcomes for our economy* depend on access to cheap, reliable labor. I'd argue that creates an incentive to keep a class of people from "legitimate success," instead keeping them just employed enough not to leave their jobs and making just enough money to shovel it all back into the economy as a consumer. I realize "employed" versus "criminal" can be seen as "legitimate success" versus "total failure," but I kinda tend to think neo-serfdom isn't something that resembles "legitimate success" in any aspirational sense.
Not saying by any means that welfare/social programs are essential to "create success" or anything of the sort. Just pointing out that this whole "bootstraps" thing comes with limitations, because for the free market/growth corporate ideal to arise, the working class being kept in their proper place is an economic priority. Yanking on those bootstraps can carry the lucky or most fortunately positioned of us to the top. For others, success is going to have limitations.
Facilitating where those limits exist can be a governmental role. Obviously, you're operating from the point of view that it shouldn't be, and that personal responsibility can adequately take someone into "legitimate success." I don't think that's entirely true, as personal circumstances can definitely place a ceiling on how high someone can go.
*not arguing that "free market" or "growth" aren't ideal - qualified my point by saying "maximum potentials," which is what I mean
Posted by: BG at August 27, 2009 11:53 AMI love this post. Even if BG somehow translates it to mean you hate black people.
Posted by: Karol at August 27, 2009 12:01 PMI'm at a better internet connection now so I wanted to add that I've written about shame and abortion before. In the Soviet Union, and I'm sure in Russia today too, there is zero shame in abortion which I believe encourages the practice: http://www.alarmingnews.com/archives/003584.html
Posted by: Karol at August 27, 2009 01:22 PMEven if BG somehow translates it to mean you hate black people
Talk about race baiting! BG didn't mention anything about race in his comment at all! The only folks equating race and poverty here are you and the original poster!
Posted by: Jamie at August 27, 2009 01:23 PMHome run T. Very insightful and sensible. I think the same argument applies to shaming young men to marry, shaming young people to be more financially responsible, etc. We are all working to escape the gristmill that the govt. system has become and often those doing the shaming are achieving the exact opposite result from what they intend. Nice work.
Posted by: alphadominance at August 27, 2009 01:31 PMCame here from The Rawness.
You did a good job expressing my own thoughts on the matter in a more articulate way than I would have.
Republicanism in the states derives from a long tradition of English liberalism and laissez-faire capitalism. The idea that man controls his own destiny is implicit in those philosophies.
Then again, the successful will want to believe that their successes are because of their own choices. And the poor or unsuccessful often wish to believe that their failures aren't their faults.
@Karol - the author's black. That'd be hard to do.
Posted by: Faolán at August 27, 2009 02:01 PM~ WHO LET $ATAN THROUGH THE BACK DOOR OF OUR U.$ CONGRE$$ ~
THIS OLD WORLD ORDER OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT OF OUR POORER AMERICANS NEEDS ENLIGHTENED POLITICAL MINDS AND HEARTS TO VIEW GOD DIFFERENTLY THEN $$$… NO MATTER WHAT THEIR POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION ???
WHEN WILL OUR WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS ABATE THEIR ASSAULT ON POORER AMERICANS WITH THEIR MONETARY CONTROL OF OUR IVORY TOWER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER ???
THERE ARE NOT MANY MORE DISTRACTIONS LEFT WHICH ARE AVAILABLE FOR OUR WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS TO HIDE BEHIND IN NOT TAKING PROPER CARE OF ALL OUR AMERICANS IN A HUMANE FASHION !!!
RALPH NADER ATTEMPTED TO EDUCATE AMERICAN VOTERS ABOUT U.S. CORPORATE POWER IN AMERICA AND HOW THEY CONTROL OUR CONGRESSIONAL PEOPLE THROUGH THEIR POCKET BOOK (POLITICAL DONATIONS). WITHOUT THE DOUGH $$$ THESE U.S. CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD DO NOT GET RE~ELECTED TO CONGRESS.
TO STAY IN POLITICAL OFFICE IN AMERICA,ONE HAS TO BARTER YOUR VOTES IN CONGRESS AND REPRESENT POWER INTERESTS IN RETURN FOR THE BUCK$.
POORER AMERICANS HAVE NEVER HAD THE $$$ LOBBY TO INFLUENCE THIS CORRUPT POLITICAL CONCEPT (of horse trading political votes for political contributions) TO ACHIEVE PROPER HEALTH ~CARE OR LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR ALL OUR MIDDLE ~ CLASS AND WORKING POOR AMERICANS.
AMERICAN IVORY TOWER U.S.CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD HAVE PASSED FEDERAL LEGISLATION IN WASHINGTON DC TO SPEND 50 BILLION AMERICAN TAX $$$ ON THE INTERNATIONAL FIGHT AGAINST AIDS OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS WHILE THEIR OWN AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING TOLD BY THIS SAME U.S.CONGRESS THAT NATIONAL HEALTH CARE AND PROPER LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING POOR CITIZENS IS UNAFFORDABLE.
*** WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS (WHO ARE ONLY 1% OF OUR USA POPULATION) SADLY ALSO CONTROL HOW OUR U.S.CONGRESS SPENDS THEIR BUDGET TRILLION$ AND HAVE OBVIOUSLY FOUND MORE WORTHY INTERNATIONAL CITIZENS THEN OUR OWN DESPERATE AND NEEDY POOR TO ASSIST !!!
~Poorer Americans Nationwide only get 400 million $$$ per year for legal representation allocated them by CONGRESS~
Middle Class and Working Poor Americans are unable to afford proper legal representation in their Civil, Criminal and Family Courts of law all across America causing tremendous hardships nationwide,but these great minds and callous hearts in our American Congress have found others Worldwide more needy then their own citizens who are being falsely incarcerated,wrongfuly executed,losing their homes or apartments,losing child custody or visitation with their children etc…
Not being afforded proper legal representation by our U.S. Congress has created a total breakdown of the American judicial system for our poorer Americans because the our U.S. Courts punish all of us little people if we are not assisted with proprer legal counsel.it is a known fact that our average Middle Class and Working Poor Americans without proper legal representation in all of our American Courts of law lose their legal cases to the better financed who are able to afford lawyers.
Lawyers For Poor Americans is now actively in the hunt for International Countries and Leaders Worldwide to help raise 5 Billion Dollar$ for our slighted poorer Americans who have had their own American Congress turn their backs on their desperate needs in not affording them proper legal representation.
Troy Davis and Mumia Abu – Jamal are 2 perfect examples of American citizens who never had proper legal representation afforded them by our U.S. Congressional Leaders Of The Free World in their initial criminal trials in (Georgia and Pennsylvania) who might very well have to pay the ultimate price of possibly being completely innocent and falsely executed in the near future.
These two poor Americans are among tens of thousands of legal cases nationwide that never were afforded proper legal representation or proper defense investigations at their initial trials.
***We the public really have no idea if these men TROY DAVIS AND MUMIA ABU~JAMAL are even innocent or guilty until they both are given fair legal representation at their new future trials.
Improper murder trials and needless health related deaths take place in third world countries all the time,but why should average Middle~Class and Working Poor Americans
in the Wealthiest Country Of The World also be treated as if they are living a Third World Life Style ???
This is the first of many www International pleas by Lawyers For Poor Americans for other leaders and countries to help raise the needed monie$ to correct these blatant injustices that have been inflicted on poorer Americans for the last few decades.
Lawyers For Poor Americans has many other written articles that can be viewed with any www search engine by our name or our telephone number.
Lawyers For Poor Americans is a www lobby group of volunteers that sing out about the decades old neglect,abuse and injustices being inflicted on our poorer Americans that have become Crimes Against Humanity issues for the International World Court to investigate.
lawyersforpooreramericans@yahoo.com
(424-247-2013)
Posted by: DOUGLAS FIELD at August 27, 2009 02:45 PMI love this post. Even if BG somehow translates it to mean you hate black people.
My point, which I noted in my Twitter feed, was that there is absolutely phrasing in here that draws broad generalizations that make it sound like the poor people in need of shame are the black ones. This part, particularly:
They are taught to believe in institutional racism. They are told the game is so hopelessly rigged against them that it's not even worth their effort to play. Even most of their popular culture from the most violent gangsta rap to the most "positive" hip-hop music reinforces this hopelessness. Their gospel music and churches tell them that their life is in God's hands.
I realize this was a "ramble," and when I do that, I'm often guilty of going too far off-the-cuff myself, especially when it comes to generalizations. I understand what the message is, and it's certainly not "poor black people need to develop a sense of shame," but language like the clip above can be distracting to those not willing to grant the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by: BG at August 27, 2009 03:45 PMJamie, it was on twitter. Welcome to 2008.
And yes, Faolan, I'm aware.
Posted by: Karol at August 27, 2009 05:00 PMBG, the articles I linked to and was responding to were talking about poor people in general and black people in particular. So in responding to their points, I addressed the same two topics. I supposed I could have made that clearer but it was getting too long as it was.
Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw at August 27, 2009 06:15 PMNo worries T. Like I said, if you're going to ramble, you're probably going to end up with a couple of generalizations or simplifications along the way.
Posted by: BG at August 27, 2009 06:34 PMEven rereading I really don't think the language is rambles all that much or the generalizations are all that harsh toward poor black people. I suggest reading the two pieces I'm responding to in full to understand why I chose the examples I did.
I used to be a black radical leftist. I've lived in ghettos. I'm a lifelong rap fan to this day, so I know about the messages in the music. I stand by what I said about many poor blacks thinking the system is automatically rigged against them. A lot of what I said applies to all poor people, but I also used some factors that specifically affect poor blacks in particular because in addition to many of the class-related messages of hopelessness they receive along with poor whites, they get the added burden of race-related messages of hopelessness in addition.
Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw at August 27, 2009 11:43 PMI don't think it's any kind of coddling from the Democrats and white liberals that cause poor people to have an external locus of control. It's reality.
If you don't speak, act and look a certain way, your opportunities are limited. Only offering opportunities in the mainstream society to those who conform to it serves to reinforce the dominant culture and we can see proof of it in the fact that successful immigrants "assimilate" and adapt the dominant social norms while others remain ethnic and less well to do (except for one particular ethnicity I can think of).
That being said, in my opinion its more a matter of people who have internal loci : ) of control come from generally more permissive households and those who have external LoC tend to come from authoritarian and more stratified homes. The violence, berating and psychological abuse against children that happens in poor families is not the norm in more well-to-do circles.
If you come from a home where you have to ask your mother for permission to drink the juice at 10 years old, you are not getting the message that the world is your oyster, lol. If you come from a home where your parents allow you to make decisions in your life from young and you get to see the cause and effect in your outcomes, you will of course understand you have control in your life.
This sheds some light on differences in outlook between poor/black Americans and poor/black immigrants to the U.S. Even if the immigrant is equally as poor as a native, presumably he's moving up from where he was. Not only that, his situation and his improvement are under his control, since he moved himself to the U.S.
An aside: This reminds me of the islamic concept of "Inshallah" -- God willing. Americans soldiers training Arabs have difficulty getting them to take responsibility for outcomes because everything is in Allah's hands.
Posted by: Alex J. at August 28, 2009 03:31 PMFascinating insight, T. A black friend told me that she thinks a lot of black people have become addicted to "the struggle". They identify with it and don't want to give it up. The kind of learned helplessness you describe is a part of it.
Posted by: hello at August 31, 2009 01:37 AM
