Megan McArdle and Ross Douthat have both made good points about shame and social behavior, and I think Ross gets to something very important here:
The responses to shame are as variable as the human race itself, and the fact that shaming sometimes sets off a self-destructive spiral doesn't mean that in other cases it can't spur repentance, and an amended life. ... shame is useful as a deterrent even when it fails as a corrective. Having your mother kick you out of the house if you get pregnant out of wedlock probably isn't going to improve your life chances, but the fear that your mother might kick you out stands a good chance of deterring you from making a bad decision in the first place. The fact that shame provokes an impulsive response is a feature, not a bug, when you're trying to deter bad behavior that is itself impulsive.
McArdle and Douthat both offer compelling examples about how shame is effective as a deterrent; Douthat's example occurs within the intimate relationships of a family. And there's a reason for that. We not only care about what our family members think, but we generally assume that they love us and have our best interests in mind. What I disagreed with in Dreher's post was the notion that we as a society should shame unwed mothers, because that acts as a deterrent against future pregnancy out of wedlock.
Douthat's example is compelling precisely because it assumes a relatively healthy family, one unstrained by social and economic circumstances. Shame is powerful as a deterrent within such a context, but I don't see how society as a whole can enforce those norms from the outside into neighborhoods affected by isolation and urban poverty. That type of shame, coming not from intimate family or friends but from outsiders, has the most potential, in my view, to spur resentment rather than "an amended life." It exists as stigma rather than the sort of tough love in Douthat's example, and part of the problem with stigma is that it is difficult to control and has every potential to be transferred to the child of an unwed mother. Ostensibly, part of what we're talking about is the breakdown of the family under circumstances of isolated urban poverty, but I don't see how that changes with a great deal of finger wagging from people who live in what is essentially a different world. Not because those people don't necessarily mean well, but because the love that makes shame such a powerful deterrent within a family, or even a neighborhood, doesn't exist in that context. Moreover, as with any isolated space, people are most concerned with making the people they know respect them, rather than society at large.
-- A. Serwer
