To think that social standards have slipped because people don’t feel shame anymore?

I know you didn't ask that question of me, but I'll answer anyway. I don't think shame informs decent behaviour. I think it provokes anxiety, dishonesty and bullying. I think it quashes truthful self examination, openness and clear communication.

I am alarmed at how shaming is becoming more prolific and more far reaching in the digital age, where anyone with an axe to grind can unleash a viral storm on person xyz going about their business and maybe having a bad day. I find the micro-examination of artistic contributors' motivations and proclivities to be stultifying and repressive and I am frustrated that it is everywhere, in everyday discourse. I am, also, horrified that young people are increasingly looking to organised religion, fascism and regulated misogyny as the answer to their atomised, disconnected lives.

Exactly.

Shame isn't useful at all. The sort of person who would feel shame after littering wouldn't deliberately litter in the first place.

I don't think this is true, especially where children are concerned.

I remember ripping the wrapper off an ice lolly and throwing it on the pavement outside the ice cream van.

My mum told me I should be ashamed of myself as I was old enough to know better (and I was, I was 8 years old!)

I remember quite vividly picking it up and putting it in my pocket until I found a bin, and I remember feeling ashamed.

It was that feeling that stopped me ever doing it again, even when my mum wasn't there.

And women were shamed for it. My old ma, born 1940, said people in the village threw stones at her mother when she was out and about with my mum in the pram, because she'd been visibly pregnant (with my mother) on the day she got married. So, it happened, but there were consequences.

"I used to teach in a massive secondary. All the kids wore black trainers. No one polished them. "

No, he has to wear black leather shoes to school and they do need polishing or they look awful.

My DD goes to a different school and she wears black Air Forces and no I don't polish those 😀

Why ? Do you not think an active sense of shame is what informs decent behaviour ?

I hope you can see that it isn't the fear of social shame that stops sexual abusers from abusing.

All social shame does is make them work harder to hide their actions.

Perpetrators of abuse need to be identified, stopped, and punished. We need to work hard on the causes of abuse and criminal activity so that the urge to offend is reduced because it's about choosing the right thing because it's the right thing. And finding ways to manage and contain those who are psychologically too unwell to do the right thing.

The polished shoes really touched me.

Maybe it was more important back in the day because people didn't have multiple pairs of shoes and the ones they had needed to last longer. And they were probably made of leather, not plastic, and needed nourishing. Or maybe, they had lived during a war and in the ration years that followed and old habits die hard, people took care of the little things and this was their way of showing gratitude for the things they had. Washing their cars, cutting their hedge, polishing their shoes, ironing their shirt. Occasionally, when I have the time to do these things, I feel a contentment, a sense of a job well done. And as far as shame goes, I think it's a paralysing and oppressive force, maybe having a conscience and a sense of conviction that I can do better is more empowering.

I used to teach in a massive secondary. All the kids wore black trainers. No one polished them. Do you polish trainers? Don’t they go in the washer?

Anyway what I’m trying to say is not many people wear leather structured shoes anymore. So less need to polish. Dh and ds both wear trainers all the time.

I've just cleaned and polished my teenage son's school shoes, because I think it's important.

He goes to a traditional, private boys' school where they try to instil in them that the little things count. So tuck your shirt in, polish your shoes, hold a door open for a teacher, etc.

I told him to polish his shoes last night before he went back to school today but obviously being 15 he didn't, and he's gone to bed now so I'm doing it, because it matters to me, and I think eventually it will matter to him too.

Yes we all have less time now, both parents working blah blah but standards are still important to me.

Surely you see that social shame is simply applied to the subjects of the day though?

Do you disagree that sexual abusers should be shamed, exploiters and groomers? Perpetrators of DV? People like Michelle Mone and corrupt businessmen?

These people have replaced the people we used to shame. You're ok with that I assume?

I remember my dad doing that.

Then ex Dh wouldn’t.

Then l stopped caring. No one seems to clean shoes anymore. I never do

I felt shame today because I immediately noticed the state of my grandchildren's shoes when my daughter dropped them off on her way to work this morning. I was cross that I felt I had to spend time scrubbing and polishing them when time is always tight before the school run.

I thought of my lovely dad who would take a sheet of newspaper and a box of different coloured tins of shoe polish, a brush and a yellow duster, and bring everyone's shoes to a beautiful shine every Sunday evening.

When I got to school I realised that everyone else's shoes were dirty, scuffed, shabby. In fact it seemed that there was some sort of competitive shabby shoe contest going on I didn't know about - the shabbier the better.

I kept thinking about it on and off all day and felt ashamed that I thought badly of my daughter who is a single, working mother of three ND children. I now don't know whether my cleaning her children's shoes has made her feel bad -
which makes me feel worse.

I now don't know whether to never do that again, or to keep doing it to 'help' her.

I have many, more important, things to worry about, but this has been on my mind a lot today.

Is it standards slipping? Or just a less
judgemental attitude?

Lots of societies do and they are said to be emotionally healthier than us.

Many people would find it suffocating and smothering. Perhaps the positives outweigh the negatives?

No it’s not, it’s part of a healthy functioning society.

You know, it reminds me a bit of the Overton Window, where 'people' or 'groups' with vested interests lobby government and campaign generally to slowly turn popular opinion to influence policy but in this case, these 'groups' and 'people' slowly influence us ... with influencers ... so that we accept more and more 'out there/radical ideas and behaviour which then benefits their agenda. What we have to figure out is who benefits from a drop in standards of public decency?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

We all know people had babies "early" from the dawn of time. But what my grandparents arranged was not that unusual in the 50s/60s.

How odd. People generally just claimed the baby was "early" even though it was patently obvious it wasn't. People have had babies "early" since the beginning of time.

Shame isn't useful at all. The sort of person who would feel shame after littering wouldn't deliberately litter in the first place.

It's feeling a sense of responsibility to yourself, your family, your friends and your community so that you do the right things because they are the right things not for fear of reprisal - whether that reprisal is shame, social shunning or legal punishments.

For example most people don't murder other people - not because they fear punishment but because they know it's the wrong thing to do. And those that do murder people do it despite the potential consequence - even when that consequence is losing their own life.

Perhaps we need to start teaching more about personal responsibility and social stewardship in schools from an early age.

I did! And it was a very happy childhood.

It was far from uncommon I can assure you. My grandparents were beyond themselves.

Babies were being born less than nine months after a wedding long before 1960 but I've never heard of such an elaborate scheme to avoid the scandal and the shame!

Have you any proof of that? I very much doubt it.