Parents tend to do some amount of shaming of their kids. I think that where the kids aren’t tough enough to ignore it, it really isn’t good for them.

Shunning people might be hurtful to them, depending on whether they realize they’re being shunned. But it’s much less obnoxious than shaming people.

On the other hand, societies do have to have mores, else they disintegrate; at which point I believe there is real physical danger from those who think that whatever they do is now okay.

And it is certainly a mistake to try to make illegal all that which might perturb or even be emotionally hurtful or downright damaging to some people. Because legal punishments are applications of force against people who are wrongdoers (who act against the legal code, that is), they should not be used except where the convicted have themselves appropriated some portion of the property or life of an (innocent) victim.

So shaming and shunning would seem to be the only recourse that people have to discourage the wronging of innocent others, where the wronging does not rise to the level of purposeful physical harm or damage to others’ persons or property.

But I still find it all but impossible to bring myself to shame a particular person. Better to sock him in the jaw and be done with it.

… I am not the only one to have pointed out that life requires judgment, which is often a pain. Life is a balancing act: there are always tradeoffs ™, and Everything Has a Downside™. Sometimes shaming seems the best, least hurtful way to proceed.

And sometimes, all it does is to get the target’s back up.

<a href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Flowres.cartoonstock.com%2Ffashion-tuxedo-sheep_ranch-ranch-rancher-sheep-tmcn2451_low.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cartoonstock.com%2Fdirectory%2Ff%2Fformal_friday.asp&docid=mjkC3ev-7eef_M&tbnid=7NYPwxAjSPu6zM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjB-ajJgILfAhUq1oMKHVWFAHwQMwg9KAAwAA..i&w=400&h=422&bih=578&biw=1229&q=cartoon%20formal%20friday&ved=0ahUKEwjB-ajJgILfAhUq1oMKHVWFAHwQMwg9KAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8"This one lampoons the pushback to Casual Friday, which had rapidly become Casual Weekday.

(I can’t get the hypertext to work, I suspect the URL is too long)

There is a folk song from the founding era of Texas that goes —
Oh, what was your name in the States?
Was it Thompson, or Johnson, or Bates?
Did you murder your wife, and then flee for your life?
Oh, what was your name in the States?

Public shaming/shunning was also a control technique used to punish and curb behavior outside the norm. All of these techniques could be misused or go awry. But, in general, they were useful and worthwhile things.

As we’ve seen, very amply demonstrated all around us, dressing down, lax—or no—manners, and informality encourage other—and often poor—types of behavior. They allow for a much wider range of behavior, much of it thoughtless, rude, and hostile in nature.

As for shunning/shaming people, what worked early in our country’s history—in a very religiously oriented, tight-knit society, composed of relatively isolated small communities, where everyone knew everyone else, and reputation was all—does not at all work in big cites composed of largely anonymous residents.

Or, in a society that is widely dispersed geographically, whose citizens have access to long distance, high speed transportation, where—unless you are of major interest—you can easily escape notoriety in one area for another area or even another country, far away, where it is likely no one knows you.

As Judeo-Christian values continue to diminish, and our society gets more and more geographically dispersed, shaming just doesn’t work very well either, especially with people—Politicians and the Info/Entertainment Industry, I’m especially looking at you—who have no actual sense of shame, because they have convinced themselves that absolutely nothing is “abnormal” or “beyond the pale” in terms of behavior, and thus they should not have any shame, no matter what acts they might commit.

For example, the downtown center city Philadelphia of my 1950s-1960s “yout” was most often filled with well-dressed men and women–the men in suits, hats, and shined leather shoes, the women in dresses, and sometimes hats. It appeared that “going out” was an occasion, and people dressed up for it.

The denizens of today’s downtown center city Philadelphia more often look like escapees from a DP camp, and nary a suit or dress in sight. If I had to guess, I’d say that–except for rare occasions, like weddings or the Prom, and sometimes not even then–(take a look at some of the horrendous wedding and prom pictures on the Web)–most people today dressed as if they were going out to do some dirty chore–say, get under their car while changing the oil, or to do a little huntin’.

It’s really depressing.