Hags and Whores: American Sin and Shaming from Salem to Springer

Americans have always been obsessed with sin and shame. Our literature, our politics, and even our television shows reflect that obsession. The last decade seems particularly rife with shame-sins, their discovery, and the almost inevitable mea culpas. As the Clinton scandal incensed the right and embarrassed the left, the rhetoric ran toward America's loss of a "moral compass" and Clinton's "unspeakable behavior" (Novak 42). Jerry Falwell pronounced that September 11 was likely a punishment for Americans' sins- particularly the sins of lesbians, gays, and the ACLU. There are Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, Michael Vick, and, of course, trash television: Flavor of Love, The Bachelor, and The Jerry Springer Show. The ultimate forum for publicly displayed depravity, The Jerry Springer Show has clearly been something of a cultural phenomenon. Indeed with spin-offs including an opera and a drinking game, it has permeated both the high and low ends of American culture. Ubiquitous and compelling, Springer presents a sixty-minute review of the modern culture, chronicling the many sins currently corrupting the American landscape. In so doing, Jerry Springer appears to be a shorthand for the decline of American values. Ironically, while many cite The Jerry Springer Show's popularity as evidence of the decline of the culture, in fact, its popularity can probably be attributed to the opposite- to how truly, traditionally, "American" it is. Far from the anomaly we like to think it, Springer (like the Clinton trial and even the Falwell tirade) is merely a continuation of a deeply rooted part of American culture-the shaming ritual. As such, it taps into our closer-than-we-think relationship to our Puritan forbears, and our uneasiness with that closeness. Springer's long run is no fluke- it has flourished because of, not despite, our Puritan roots. Not unlike Springer fans, Puritans were fascinated with indecency. Public displays of depravity and shaming rituals were an entrenched part of the early Puritan culture in America. Puritans were obsessed with the depraved nature of humanity, and rooting out sin in themselves and in their neighbors and "brethren." The passing of several centuries has done little to quell this interest. Jerry Springer serves our need to find and deal with sin- just as the public stockades did. However, our disdain for elements of early American culture makes us uncomfortable with, even repulsed by, our own sin-seeking. And in our repulsion, we, even more than the Puritans before us, reveal our conflicted relationship to sin and revelation, loathing both sinner and accuser. While the culture remains puritanical, it also hates the Calvinist within. The early Puritans in America- their relation to sin, their enforced watchfulness and self-scrutiny, as well as their need to expose and exorcize, left a trace that can still be seen in today's culture. Our Puritanical behavior today- our continuing obsession with sin and shame, contemporary narratives of depravity, shaming rituals, and the ritual of confession and forgiveness- bears the mark of our rigid forbearers. Indeed, even the popularity and long-run of The Springer Show can be attributed to our penchant for rooting out sin, especially secret sin. From Samuel Sewall and Hawthorne's Reverend Dimsdale to Bill Clinton, Billy Graham, and Jesse Jackson, the theme of secret sin and repentance permeates American history. The point is, our Puritan roots are endlessly showing, as is our own uneasy relation to those roots. Puritans Then Watchfulness was a core element of the Calvinist culture. Because of their entwined notion of human depravity and God's grace, the Puritans had a tendency toward self-scrutiny. This self-examination was a first step toward rooting out the various evils and sins (to the best of one's obviously limited ability) in an attempt to become more worthy (less unworthy) of God's grace. In The Puritan Experience, Owen Watkins states the following: "The end of self-examination," said Richard Lucas, "is not only to know your faults, but to mend them. …