Guilt-Shame-Fear

*'Culture of blame' should be called 'culture of scapegoating'.*
In cultural anthropology, the distinction between a **guilt society** (or **guilt culture**), **shame society** (also **shame culture** or **honor-shame culture**), and a **fear society** (or culture of fear) has been used to categorize different cultures. The differences can apply to how behavior is governed with respect to government laws, business rules, or social etiquette. This classification has been applied especially to apollonian societies, sorting them according to the emotions they use to control individuals (especially children) and maintaining social order, swaying them into norm obedience and conformity.

* In a guilt society, control is maintained by creating and continually reinforcing the feeling of guilt (and the expectation of punishment now or in the afterlife) for certain condemned behaviors. The guilt-innocence world view focuses on law and punishment. This type of culture also emphasizes individual conscience.
	+ A person in this type of culture may ask, "Is my behavior moral or immoral?"
* In a shame society, the means of control is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism. The shame-honor worldview seeks an "honor balance" and can lead to revenge dynamics. Shame cultures are typically based on the concepts of pride and honour, and appearances are what count.
	+ A person in this type of culture may ask, "Shall I look ashamed if I do X?" or "How people will look at me if I do Y?"
* In a fear society, control is kept by the fear of retribution. Fear-Power worldview focuses on physical dominance.
	+ A person in this culture may ask, "Will someone hurt me if I do this?"

The terminology were popularized by Ruth Benedict in *The Chrysanthemum and the Sword*, who described American culture as a "guilt culture" and Japanese culture as a "shame culture".

Though the same person may emphasize different considerations depending on the situation, government and business projects that bring together people from different types of cultures may experience problems.

## Geographical distribution

* Guilt-Innocence: more associated with Islam, Christianity and Judaism
* Shame-Honour: more associated with Eastern religions
* Fear-Power: more associated with animist and tribal societies

## Guilt society

A **guilt society**, or **guilt culture** is a society in which the primary method of social control is the inculcation of feelings of guilt for behaviors that the individual believes to be undesirable.

### Features

A prominent feature of guilt societies is the provision of sanctioned releases from guilt for certain behaviors, whether before or after the fact. There is opportunity in such cases for authority figures to derive power, monetary and/or other advantages, etc. by manipulating the conditions of guilt and the forgiveness of guilt.

Paul Hiebert characterizes the guilt society as follows:

Guilt is a feeling that arises when we violate the absolute standards of morality within us, when we violate our conscience. A person may suffer from guilt although no one else knows of his or her misdeed; this feeling of guilt is relieved by confessing the misdeed and making restitution. True guilt cultures rely on an internalized conviction of sin as the enforcer of good behavior, not, as shame cultures do, on external sanctions. Guilt cultures emphasize punishment and forgiveness as ways of restoring the moral order; shame cultures stress self-denial and humility as ways of restoring the social order. (Hiebert 1985, 213)
### Victorian society

* Victorian society: Sex is dirty so lets not do it.
* Modern society: Sex is dirty so lets do it.

200 years of fighting against victorian prudishness has accomplished nothing worthwhile. (Sex will be dirty as long as the sun is in the sky).

The message that "sex isnt dirty" just gets twisted and becomes "its ok to be dirty".

Pornography is a form of trolling. It is not sexual. The intent of sex is to please and satisfy. The intent of pornography is to shock and offend. Erotica is sexual. Pornography is not.

## Shame society

In cultural anthropology, a **shame society**, also called **shame culture** or **honour-shame culture**, is a society in which the primary device for gaining control over children and maintaining social order is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism.

Shame cultures are typically based on the concepts of pride and honour, and appearances are what counts, as opposed to individual conscience in guilt cultures.

### China

In China, the concept of shame is widely accepted due to Confucian teachings. In *Analects*, Confucius is quoted as saying:

> Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously.
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### Japan

The society of traditional Japan was long held to be a good example of one in which shame is the primary agent of social control. The first book to cogently explain the workings of the Japanese society for the Western reader was *The Chrysanthemum and the Sword* by Ruth Benedict. This book was produced under less than ideal circumstances since it was written during the early years of World War II in an attempt to understand the people who had become such a powerful enemy of the West. Under the conditions of war, it was impossible to do field research in Japan.

Without being able to study in Japan, Benedict relied on newspaper clippings, histories, literature, films, and interviews of Japanese-Americans. Her studies came to conclusions about Japanese culture and society that are still widely criticized today, both in America and Japan.

### Romani

To the Roma, though living as local minorities in mostly Christian or Islamic societies, the concept of *lajav* ("shame") is important, while the concept of *bezax* ("sin") does not have such significance.

### England

Anglo-Saxon England is particularly notable as a shame culture, and this trait survived even after its conversion to Christianity, which is typically a guilt culture. Other examples of shame culture under Christianity are the cultures of Mexico, Andalusia and generally Christian Mediterranean societies.

## Culture of fear

Popularized by the American sociologist Barry Glassner, **culture of fear** (or **climate of fear**) is the concept that people may incite fear in the general public to achieve political or workplace goals through emotional bias.

### In politics

Main articles: Fear mongering, fascism
Nazi leader Hermann Göring explains how people can be made fearful and to support a war they otherwise would oppose:

> The people don't want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.
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In her book "State and Opposition in Military Brazil," Maria Helena Moreira Alves found a "culture of fear" was implemented as part of political repression since 1964. She used the term to describe methods implemented by the national security apparatus of Brazil in its effort to equate political participation with risk of arrest and torture.

Cassação (English: cassation) is one such mechanism used to punish members of the military by legally declaring them dead. This enhanced the potential for political control through intensifying the culture of fear as a deterrent to opposition.

Alves found the changes of the National Security Law of 1969, as beginning the use of "economic exploitation, physical repression, political control, and strict censorship" to establish a "culture of fear" in Brazil. The three psychological components of the culture of fear included silence through censorship, sense of isolation, and a "generalized belief that all channels of opposition were closed." A "feeling of complete hopelessness," prevailed, in addition to "withdrawal from opposition activity."

Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski argues that the use of the term War on Terror was intended to generate a culture of fear deliberately because it "obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue".

Frank Furedi, a former professor of Sociology and writer for *Spiked* magazine, says that today's culture of fear did not begin with the collapse of the World Trade Center. Long before September 11, he argues, public panics were widespread – on everything from GM crops to mobile phones, from global warming to foot-and-mouth disease. Like Durodié, Furedi argues that perceptions of risk, ideas about safety and controversies over health, the environment and technology have little to do with science or empirical evidence. Rather, they are shaped by cultural assumptions about human vulnerability. Furedi say that "we need a grown-up discussion about our post-September 11 world, based on a reasoned evaluation of all the available evidence rather than on irrational fears for the future.

See also: list of health scares
British academics Gabe Mythen and Sandra Walklate argue that following terrorist attacks in New York, the Pentagon, Madrid, and London, government agencies developed a discourse of "new terrorism" in a cultural climate of fear and uncertainty. UK researchers argued that these processes reduced notions of public safety and created the simplistic image of a non-white "terroristic other" that has negative consequences for ethnic minority groups in the UK.

In his 2004 BBC documentary film series, *The Power of Nightmares*, subtitled *The Rise of the Politics of Fear*, the journalist Adam Curtis argues that politicians have used our fears to increase their power and control over society. Though he does not use the term "culture of fear," what Curtis describes in his film is a reflection of this concept. He looks at the American neo-conservative movement and its depiction of the threat first from the Soviet Union and then from radical Islamists. Curtis insists there has been a largely illusory fear of terrorism in the west since the September 11 attacks and that politicians such as George W Bush and Tony Blair had stumbled on a new force to restore their power and authority; using the fear of an organised "web of evil" from which they could protect their people. Curtis's film castigated the media, security forces and the Bush administration for expanding their power in this way. The film features Bill Durodié, then Director of the International Centre for Security Analysis, and Senior Research Fellow in the International Policy Institute, King's College London, saying that to call this network an "invention" would be too strong a term, but he asserts that it probably does not exist and is largely a "(projection) of our own worst fears, and that what we see is a fantasy that's been created."

### In the workplace

Main articles: Organizational culture, Toxic workplace, Workplace bullying
Ashforth discussed potentially destructive sides of leadership and identified what he referred to as petty tyrants: leaders who exercise a tyrannical style of management, resulting in a climate of fear in the workplace. Partial or intermittent negative reinforcement can create an effective climate of fear and doubt. When employees get the sense that bullies are tolerated, a climate of fear may be the result. Several studies have confirmed a relationship between bullying, on one hand, and an autocratic leadership and an authoritarian way of settling conflicts or dealing with disagreements, on the other. An authoritarian style of leadership may create a climate of fear, with little or no room for dialogue and with complaining being considered futile.

In a study of public-sector union members, approximately one in five workers reported having considered leaving the workplace as a result of witnessing bullying taking place. Rayner explained the figures by pointing to the presence of a climate of fear in which employees considered reporting to be unsafe, where bullies had been tolerated previously despite management knowing of the presence of bullying. Individual differences in sensitivity to reward, punishment and motivation have been studied under the premises of reinforcement sensitivity theory and have also been applied to workplace performance. A culture of fear at the workplace runs contrary to the "key principles" established by W. Edwards Deming for managers to transform business effectiveness. One of his fourteen principles is to drive out fear in order to allow everyone to work effectively for the company.

### Impact of the media

The consumption of mass media has had a profound effect on instilling the fear of terrorism in the United States, though acts of terror are a rare phenomenon. Beginning in the 1960s, George Gerbner and his colleagues have accelerated the study of the relationship that exists between media consumption and the fear of crime. According to Gerbner, television and other forms of mass media create a worldview that is reflective of “recurrent media messages”, rather than one that is based on reality. Many Americans are exposed to some form of media on a daily basis, with television and social media platforms being the most used methods to receive both local and international news, and as such this is how most receive news and details that center around violent crime and acts of terror. With the rise in use of smartphones and social media, people are bombarded with constant news updates, and able to read stories related to terrorism, stories that come from all corners of the globe. Media fuels fear of terrorism and other threats to national security, all of which have negative psychological effects on the population, such as depression, anxiety, and insomnia. Politicians conduct interviews, televised or otherwise, and utilize their social media platforms immediately after violent crimes and terrorist acts, to further cement the fear of terrorism into the minds of their constituents.