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  3. Once shame was a very British emotion. It governed people’s lives long after

Once shame was a very British emotion. It governed people’s lives long after

游客2023-12-21  22
问题    Once shame was a very British emotion. It governed people’s lives long after stocks and ducking stools were abolished. Shakespeare mentions it 344 times in his plays: guilt, a far more personal emotion, is used a mere 33 times. Society expected people to behave in a certain way and if they didn’t conform they were humiliated. By the 20th century it had became a highly negative force associated with cultural and sexual dictatorship and moral smugness. Carl Jung called it a "soul-eating emotion". It kept people in check in a way that in itself is now embarrassing. Alan Turing, shamed for committing homosexual acts, committed suicide. Single mothers were ostracised and sometimes incarcerated, their "bastard" children stigmatised. The poor house was a humiliation. The benefits system, when it was established, worked on shame.
   Bringing shame on one’s family was even worse than ruining one’s own reputation. The Times story yesterday of mothers who ring the police when their children misbehave could never have happened 50 years ago, when parents saw it as their duty to keep children under control. Men were expected to provide and women to keep their homes pristine or the neighbours would condemn you as slovenly. The same occurred in public life and the professions. Politicians resigned if they were caught misbehaving. A dishonest banker might no longer be sent to the pillory with dough on his head but would be cast out by his peers. There was little room for redemption.
   It is easy to see why the British abandoned shame during the latter part of the last century. It was corrosive and pernicious, a social straitjacket. Shameless instead became the new way to live. It was funny when Frank Gallagher in the Channel 4 sitcom promised: "I’ll always be there for you. As long as I’m collecting your benefits. " Fiddling the system was fine. Benefit claimants did it, as did bankers who saw no harm in flaunting their bonuses before and after being bailed out by the taxpayer. Gordon Brown’s elusive "moral compass" sounded outdated. Tony Blair seemed more in tune, refusing to be ashamed as did many MPs caught in the expenses scandal.
   But shame’s now back with a vengeance. This month two books have been published about it. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, by Jon Ronson, shows how shame is a driving force online. Cyber-lynchings ruin the lives of often naive men and women who don’t deserve international opprobrium for their mildly offensive tweet. The American environmentalist Jennifer Jacquet argues in Is Shame Necessary? that we need to rediscover shame to keep corporations and unscrupulous individuals in check. So do we want to welcome shame back? Not on the Internet. I recently met Monica Lewinsky, one of the first people to be humiliated on the world wide web 20 years ago. The former White House intern was charming, gracious and clever but her experience had been scarring. Her only crime was, at the age of 18, to have been seduced by Bill Clinton, yet she was hounded and bullied mercilessly by those assuming spurious moral superiority.
   In his book Ronson outlines a series of victims who have been put in the Internet stocks and pounded with virtual rotten vegetables. "A life had been ruined," he writes of one woman whose sarcastic tweet to friends "Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get Aids. Just kidding. I’m white!" cost her her job after a Twitter storm of protest. "What was it for: just some social media drama?" he asks. It was done for amusement, to belittle someone, watch them lose their job, and feel momentarily righteous. It’s a return to the medieval days of shaming as entertainment. In fact forcing lawbreakers to wear placards round their necks in reality or cyberspace is distinctly un-British. Worst of all is when the cybervictims have done nothing wrong but are vilified not, as they once were, for being gay or illegitimate, but for having cellulite or grey roots.
   But there is a need for some shame. Look at some of the corporations that evade paying tax. They appear to feel no embarrassment. And those who, at the other end of the income scale, who take pride in gaming the benefits system. But, as Jacquet writes, the mere threat of identifying and shaming someone can be effective. For many years, California state authorities have publicly listed the 500 wealthiest people who don’t pay their taxes, which has helped it to retrieve $ 395 million in back payments.
   Britain needs to differentiate between good and bad shame. Individuals should rarely be singled out, especially if they have not yet been tried for any alleged crime. The paedophile witch hunts against elderly men, tacitly encouraged by some in the police, can destroy lives before a trial. But the guilty -whether individuals or corporations—should feel shame. As Jonathan Swift said: "I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed. " [br] Why does the author say that the Times story of mothers who ring the police when their children misbehave "could never have happened 50 years ago"(para. 2)?
选项 A、Because the children were not allowed to misbehave at home.
B、Because the police had no duty to answer such calls then.
C、Because parents then considered it a shame to turn to police for help.
D、Because such parents would only be condemned by the neighbours then.
答案 C
解析
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