5 Things Americans Should Still Be Ashamed Of Doing

16 There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community. — Proverbs 6:16-19

The only time most people hear the word “shame” in any setting these days is when someone tells them, “You don’t have to be ashamed.” Unfortunately, in a society full of reality TV shows, overhyped marketing, and millions of people competing for attention on the Internet, we could use more shame, not less. The fact of the matter is that shame can be a very healthy emotion if you’ve done something shameful. Shouldn’t rapists feel shame? How about the Westboro Baptist Church members who’ve protested at funerals? What if you stole a poor kid’s lunch and it was the only thing he had to eat that day? There are times when shame is very appropriate.

Unfortunately, in an interconnected world where every malcontent, misfit, and misanthrope on the planet can get together via the Internet, there is no perversion, sickness, or cruelty that human beings can do to each other that won’t be heartily applauded in some dark corner of the web. Over a decade ago talented liberal humorist Zack Parsons (who would undoubtedly hate this column) wrote an extraordinary piece about how the net helps encourage shameful and weird behavior.

…I’ve talked about how the Internet enables pedophiles, furries, and others to congregate and share ideas, but I only briefly touched on the most important aspect of this. In the endless expanse of communications the Internet is, probably the greatest and most terrible gift it offers to furries, pedophiles, and others, is the ability to shut themselves off from the mainstream. They huddle in cloisters that are virtually unassailable by the outside world and whisper encouraging things to one another that would be nearly impossible to say in real life. Free from the pressures of society to conform to a boring standard they go in the exact opposite direction, externalizing things that are roughly as far from “normal” as can be expected. Then, within their protected virtual enclaves, they declare these things to be the norm. By declaring their perversions, mores, and general imbecility to be their own status quo they have simultaneously validated their own existence and demonstrated the inferiority of outsiders.

A sense of belonging and community is disturbing and sad in the hands of furries and downright dangerous in the hands of pedophiles. Nonetheless, this is what the Internet has given to these groups, and it can be both a peril to the members and, in the case of menaces like pedophiles, a peril to the rest of us….

Unfortunately, the Internet isn’t Vegas and what happens here, doesn’t stay here. The mentality spawned by the Internet has infected our whole culture like a virus. No matter what sort of stupidity or evil that people engage in, they’ll find legions of supporters telling them how wonderful it is or at least saying, “Judge not, lest ye judge.” Well, we may not be in a position to judge whether someone is going to heaven or not, but a society where people no longer feel shame for bad behavior is destined to take a long, inglorious spiral into a sewer — sort of like Miley Cyrus’s career.

1) Acting Like A Skank In Public: Speaking of Miley Cyrus, remember when she was the wholesome, kid-friendly Hannah Montana? Well, as she aged out of the Disney demographic, the music executives promoting her decided she needed to change her image and the easiest way to do it was to act like the world’s biggest skank in public. So, she twerked her way through a nasty performance at the VMAs and has been skanking it up ever since. She’s not the first to do it or even the best at it. Madonna beat her to the punch. But from Miley Cyrus’s perspective, the important thing is that it worked. She broke with her wholesome image and became a bigger star. But, at what cost to her and to other people? How many little girls who were Hannah Montana fans now think it’s cool to act like a prostitute in public to get the attention of boys? Nobody is saying women should wear ankle length skirts and always be prim and proper to be decent (Well, I’m certainly not saying it anyway), but if you act like a skank, men will view you as a skank and treat you as a skank. Even if you’re not ashamed of that, the people who raised you probably are and they should be.

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