There is shame because of the innate feeling that there was life and now I have participated in ending it. The baby was a part of me and I held it's life in my hands and now it is gone. I have counseled so many women who have regretted their abortions. Some say they didn't want to go thru with it, but felt pressured, some came to realization later on and wondered why it had bothered them for so long. Post abortive women should seek counseling, there is freedom and there is release.
After I had my first abortion I was shamed for feeling grief. To the point teachers would punish me if I skipped class to see my counselor, and my mother actually rang and abused the counselor for speaking to me. "Get over it" was said to me more than once, by more than one person. I think this is why I found my second abortion so easy, as I knew it was more socially acceptable to have an abortion than to grieve one. I think that's the idea of abortion shame shaming, to make people accept abortion as normal.
I feel for you. I also have seen commenters who believe in abortion "rights" sneer at women who have had abortions and then publicly turned against abortion as a practice, despite the fact abortion seemed to obtain for them a nice house and car rather than the dumpster. If it's really a product of religious brainwashing then why do people have to suppress an inward grief that is unrelated to religion?? Advocates for abortion are not always honest about these things. Hugs.
About "abortion practitioner," which as you note, Josh, is pulled in from the other post and the ensuing comment thread: one thing that I think "practitioner" misses, that "provider" gets, is the relationship involved. "Practitioner" kind of implies an activity that the practitioner can be doing all on their own, whether or not anyone else is participating, while "provider" gets at the fact that there is a relationship involved, between the person doing the abortion and the person getting one. Whether you prefer to think of it as a purchase transaction, as Kelsey said on the other thread, or as a gift, or as a healthcare service, or whatever, the fact remains that we are trying to find a term for the person who is "doing" an abortion for someone else. We are not talking about people who do their own abortions (I suspect) but about people who perform them or facilitate them for others. It is the "for others" that inclines me toward "provider" rather than "practitioner." Anyway, not a biggie, just some further thoughts. I don't believe that pointing out that stigmatizing people who do abortions has is harmful to them and to their patients is the same thing as saying that no one should offer moral criticism in public. (For what it's worth, I made more or less this same observation on the other thread: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/joshbrahm/question_what_would_be_a_better_word_than_8220abortionist8221/#comment-2128864164.) Where are these pro-choice people who are saying that public debate or criticism is out of bounds? I don't think there really are any, and so for you to argue against that position in the post above is, I think, to argue against a strawman. Stigmatization, on the other hand, is so much more than (even vehement) public debate. I'm no expert, but there seems to be a whole sociological literature dealing with stigmatization in this strong sense. A few samples from Google (and Acyutananda, this part is for you too): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stigma http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/2757548/Klienman_StigmaSocialCultural.pdf?sequence=2 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15709941 http://www.mentalhealth.wa.gov.au/mental_illness_and_health/mh_stigma.aspx Does this mean I think you shouldn't publicly criticize certain behaviors? No. I think there are ways of disagreeing with someone and of trying to persuade them to act differently that don't require believing them to be monsters who deserve lesser treatment or even harassment. I know this is partly an argument about definitions. But also, despite your disavowals (which I appreciate) of the most explicitly harmful behaviors that sometimes go by the name "pro-life," I do worry that one effect of your efforts here will be to lend a veneer of reasonableness to the very real cultural stigmatization (in the strong sense) of abortion, which ultimately leads us back to those most explicitly harmful behaviors. [Lightly edited for clarity.]
S.E. Cupp yesterday http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-planned-parenthood-abortion-cupp-perspec-0720-jm-20150717-story.html: But Nucatola can speak that way because our culture has so aggressively normalized what used to be a lamentable, last, worst option for a woman. In their zeal to make abortion culturally acceptable to a religious and center-right country, abortion supporters removed a necessary and important stigma that should exist so that teenagers weigh the consequences of sex, and so that women think very carefully about taking the lives of their unborn children. I am certain many women do, but that’s not thanks to Planned Parenthood’s cavalier sales pitches.
P.S.: From the links related to the stigma scholars that you provided, I get the impression that your "harassment of abortion providers, harassment of abortion-seekers, violence against clinic staff, picketing of the schools attended by the children of people who own property occupied by a medical practice where abortions are performed—all that" is even stronger than their strong sense necessarily is. Would you agree with that? I had said: "I have the feeling that 'harassment of abortion providers [etc.]' is a definition of 'stigma' that has developed only in very recent decades and only in limited circles of society, such as pro-choice activists . . ." Might that def. be prevalent only in pro-choice circles?
Hi, Acyutananda, I just came across this instance of what we have been calling the strong sense of stigmatization, which reminded me to check in on this thread: "the continued suffering of a people stigmatized since their arrival on these shores" It's talking about the experience of Blacks in the U.S. (including from before it was the U.S.). Briefly, on this definitional issue, I would find it easier to believe that the strong meaning of stigma was original and that the not-strong meaning developed from it. Think of how strong words such as awful, awesome, terrible, wonderful, and so on used to be. But they also have their less-strong senses now. About this comment of mine: "I do worry that one effect of your efforts here will be to lend a veneer of reasonableness to the very real cultural stigmatization (in the strong sense) of abortion, which ultimately leads us back to those most explicitly harmful behaviors." I made a conscious choice here to share my personal perspective rather than tell Josh what to do, hence "I worry" rather than "you shouldn't" (your paraphrase). Also, you mentioned smokers. Your comment gets directly at my question: is the price exacted through stigmatization—even in the less-strong sense, since personally I worry about what it gives cover to—is the price exacted through stigmatization worth whatever change in behavior may or may not result? For example, your comment assumes that it's better to think poorly of yourself than to smoke regularly. I don't think that is self-evident, and I also don't think that's a judgment call that other people should be making for the smoker—or for people who do abortions or who get them.
Thanks. "I would find it easier to believe that the strong meaning of stigma was original" I agree that the original Greek meaning seems to have been strong. What I had suggested was that by the time it entered the English language, it was not strong. I would guess it might have become figurative. I would guess a not-strong meaning might have been around in English for centuries before Goffman. Further research, I guess. How does Hawthorne use it? "your comment assumes that it's better to think poorly of yourself than to smoke regularly." No, my comment doesn't assume that there is any group who smoke little or don't smoke at all yet think poorly of themselves. My comment was: "The stigmatization of smokers may have resulted in low self-esteem for them, but a lot of people have been deterred from smoking for fear of being stigmatized, so overall hasn't that stigmatization been good?" The good is the numbers of people deterred from smoking for fear of being stigmatized, who neither smoke nor have low self-esteem. They may never have smoked. Similarly, someone deterred from getting abortion or performing abortion, for fear of being stigmatized, would neither abort nor have low self-esteem. Now I have further edited the edited part of my "Thanks. First let's just focus on semantics" post.
Thanks. First let's just focus on semantics. At an early point you characterize yourself in this way: "pointing out that stigmatizing people who do abortions [is] harmful to them and to their patients" You soon go on, referring back to your word "stigmatizing": "Stigmatization, on the other hand, is so much more than (even vehement) public debate. I'm no expert, but there seems to be a whole sociological literature dealing with stigmatization in this strong sense." So here you have made it clear, semantically, that there are (at least) two senses of "stigmatizing/stigmatization," strong and not-strong, and that when you had said "harmful," it referred only to the strong sense. "I know this is partly an argument about definitions." Yes. And let's go on about definitions/semantics. But first, regarding "partly," what is the other part of the argument, where we go beyond semantics? You say to Josh Brahm: "I do worry that one effect of your efforts [championing stigmatizing in the not-strong sense] here will be to lend a veneer of reasonableness to the very real cultural stigmatization (in the strong sense) of abortion, which ultimately leads us back to those most explicitly harmful behaviors." Your argument here could be paraphrased this way: "What you say is correct (under the not-strong def. of 'stigma'), but you shouldn't say it because it may be misunderstood." I wouldn't consider this "shouldn't" to be always a wrong position. It might possibly be a good position as related to abortion in a cultural context where many people think that the strong sense of "stigma" is the only sense. But we can see how a general principle of "don't say anything correct if it might be misunderstood" might be problematical. Now back to semantics: "there seems to be a whole sociological literature dealing with stigmatization in this strong sense." On the previous page I had said (first quoting you): "I have the feeling that 'harassment of abortion providers, harassment of abortion-seekers, violence against clinic staff, picketing of the schools attended by the children of people who own property occupied by a medical practice where abortions are performed—all that' is a definition of 'stigma' that has developed only in very recent decades and only in limited circles of society, such as pro-choice activists, and has not entered any reputable dictionary." But from the links that you have provided, it seems that the mutation of the word stigma that I had noticed had a more academic origin than I had been aware of, and did not center around the abortion issue as narrowly as I had thought. Erving Goffman. . . . defined stigma as: The phenomenon whereby an individual with an attribute which is deeply discredited by his/her society is rejected as a result of the attribute. Stigma is a process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity. That was in 1963. By the time that def. (your "stigmatization in this strong sense") might have caught on, I had already finished college. Here is an example, just found on the internet, of the not-strong meaning that I grew up with: In our always-busy culture, doing nothing carries a stigma. The Wikipedia says: Stigma is a Greek word that in its origins referred to a type of marking or tattoo that was cut or burned into the skin But as of centuries ago, as the word became used in English at least, I think the necessity of a proactive branding got lost. The Oxford dictionary says: a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person There's no indication how the mark got there. The Oxford says that in medicine, the word means: a visible sign or characteristic of a disease The mark was caused by the disease, not by any human agency. Of course a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person does involve human minds, but in the example of In our always-busy culture, doing nothing carries a stigma, it doesn't involve "harassment, violence, picketing of the schools attended by the children," etc., as you defined it on the other page. So as I said, I simply define "stigma" as "the bad reputation of an action." Josh Brahm, though of a much younger generation than mine, defined it similarly on the other page: "thought of as not morally benign" (as applied to an action). Surely it's good for serial killing, for example, to have a bad reputation (I think your position is in line with this). I think that for the sake of clarity of language, it would have been better for the authors of that sociological literature to have coined some new term, such as "destructive stigma," rather than to appropriate an existing word and redefine it, and expect everybody to get on board with that new meaning. It seems that those scholars or some of their followers have tried consciously or unconsciously to impose their definition on everybody. Or maybe there was no such agency involved -- maybe some people just grew up with the new meaning, and therefore, if they ever encountered the original meaning, they branded it as less-than, etc. Some questions remain for me about what I have called "destructive stigmatization" (your "stigmatization in this strong sense"):
If there seems to have been a conscious or unconscious attempt to appropriate and redefine a particular word, even if there was some valuable academic thinking involved, does everybody have to get on board with the new meaning? (See my "It might possibly be a good position" above.)
Do those stigma scholars indicate consciousness of the fact that they are engaged in an exercise of redefining?
Even if stigmatization is destructive on the one hand, do those scholars necessarily think that, overall, stigma is a bad thing? Certainly one gets that impression. For instance, the Harvard page says: definitions of stigma directly inform efforts to empirically research and combat stigma. But academics are capable of studying things without making any normative judgments. What about this, also on the Harvard page -- smoking has become increasingly stigmatized, and smoking rates in the U.S. have substantially dropped
-- ? The stigmatization of smokers may have resulted in low self-esteem for them, but a lot of people have been deterred from smoking for fear of being stigmatized, so overall hasn't that stigmatization been good? If we were to read tomorrow -- abortion has become increasingly stigmatized, and abortion rates in the U.S. have substantially dropped -- we might rightly have mixed feelings about it, but overall, [Edit: might that not be good news (the lesser of the two evils), if the abortion rates had really dropped substantially and the "destruction" (mostly to abortionists -- not literal destruction, but perhaps low self-esteem) by the stigmatization was only modest]? In fact, a recent Atlantic article http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/why-is-the-abortion-rate-falling/383300/ said: Since 1990. . . . the pro-life movement really does seem to have changed American minds about the morality of abortion. Only about one-fifth of Americans wish to see abortion outlawed--a proportion that has remained steady since the mid-1970s. But the proportion that thinks abortion is wrong has edged up over the past 15 years: Only 38 percent of Americans now describe abortion as 'morally acceptable.' According to this, there has been stigmatization at least in the not-strong, not-destructive sense, and it has had some good results. 4. If someone is beating his child, tying his child up, etc., might it sometimes be a more personal and humane approach for the neighbors to get together and harass that parent rather than send that parent to jail? These are just some thoughts. I don't think that at this point I'll come to any operative conclusion / recommendation. How did Hawthorne use "stigma"? I believe that somewhere Leah Torres said that on http://leahtorres.com/ she would also write about stigma at some point.
Ironically, it seems that guilt or shame(I'm still confused on the different between those two) can be counterproductive in many cases. When people are faced with an accusation of having done something wrong, they then go into a sort of denial and try to convince themselves and others that they did the right thing.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, guilt is "a bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking that you have done something bad or wrong" while shame is "a feeling of guilt, regret, or sadness that you have because you know you have done something wrong" My sense is that there is slightly more difference than that. I would say that guilt is a sense of having done something wrong, while shame is when that sense rubs off on your self-image, so that you develop a negative self-image. But I would say that the two inevitably go together, and that both are salutary if you really have done something wrong, and that both will be cured when you stop doing wrong and try if possible to atone for it. So I haven't yet seen the advantage of using "guilt" rather than "shame." But there may be something in the present American collective consciousness that I'm missing.
By this definition I would Definately say I had abortion guilt, and abortion guilt shame. Because i was more worried about my self image for feeling guilt about the abortion than for having an abortion. In australia having an abortion is more acceptable than feeling guilt about it.
I appreciate your sharing your story. For one thing, the story is enlightening about one kind of pro-choice attitude. I think that attitude is to be found in some pro-choice circles in the US, also. But just to make sure we're on the same page about definitions: by "self-image" I mean your picture of yourself, positive or negative -- a picture that makes you happy or makes you unhappy when you look at it. If others have a negative picture of me, that won't necessarily cause my picture of myself to become negative. Under some circumstances, it may make me think "I must be doing something right" -- ! But if I have to admit that I really have done something wrong, OR if I am unduly affected by the opinions of others, then I will internalize their negative picture of me, and I will feel "guilt that rubs off on my self-image" -- my internal picture of myself will become negative (which I call shame).
The first dictionary def. I find for "shame" as a verb is "cause to feel ashamed." People who have done wrong can benefit from feeling ashamed. But in recent times that verb may have acquired a connotation, especially in some circles, of "coming from an uncharitable attitude, cause to feel ashamed." It doesn't need to have that connotation, but here we get into philological territory. We should try as far as possible to extricate the real issue from the philology and semantics. The real issue is, "Is it or is it not sometimes good, coming from the right attitude, to cause someone to feel ashamed?" I think it is sometimes good. I have benefited from being caused to feel ashamed, maybe even when the shaming person's attitude wasn't lily-white.
Paid for an abortion long ago. I feel no shame. It was moral. For my wife and I, determined to be childfree, it was the right thing to do. Had any protestor tried to stop us, I'd have bashed them in the head with a breaker bar. You don't like abortion, DON'T FUCKING HAVE ONE. You are on the wrong side of history. Live with that.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about philosophers such as Peter Singer and Micheal Tooley, who honestly believe that infants aren't persons because they lack full self-awareness and the ability to process rational thoughts, and thus infanticide should be legal and is a moral option in some cases, such as when the infant has a disability? It seems to me that one could use the same arguments that you are using here, such "If you don't like infanticide, don't kill your infant, but don't force your anti-infanticide values on those who don't share your belief that infants are persons."
Except that fetuses are not infants. Claiming that a fetus, even in the third trimester, is a person is not being “pro-life.” It is engaging in Voodoo & Witchcraft by trying to create human life where there is none. It is usurping God and his very clear instructions on when human life begins: • Genesis 2:7 - … and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. • Job 33:4 - The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. • Ezekiel 37:5 - … I will make breath[a] enter you, and you will come to life.
I don't get my definition of personhood from the bible, sorry. And fetuses in utero take in oxygen and excrete carbon dioxide via the umbilical cord. Saying that they don't breathe simply because they don't use their lungs to do so is like saying that someone who is in a wheelchair doesn't get around simply because they don't use legs in order to do so.
I also have seen commenters who believe in abortion "rights" sneer at women who have had abortions and then publicly turned against abortion as a practice, despite the fact abortion seemed to obtain for them a nice house and car rather than the dumpster.
If it's really a product of religious brainwashing then why do people have to suppress an inward grief that is unrelated to religion??
Advocates for abortion are not always honest about these things.
Hugs.
I don't believe that pointing out that stigmatizing people who do abortions has is harmful to them and to their patients is the same thing as saying that no one should offer moral criticism in public. (For what it's worth, I made more or less this same observation on the other thread: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/joshbrahm/question_what_would_be_a_better_word_than_8220abortionist8221/#comment-2128864164.) Where are these pro-choice people who are saying that public debate or criticism is out of bounds? I don't think there really are any, and so for you to argue against that position in the post above is, I think, to argue against a strawman.
Stigmatization, on the other hand, is so much more than (even vehement) public debate. I'm no expert, but there seems to be a whole sociological literature dealing with stigmatization in this strong sense. A few samples from Google (and Acyutananda, this part is for you too):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stigma
http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/2757548/Klienman_StigmaSocialCultural.pdf?sequence=2
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15709941
http://www.mentalhealth.wa.gov.au/mental_illness_and_health/mh_stigma.aspx
Does this mean I think you shouldn't publicly criticize certain behaviors? No. I think there are ways of disagreeing with someone and of trying to persuade them to act differently that don't require believing them to be monsters who deserve lesser treatment or even harassment.
I know this is partly an argument about definitions. But also, despite your disavowals (which I appreciate) of the most explicitly harmful behaviors that sometimes go by the name "pro-life," I do worry that one effect of your efforts here will be to lend a veneer of reasonableness to the very real cultural stigmatization (in the strong sense) of abortion, which ultimately leads us back to those most explicitly harmful behaviors.
[Lightly edited for clarity.]
But Nucatola can speak that way because our culture has so aggressively normalized what used to be a lamentable, last, worst option for a woman. In their zeal to make abortion culturally acceptable to a religious and center-right country, abortion supporters removed a necessary and important stigma that should exist so that teenagers weigh the consequences of sex, and so that women think very carefully about taking the lives of their unborn children. I am certain many women do, but that’s not thanks to Planned Parenthood’s cavalier sales pitches.
"I have the feeling that 'harassment of abortion providers [etc.]' is a definition of 'stigma' that has developed only in very recent decades and only in limited circles of society, such as pro-choice activists . . ."
Might that def. be prevalent only in pro-choice circles?
I just came across this instance of what we have been calling the strong sense of stigmatization, which reminded me to check in on this thread:
"the continued suffering of a people stigmatized since their arrival on these shores"
It's talking about the experience of Blacks in the U.S. (including from before it was the U.S.).
Briefly, on this definitional issue, I would find it easier to believe that the strong meaning of stigma was original and that the not-strong meaning developed from it. Think of how strong words such as awful, awesome, terrible, wonderful, and so on used to be. But they also have their less-strong senses now.
About this comment of mine:
"I do worry that one effect of your efforts here will be to lend a veneer of reasonableness to the very real cultural stigmatization (in the strong sense) of abortion, which ultimately leads us back to those most explicitly harmful behaviors."
I made a conscious choice here to share my personal perspective rather than tell Josh what to do, hence "I worry" rather than "you shouldn't" (your paraphrase).
Also, you mentioned smokers. Your comment gets directly at my question: is the price exacted through stigmatization—even in the less-strong sense, since personally I worry about what it gives cover to—is the price exacted through stigmatization worth whatever change in behavior may or may not result? For example, your comment assumes that it's better to think poorly of yourself than to smoke regularly. I don't think that is self-evident, and I also don't think that's a judgment call that other people should be making for the smoker—or for people who do abortions or who get them.
"I would find it easier to believe that the strong meaning of stigma was original"
I agree that the original Greek meaning seems to have been strong. What I had suggested was that by the time it entered the English language, it was not strong. I would guess it might have become figurative. I would guess a not-strong meaning might have been around in English for centuries before Goffman. Further research, I guess. How does Hawthorne use it?
"your comment assumes that it's better to think poorly of yourself than to smoke regularly."
No, my comment doesn't assume that there is any group who smoke little or don't smoke at all yet think poorly of themselves. My comment was:
"The stigmatization of smokers may have resulted in low self-esteem for
them, but a lot of people have been deterred from smoking for fear of
being stigmatized, so overall hasn't that stigmatization been good?"
The good is the numbers of people deterred from smoking for fear of
being stigmatized, who neither smoke nor have low self-esteem. They may never have smoked. Similarly, someone deterred from getting abortion or performing abortion, for fear of
being stigmatized, would neither abort nor have low self-esteem.
Now I have further edited the edited part of my "Thanks. First let's just focus on semantics" post.
"pointing out that stigmatizing people who do abortions [is] harmful to them and to their patients"
You soon go on, referring back to your word "stigmatizing":
"Stigmatization, on the other hand, is so much more than (even vehement) public debate. I'm no expert, but there seems to be a whole sociological literature dealing with stigmatization in this strong sense."
So here you have made it clear, semantically, that there are (at least) two senses of "stigmatizing/stigmatization," strong and not-strong, and that when you had said "harmful," it referred only to the strong sense.
"I know this is partly an argument about definitions."
Yes. And let's go on about definitions/semantics. But first, regarding "partly," what is the other part of the argument, where we go beyond semantics? You say to Josh Brahm:
"I do worry that one effect of your efforts [championing stigmatizing in the not-strong sense] here will be to lend a veneer of reasonableness to the very real cultural stigmatization (in the strong sense) of abortion, which ultimately leads us back to those most explicitly harmful behaviors."
Your argument here could be paraphrased this way: "What you say is correct (under the not-strong def. of 'stigma'), but you shouldn't say it because it may be misunderstood."
I wouldn't consider this "shouldn't" to be always a wrong position. It might possibly be a good position as related to abortion in a cultural context where many people think that the strong sense of "stigma" is the only sense. But we can see how a general principle of "don't say anything correct if it might be misunderstood" might be problematical.
Now back to semantics:
"there seems to be a whole sociological literature dealing with stigmatization in this strong sense."
On the previous page I had said (first quoting you):
"I have the feeling that 'harassment of abortion providers, harassment of abortion-seekers, violence against clinic staff, picketing of the schools attended by the children of people who own property occupied by a medical practice where abortions are performed—all that' is a definition of 'stigma' that has developed only in very recent decades and only in limited circles of society, such as pro-choice activists, and has not entered any reputable dictionary."
But from the links that you have provided, it seems that the mutation of the word stigma that I had noticed had a more academic origin than I had been aware of, and did not center around the abortion issue as narrowly as I had thought.
Erving Goffman. . . . defined stigma as: The phenomenon whereby an individual with an attribute which is deeply discredited by his/her society is rejected as a result of the attribute. Stigma is a process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity.
That was in 1963. By the time that def. (your "stigmatization in this strong sense") might have caught on, I had already finished college.
Here is an example, just found on the internet, of the not-strong meaning that I grew up with:
In our always-busy culture, doing nothing carries a stigma.
The Wikipedia says: Stigma is a Greek word that in its origins referred to a type of marking or tattoo that was cut or burned into the skin
But as of centuries ago, as the word became used in English at least, I think the necessity of a proactive branding got lost. The Oxford dictionary says:
a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person
There's no indication how the mark got there. The Oxford says that in medicine, the word means:
a visible sign or characteristic of a disease
The mark was caused by the disease, not by any human agency.
Of course a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person does involve human minds, but in the example of In our always-busy culture, doing nothing carries a stigma, it doesn't involve "harassment, violence, picketing of the schools attended by the children," etc., as you defined it on the other page.
So as I said, I simply define "stigma" as "the bad reputation of an action."
Josh Brahm, though of a much younger generation than mine, defined it similarly on the other page: "thought of as not morally benign" (as applied to an action).
Surely it's good for serial killing, for example, to have a bad reputation (I think your position is in line with this).
I think that for the sake of clarity of language, it would have been better for the authors of that sociological literature to have coined some new term, such as "destructive stigma," rather than to appropriate an existing word and redefine it, and expect everybody to get on board with that new meaning. It seems that those scholars or some of their followers have tried consciously or unconsciously to impose their definition on everybody. Or maybe there was no such agency involved -- maybe some people just grew up with the new meaning, and therefore, if they ever encountered the original meaning, they branded it as less-than, etc.
Some questions remain for me about what I have called "destructive stigmatization" (your "stigmatization in this strong sense"):
- If there seems to have been a conscious or unconscious attempt to appropriate and redefine a particular word, even if there was some valuable academic thinking involved, does everybody have to get on board with the new meaning? (See my "It might possibly be a good position" above.)
- Do those stigma scholars indicate consciousness of the fact that they are engaged in an exercise of redefining?
- Even if stigmatization is destructive on the one hand, do those scholars necessarily think that, overall, stigma is a bad thing? Certainly one gets that impression. For instance, the Harvard page says: definitions of stigma directly inform efforts to empirically research and combat stigma. But academics are capable of studying things without making any normative judgments. What about this, also on the Harvard page --
-- ?smoking has become increasingly stigmatized, and smoking rates in the U.S. have substantially dropped
The stigmatization of smokers may have resulted in low self-esteem for them, but a lot of people have been deterred from smoking for fear of being stigmatized, so overall hasn't that stigmatization been good? If we were to read tomorrow --
abortion has become increasingly stigmatized, and abortion rates in the U.S. have substantially dropped
-- we might rightly have mixed feelings about it, but overall, [Edit: might that not be good news (the lesser of the two evils), if the abortion rates had really dropped substantially and the "destruction" (mostly to abortionists -- not literal destruction, but perhaps low self-esteem) by the stigmatization was only modest]?
In fact, a recent Atlantic article http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/why-is-the-abortion-rate-falling/383300/ said:
Since 1990. . . . the pro-life movement really does seem to have changed American minds about the morality of abortion. Only about one-fifth of Americans wish to see abortion outlawed--a proportion that has remained steady since the mid-1970s. But the proportion that thinks abortion is wrong has edged up over the past 15 years: Only 38 percent of Americans now describe abortion as 'morally acceptable.'
According to this, there has been stigmatization at least in the not-strong, not-destructive sense, and it has had some good results.
4. If someone is beating his child, tying his child up, etc., might it sometimes be a more personal and humane approach for the neighbors to get together and harass that parent rather than send that parent to jail?
These are just some thoughts. I don't think that at this point I'll come to any operative conclusion / recommendation.
How did Hawthorne use "stigma"?
I believe that somewhere Leah Torres said that on http://leahtorres.com/ she would also write about stigma at some point.
"a bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking that you have done something bad or wrong"
while shame is
"a feeling of guilt, regret, or sadness that you have because you know you have done something wrong"
My sense is that there is slightly more difference than that. I would say that guilt is a sense of having done something wrong, while shame is when that sense rubs off on your self-image, so that you develop a negative self-image.
But I would say that the two inevitably go together, and that both are salutary if you really have done something wrong, and that both will be cured when you stop doing wrong and try if possible to atone for it.
So I haven't yet seen the advantage of using "guilt" rather than "shame." But there may be something in the present American collective consciousness that I'm missing.
But just to make sure we're on the same page about definitions: by "self-image" I mean your picture of yourself, positive or negative -- a picture that makes you happy or makes you unhappy when you look at it. If others have a negative picture of me, that won't necessarily cause my picture of myself to become negative. Under some circumstances, it may make me think "I must be doing something right" -- !
But if I have to admit that I really have done something wrong, OR if I am unduly affected by the opinions of others, then I will internalize their negative picture of me, and I will feel "guilt that rubs off on my self-image" -- my internal picture of myself will become negative (which I call shame).
It doesn't need to have that connotation, but here we get into philological territory. We should try as far as possible to extricate the real issue from the philology and semantics. The real issue is, "Is it or is it not sometimes good, coming from the right attitude, to cause someone to feel ashamed?" I think it is sometimes good. I have benefited from being caused to feel ashamed, maybe even when the shaming person's attitude wasn't lily-white.
So say the sharia advocates.
So say IS.
Shame on you.
Claiming that a fetus, even in the third trimester, is a person is not being “pro-life.” It is engaging in Voodoo & Witchcraft by trying to create human life where there is none.
It is usurping God and his very clear instructions on when human life begins:
• Genesis 2:7 - … and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
• Job 33:4 - The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
• Ezekiel 37:5 - … I will make breath[a] enter you, and you will come to life.