Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging
The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power.<p>Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract.<p>Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created a significant subclass of infantile or openly hostile actors.<p>Without shame, many people unfortunately need an authority figure to step in and moderate their behaviour. It is an unfortunate side effect of what I can only describe as the infantilisation of society that I have watched happen over the last few decades.<p>It will likely result in people reaching for a paternal “strongman” figure and a subsequent slide into (probably) fascism.<p>So long, and thanks for all the fish.