Anne Hutchinson Importance Of Shame

Shame

Shaming is a very effective tool but it can produce dangerous and undesirable results, and therefore should not be used commonly in our modern developed society, although it may still apply in some situations.

While shaming is an effective tool, it should not be used because it can yield unpredictable, undesirable, and even dangerous results. Anne Hutchinson, a Puritan woman who lived in colonial times, publicly questioned and challenged mainstream Puritan ideals. During this time a great societal importance was placed on religion and the establishment of the church as a governing force, and therefore any attempts to undermine Puritanism were taken very seriously. As punishment for her outspoken disagreement with the church Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and shamed

simply for voicing her opinion, a right which we now take for granted.

Anne Hutchinson thereafter served as an example of why the church shouldn’t be doubted, effectively preventing further incidents in the community. In essence, the importance of the community’s wellbeing greatly outweighed the importance of Hutchinson’s individual wellbeing. Hutchinson was allowed to move away from Massachusetts without further punishment, but this was not the case for Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s shame-focused novel, “The Scarlet Letter”. In this famous story Prynne is forced to wear an embroidered “A” on her clothing as punishment for committing adultery. As a result she is estranged by her entire community and seemingly doomed to a live a life of grief and solitude. Similar to Hutchinson, Hester Prynne served as a warning against sin, however in Prynne’s situation this came at the much greater cost of her very livelihood. To put the topic of shame into a more modern context, a girl was recently shamed through social media by her own father. An article by David Perry details the incident and goes on to state that the girl, “flung herself off a bridge onto a

freeway, killing herself” (Perry). It is absurd that shaming can go to such extreme lengths even within the household, and with truly disastrous effects. It is apparent that public shaming can frequently have negative effects.
Although shaming may have been effectively applied in the past, times have drastically changed and it is no longer an acceptable way of approaching issues, spare some very specific situations. In colonial Puritan society, public shaming as a form of punishment wasn’t uncommon. Those accused of crimes were sometimes forced to sit in the town’s public square while onlookers would laugh at or spit on them. Public shaming was a fairly effective way to suppress those who may have otherwise considered sinning. The issues of modern society have changed drastically, and as such, so have the ways we should be tackling them. As an article released by the University of Miami states, the shaming of women for their choice of clothing promotes, “archaic principles that women are beneath men and should not act in a way that could provoke them” (Steinman). In our modern society a great emphasis is placed on equality and it is generally illogical for man or woman alike to be shamed. In spite of this, there are some less clear situations in which shame may be a reasonable method of serving justice. An example of this can be seen in the recent “Ashley Madison” website hack in which the names of thousands of people who were signed up on a site which, in some cases, assisted in the committing of adultery were revealed. This hacking has been very controversial due to its’ moral complexity. As those signed up on the website committed no legal crimes, the established government did not have the ability to step in. In a case like this where only “social crimes” were carried out individuals may choose to step up and take action, as the hacker in this case did. Due to the fact that situations similar to this are much rarer, shaming should not be resorted to as a solution to most problems.