The Obsession With Punishment
Here in America, and in other parts of the world, too - almost all of it I am sure - we have a deeply held belief in punishment.
Let me differentiate self defense from punishment and revenge from punishment so that we can have a clear idea of what I'm talking about here. Defending oneself against violence is not punishment. It's self defense. Revenge is when someone wants to see another suffer for the suffering they have caused another. I'm not going to deal with either of these here. I want to discuss the paradigm of punishment and its effectiveness in changing behavior.
Punishment has a connotation that we are doing something to another person so that they'll stop doing something we don't like. Punishment implies shame. People have a deeply held belief that if they shame another, then that person will change. Indeed, when a person is shamed and punished it is likely that they will refrain from doing that thing out of fear of enduring those same consequences again. But the punished is essentially more of a ticking time bomb than they were before. Being shamed is very damaging to a person. It diminishes our worth. The shame gets lodged into our programming. We can even stop loving ourselves and even feel disdain and disgust for ourselves. These are the makings of a very unhealthy person. This is why we lash out at others. This is why we become violent. When we lose our dignity and our respect and love for ourselves, we will also lose it for others. We will see the world in a distorted way as a violent and unsafe place. How is a person like this likely to behave in the world?
It is no longer socially acceptable to hit children. It is looked down upon and seen as barbaric to use physical force against others. Hitting is seen as childish, unintelligent, lacking in self control. But the core issue, our issue with this obsession with punishment has not been healed. So people are left to verbally shame others as a form of controlling the behavior of others. We've become more creative with our methods of shaming people. The belief in punishment is so pervasive and all-encompassing that we largely don't even realize that we're almost constantly punishing / shaming those around us as well as even ourselves.
You may find it abhorrent to hit another or to starve another for punishment. You may even be evolved enough to see that sending a violent person to jail to suffer with other violent people further cements their violence and makes them more violent. But what do you do when your partner disappoints you or hurts you? Do you stop talking to them in an attempt to show them the error of their ways and prompt them to change? How's that working out for you?
I'm proposing the building of a new paradigm on an individual level. 99% of people are punishers. Even the most s "spiritual" among us have a deep disdain for those who act in a way that they find undesirable. The reason? I propose that the reason is because of this belief in punishment. People firmly believe that their disapproval of others will cause them to change. Is that really true? Look around you - does disapproving of someone or shaming them even, help them to behave better? Does it help them?
The belief in punishment is so deeply held that many of you reading this are thinking it a ridiculous concept that we could even live without punishment. After all, humans are inherently evil, right? And left to our own devices we would be selfish, maniacal people who go around selfishly hurting others and "sinning" daily. Or wait. Could it be the opposite? Could it be that compassion changes behavior? Wait. Let's go beyond that. Compassion and love heal. When we heal we are no longer people suppressing our displeasing behavior, be become people who no longer have the capacity to harm others.
Then there are those of you who are reading this and shaking your heads right now at the people shaming and punishing others. Not so fast. Your disgust at them is an example of your deeply held belief that your disapproval of them (shame) will make them change, and that is a facet of this paradigm of punishment. This paradigm is deep, deep, deep down in our most basic belief systems. If this resonates with you and you decide to start changing your own beliefs around this, you will find that it goes incredibly deep, and you will be pulling out the weeds for a long time.
Who wants to be a healer instead of a punisher? What would the world be like if a lot of people started changing their paradigm from Punisher to Healer?
Am I advocating some Polly Anna world where we all stand around Cersei and "send her loving energy?" Maybe, maybe not. There are those who are so deranged, conniving and manipulative that they must be removed from society or taken out. But what about the other 99%? That's what I want to get you to think about. I want you to just explore this paradigm of punishment in your own life and how it has affected you.
Edit: Check out this man who has made hundreds of KKK members leave the organization by befriending them.
Now. Are you ready for this? If I have you so far, take a look at the follow-up to this article How to Love People Who Are Hate-able - Even Trump and Nazis
Guay
Thank you for this . As an animal trainer since the early 80s , I have seen my profession go from totally brutal to much more intelligent , creative and compassionate. There are still plenty of hold outs who insist that punishment is necessary but the change over the past 35 years is amazing .
Change can happen but it's such a slow progress.
I only hope that humanity doesn't punish itself into extinction before the change is complete.
I'm glad you are lighting a spark to the flame of that change.
I've learned from personal experience. I used to shame my Boston Terrier. Poor lovely thing. Sorry, Hazel. I did what I knew then. When I was growing up we used to literally point our finger in our dog's face and say "Shaaaaaaaame" when he did something we didn't like. :(
YES!!! It is wonderful to see this subject written about here. I do hope many read and feel what you have shared. I am one who does advocate 'sending Loving energy' to all people/situations (from a safe place). My nick name is Polly Anna, which is a compliment ;)
<3 Cheryl
Thanks for being here. :)
I think the issues are a bit more tangled than that, but you are definitely on to something here.
What about punishment that carries an expression of love? For example a member of the community has destructive behavior (let's say they never listen to others and jump the gun, acting like a victim and turning others into enemies out of revenge). How do we solve this?
I think it might be helpful to on one hand kind of ostracize his behavior without ostracizing him as an individual. Kind of expressing, "hey we want to help you but you need to be willing to listen to others first, this behavior is not ok here". In a way this feels a bit like punishment but I think it doesn't come from a place of fear and makes an attempt to express love while giving a kind of "soft" punishment.
What do you think?
This is an awesome article. I'm so glad you wrote about this. I remember learning in Psychology 101 that punishment doesn't work, but it's taking some time for this information to become something we know on a cultural level and practice. I forget sometimes too.
Have you heard of restorative justice? It's an alternative to the criminal justice system we have now. It seems to be catching on in some areas. I hope this is a sign we're moving toward a society that's based on understanding why people do what they do and developing solutions that address root causes.
At the rate we're moving, I think our entire world is going to be unrecognizable in a decade! I can't even imagine what it's going to be like.