Lack of shame a growing global problem
The New York Times keeps track of words that appear in its pages for the first time. Since it’s been around since 1851 and printed more than 62,000 editions, that’s quite a task. Perhaps surprisingly, there are new words almost every day. Just this summer we’ve seen, wackadoodle, seekerdom, wokewashed, unsquarable, and workiness, to name a few.
This cannot make dictionary publishers very happy. The last Oxford dictionary that was printed took up 20 volumes and 21,730 pages. The online version added 700 new words this past June and now runs to more than 600,000 entries. We probably don’t need any more words. In which case, there’s good news. I can suggest one word that can be removed. Shame.
It’s defined as, “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour.” I think you will agree there is no shortage of wrong or foolish behaviour. But so many people who engage in it, seem to feel absolutely no humiliation or distress. We may as well take the word out of the dictionary.
The chief culprit oblivious to shame is, without doubt, former U.S. president Donald Trump. He famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” The notion that it would be wrong to shoot somebody was unimportant.
Encourage people to attack your Capitol because you don’t want to concede you lost a fair election? Sure. Show no concern when your vice president faces threats to be hanged? You bet. Steal top secret documents then play the victim when you’re caught and lie about how a former president handled documents? Good plan.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson knows no shame either. He took “full responsibility” for parties at No. 10 Downing Street during COVID lockdowns, but for a long time refused to resign. His ludicrous excuse was that the parties became illegal only after he left them. It wasn’t any sense of shame that finally forced him to step down. That happened only after much of his cabinet abandoned him. He still has no idea he’s done anything wrong.
Here at home, we have Conservative leadership hopeful Pierre Poilievre who will say and do anything to attract a vote. His crusade to make Canada, “the freest country on earth” is built on the fictional premise that most of us are held in chains by our federal government. Yet he supported those who actually did restrict the freedom of the people of Ottawa to walk their city’s streets or get a good night’s sleep. That seems shameful to me, but not to him.
If just three men had lost contact with the meaning of shame, I wouldn’t be advocating for its removal from the dictionary. But sadly, these men have millions of supporters. Where is their shame?