That's a Shame

I'm kind of tardy to the party on this: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/nyu-professor-immediately-regrets-fat-shaming.html

 

Bleah. No me gusta. So many reasons I'm against using shame as some kind of "leverage" or inducer to get people to change their habits (#goodluckwiththat). Reasons such as, oh, how about: It doesn't work. It makes people feel like crap about themselves and oh yes, did I mention that, IT DOESN'T WORK!

Also: Who says non-fat people are any better at motivation and discipline? Clearly, some are, some aren't. And, news-flash, some people are highly disciplined AT TIMES and at other times can devour an entire box of Thin Mint cookies. (Not like that's a bad thing.) True story: I personally dated a very toned and trim PhD candidate who, despite his enviable physique, could not dial down the crazy long enough to convince his advisers that he knew what the hell he was doing and that his dissertation should, finally, get approved.

And, as a recovering-anorexic who later tipped the scales at 172 lbs., I think it's pretty obvious that obnoxious tweets like this reflect more about the psyche of the person tweeting, than add anything useful to our national self-destructive obsession with body image AKA hating ourselves. Which is another thing, I don't roll with, as the kids say.

One wonders if the NYU professor was primarily motivated to tweet due to his desire to keep the doctorate within an "exclusive" club of people who were thin, like him, and therefore...desirable? Something about keeping out rabble...?

Who knows? How many of us, professors or not, really know what the hell kind of mishigas is germinating within our psyches at any given time? Which is why, sometimes, you need to step away from social media and take a walk and realize that many people on this planet, NOT JUST YOU, are doing the best they can. On any given day. You're not the only person around, who had a less-than-sterling childhood, so relax and have a little empathy for the rest of us. And before you try "shaming" anyone else, understand that when you share this stupidity with the world, the only person you're truly shaming is, of course, yourself.

All this public shaming of children, for example, by their parents just makes me think that those parents have a great deal of resentment towards their kids. What did they think having kids would be? Kids are crazy. And, I say that with all the love in the world. They're violent, and cranky and melodramatic and tell boring jokes; they have atrocious taste in music and TV shows, and they're horrible conversationalists....and those are the fun kids. (But yes, indeed: the children are our future.) I can't be the only person who worries that all of these shamed and humiliated children are going to grow up to be a new generation of imaginative, self-loathing perverts, can I? Since, last time I checked, internalized shame and self-hatred don't usually turn out all that great...right, Ted Bundy?

If you want shame, hire a dominatrix. (Or, borrow one of my cats.) However, if you want some constructive, fun and highly useful help, email me @carlota@carlotaworldwide.com, and like my Facebook page, "Carlotaworldwide C

Besos,

C.