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Shaming has always been a kind of public theatre meant both to correct the target and entertain the onlookers, even before you could simply tweet at the to-be-shamed. It has always been a tool meant to enforce norms, and to regulate any kind of behaviour seen as different or wrong, an indiscriminating qualifier that does not distinguish between bad behaviour and behaviour-currently-seen-as-bad-in-our-culture.

Two timely books ask us to consider the uses and abuses of shame: Jennifer Jacquet asks Is Shame Necessary? in her brief yet substantial volume on the cultural and social history of shame as a punishment and deterrent, while Jon Ronson takes a more practical tact with So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, a lively collection of case studies examining the recently (and famously) shamed with a particular emphasis on social media and the Internet.

Both books take great pains to clarify the difference between shame and guilt. Guilt, as an emotion, is private. Shame requires an audience. Guilt, let’s say, is what you feel when you look at your Google search history. Shame is what you would feel if your search history was emailed to everyone you know.

Is Shame Necessary? begins by treating the question as already answered—in the qualified affirmative — and each chapter depicts an instance where shame was properly administered. Jacquet’s interest lies in “the public act of shaming [rather] than the emotion of shame,” a sentiment that weaves its way through the book: the use of shame is not significant in terms of how it makes the recipient feel, or even in how it makes the person doing the shaming feel. Instead, she investigates the effects of shame as a punishment for regulating social norms, advocating the cautious use of concentrated shame at large targets: governments, corporations, and institutions, and the people that comprise them.