Crouch starts with the distinction the
anthropologist Ruth Benedict popularized, between a guilt culture and a
shame culture. In a guilt culture you know you are good or bad by what
your conscience feels. In a shame culture you know you are good or bad
by what your community says about you, by whether it honors or excludes
you. In a guilt culture people sometimes feel they do bad things; in a
shame culture social exclusion makes people feel they are bad.Crouch
argues that the omnipresence of social media has created a new sort of
shame culture. The world of Facebook, Instagram and the rest is a world
of constant display and observation. The desire to be embraced and
praised by the community is intense. People dread being exiled and
condemned. Moral life is not built on the continuum of right and wrong;
it’s built on the continuum of inclusion and exclusion.