The American Midwest definitely has asoects of shame culture, but what you describe isn’t that: It’s abuse. It’s just an abusive environment.

post title question

A youtuber i watched who used to be is called WhatIfAltHist (history) made a video explaining his theory that yes, different cultures have different negative-feeling motivators:

• Africa generally has fear - brutal and painful punishments are key in tight-knit rural communities, and are more common/appealing to more conservative-minded folks, which the vast majority of Africans are.
• Asia largely has shame, with society invoking cries like ‘you’re disappointing your family and community! You’re ruining your family’s reputation in the community!’ To keep people in-check.
• Europe and North America has always been way more individualistic than that, so they instead use Guilt. “How do you think the other person would feel?” And “That wasn’t very fair of you, was it?” And appeals to religious rules.

He suggests these motivators combine when different groups move to and share a new space, so places like Brazil use Shame and Guilt. (All is visible according to a map in the start of the video).

That being said, I have had people say horrible things like that to me anyway. In my case it was just outright bullying though, where the people desperately wanted to invent some reason to feel better about themselves. Hence why I cut them off as soon as it started, which is key really - but easier when it’s friends rather than family.

[I’m a westerner, for context]

My own family would never insult or criticise me the way your one does. Mainly because they understand our economy is fucked up and there’s not much I can do about it. But also because they deeply subscribe to the individualist agenda, where “you don’t owe your family or community anything.”

I have problems with that philosophy though, and I feel a more family-oriented one would see people band together with their families more - we literally observe that immigrants in our country are far more closely connected to their cousins and distant relatives, whereas I was basically not allowed to talk to mine. Yipee.

Collective shame culture, although it obviously worked in the past to create thriving societies, I think it should be dropped going forward. Seems to cause a lot of discomfort for people.

Abandoning your family is difficult, even if just for economic reasons. Especially if you live in a country like the US that doesn’t exactly have good social benefits for people down on their luck (IDK where you actually live).

Is there any way you could at least put some distance between you and your family in the near future? Some of my relationships with family members improved a lot after a couple of years with relatively low contact (I attended university in a different part of my country).

Re: Shame culture, I haven’t experienced anything like that here in Germany. Some families are definitely more demanding than mine, but I think even those are usually more constructive and less venomous than yours.

isn’t that common to all cultures? I mean, outside of any cultural specificity isn’t it a human trait? Humans like to shame others and it’s the other way around that is the exception.

My mom liked to shame me for being who I was. Even as a young little child I quickly realized how it helped her feel better about herself (something she really needed). But even without considering my own mother or anyone I may know, suffice to see how most of us will laugh when seeing someone watching falling down, or study how humor generally works: jokes that aren’t mean (at least, lightly) are the exception and the humorists using them are seldom the most popular. We love to laugh at others (a lot less so at ourselves). The difficulty being to not become too mean because then it becomes ‘not funny anymore’.

I feel like one of these days we’re gonna end up murdering each other then she’s gonna end up childless lmao…

I’m almost 60, I have had my fair share of issues with my own family (starting at such a young age I would mots likely be considered a ‘deeply traumatized kid’ in today’s excessively worried society) but there is no need to end up killing one another, and even less so ti kill oneself. For chatting with your on occasions, I reckon you’re much younger than me but that don’t change much here: all you need is to start getting some independence from your family. You don’t need to break all ties at once, or ever if you don’t want to. Just start doing little things by yourself, on your own, without expecting any approval/support from anyone else. And more importantly, be ok with failing at doing it (whatever it is): failing is key steps in learning anything new, including being less dependent on parents. Or even learning to make your own appointments yourself (to link back to our last discussion, if I recall correctly).

Like, really, just start and be fine not doing it right at first… you will (quickly) improve if you don’t give up. Like you did, like all of us did, with learning to write or even to walk: nobody started by writing the next great novel best-seller, or by running a marathon, right? ;)

I know a lot of westerners here are gonna be like “go no contact”, but like honestly if Asians all followed the western standards, I bet like 80% of “boomer” Asian parents are gonna have estranged kids, this is just the norm.

A norm is a set of habits transformed into a rule (moral or legal) by a group of persons with the help of time and… habits. Both of them, habits and rules can and should be changed when needed. Not saying it’s easy or quick, quite the contrary there is little that is harder to do, just that it can and it should be done.

Neither is a ‘undisputed truth’ like, say, math can be (sorry Indiana, Pi is not for you to define), nor is it ‘natural (or divine) order’.

Very often, it’s based on some ‘natural’ or logical considerations… I don’t know, think things like: ‘kids should be protected and cared for’, as obviously kids’re much weaker in many ways than us adults, and we can’t expect a toddler to go pick their own food, right? (but then it’s up to each group of humans to define what they consider as ‘being a kid’ that need to be protected and ‘being an adult’ that doesn’t need it as much… and no, one does not magically turn into an adult person the night they reach 16, 18 or even 21, that is 100% social construct); or consider this common idea: ‘Let’s organize and work together because we can do a lot more work in a day by working together than by working alone’ (but then we also quickly need to add some ‘enforcement’ to that spontaneous organization or it will almost instantly make all of us a lot less productive by wasting our energy and time lacking a well-defined and fully agreed upon objective, or by sheer individualism/egoism).

Things like that. No matter what, it is a human construct. Meaning we use those habits and rituals to turn them into more than what they really are. Exactly like many species will have developed their own rituals (look at birds mating, for example). All things that can and will change.

It’s called evolution in the natural world, while it’s often called ‘education’ in our human centered world. Two different words that can trigger many religious inclined persons because those two words question their own personal need to believe in some undisputed truth/rules and, often too, question their need enforce said believes upon others ;)

Those rituals and habits can be changed, and when needed they should be changed. Not saying this is simple to do, nor quick. It’s not, and I doubt there is little that could be considered harder and slower to change. But it’s something that can be done.

mom, grandma, aunts all pulled that on me soo much along with the heavy beatings. Least once a day on the concrete. I still have scares on my knees. “Ungrateful! Don’t you have shame!” Etc etc. Their words lost meaning and the pain was part of life like dinner. Its freeing to not care and say " i guess i really dont give a f".

Pretty much, yeah. Our society is built to work like a meat grinder so people tear each other down to try and feed others into the teeth first.

Not always in families like yours, but often enough. It’s common enough that there is a wide variety of tells when a person had deeply abusive family.

Some people have just made hazing their culture and lean into it. Like, it becomes formative to their identity so they keep it going to try and “toughen” others up. They think the hazing motivates people to become exceptional which they believe should be a requirement for survival. Reading your story about your brother in the most gracious way, that’s probably what’s happening there but it’s still abuse.

Incidentally, something that is unique to western culture regarding this though is we tend to just abandon our elderly once we’re adults. They only live with us if we can’t afford to put them in a nursing home, so we all pursue the financial independence to avoid ever having to live with our families. Makes pretty motivated little worker bees for the economy out of us, gives our culture a profit inventive to be as vicious to our loved ones as possible.

But I hate it here so I’m probably not being very charitable.

!dadforaminute@lemmy.world are great for anyone that needs a parental perspective, pep talk, or even just practical advice about DIY. Really recommend them it’s a fantastic group of people

This really isn’t nice at all. In the UK, some communities are plain speaking to the point that it sounds awful to other people, but what you’ve described would be abusive anywhere here.

I’m a domestic abuse outreach worker and warning signs for domestic abuse perps as per DA expert Lundy Bancroft are a good way of telling if someone has an abusive personality. They include:

Jealousy/possessiveness, Jekyll and Hyde, selfish, doesn’t accept they’re wrong, unrealistic expectations, double standards, relationship moves fast, substance misuse, speaks disrespectfully about exes, pressures for sex, intimidates when angry.

What’s your feeling?

Not really, no, at least from what I’ve seen. Idk how it works in Murica but my white friends’ parents in France and the UK don’t give them any strict guidance or “forbid” them from doing things. Personally, it didn’t happen in my household either but I come from an “eccentric” family, definitely not the norm in my culture. And now, my Indian female colleagues notice when I gain weight and lovingly and lightly tell me to “watch out”, even tapping on my tummy, for example, and it’s been helping me keep an eye on it, lol. I think it’s very sweet, and stable people shame you because they care (I do it here all the time!). Gotta take the good and disregard the annoying. 🤷👍

Wow that’s heavy man. Thanks for sharing, it doesn’t sound like fun and I must assume it’s always been that way for you growing up, in which case kudos for recognising the negative behaviour. Do you and your brother ever talk about your mother’s behaviour towards you? I wonder if there’s some solace you can both find in sympathy and support. I don’t know that your mother’s behaviour is likely to change but it may be quicker to change how it affects you both (and the second order effects you wrote about).

Anyways, you sound like a thoughtful individual so you’re going to be fine, we all just hope you have the best journey on the way there.

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