The Shame Machine
Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation
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Narrated by:
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Cathy O'Neil
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By:
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Cathy O'Neil
About this listen
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A clear-eyed warning about the increasingly destructive influence of America’s “shame industrial complex” in the age of social media and hyperpartisan politics—from the New York Times bestselling author of Weapons of Math Destruction
“O’Neil reminds us that we must resist the urge to judge, belittle, and oversimplify, and instead allow always for complexity and lead always with empathy.”—Dave Eggers, author of The Every
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Times (UK)
Shame is a powerful and sometimes useful tool: When we publicly shame corrupt politicians, abusive celebrities, or predatory corporations, we reinforce values of fairness and justice. But as Cathy O’Neil argues in this revelatory book, shaming has taken a new and dangerous turn. It is increasingly being weaponized—used as a way to shift responsibility for social problems from institutions to individuals. Shaming children for not being able to afford school lunches or adults for not being able to find work lets us off the hook as a society. After all, why pay higher taxes to fund programs for people who are fundamentally unworthy?
O’Neil explores the machinery behind all this shame, showing how governments, corporations, and the healthcare system capitalize on it. There are damning stories of rehab clinics, reentry programs, drug and diet companies, and social media platforms—all of which profit from “punching down” on the vulnerable. Woven throughout The Shame Machine is the story of O’Neil’s own struggle with body image and her recent weight-loss surgery, which awakened her to the systematic shaming of fat people seeking medical care.
With clarity and nuance, O’Neil dissects the relationship between shame and power. Whom does the system serve? Is it counter-productive to call out racists, misogynists, and vaccine skeptics? If so, when should someone be “canceled”? How do current incentive structures perpetuate the shaming cycle? And, most important, how can we all fight back?
©2022 Cathy O'Neil (P)2022 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Although [The Shame Machine] contains its fair share of pseudoscience-debunking, including an admirably lucid explanation of how diet programs massage statistics to artificially bolster their success rates, it is largely a work of social criticism . . . [that] keeps the human costs of the titular shame machine in clear view. . . . Frequently moving.”—The New Yorker
“A data-driven, anecdote-fueled narrative of the multitude of human experiences that are targets for ridicule and others’ reward. [O’Neil] vividly portrays the indignities of poverty, addiction, aging, dementia and other conditions we all may face but hope to avoid, and she shows how the pain experienced by people with these afflictions can be used for others’ financial and social profits.”—The Washington Post
“As O’Neil argues, shame is a valuable lens through which to view our own actions and the systems we live under. Considering whether we are punching down on the vulnerable or up against an unfeeling industrial complex dressed up in fluffy corporate PR is a first step towards a healthier sort of shame.”—Financial Times
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Story
As a progressive commentator on Fox News and now CNN, Sally Kohn has made a career out of bridging intractable political differences, learning how to talk civilly to people whose views she disagrees with passionately. Famously "nice", she even gave a TED Talk about what she termed emotional correctness. But these days, even Kohn has found herself wanting to breathe fire at her enemies. It was time, she decided, to look into the ugliness erupting all around us.
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Profoundly insightful, important, and digestible.
- By Scott on 04-24-18
By: Sally Kohn
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Beyond the Messy Truth
- How We Came Apart, How We Come Together
- By: Van Jones
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In Beyond the Messy Truth, Jones offers a blueprint for transforming our collective anxiety into meaningful change. Tough on Donald Trump but showing respect and empathy for his supporters, Jones takes aim at the failures of both parties before and after Trump's victory. He urges both sides to abandon the politics of accusation and focus on real solutions. Calling us to a deeper patriotism, he shows us how to get down to the vital business of solving, together, some of our toughest problems.
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I never hated anyone before
- By Joanna Bugajska on 11-17-17
By: Van Jones
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America: The Farewell Tour
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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America, says Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet.
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Terrible narrator for the book
- By H U Rehman on 10-01-18
By: Chris Hedges
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God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy
- By: Mike Huckabee
- Narrated by: Mike Huckabee
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In Mike Huckabee's new book God, Guns, Grits and Gravy, he asks the question, "Have I been taken to a different planet than the one on which I grew up?" The New York Times best-selling author explores today's American culture, drawing from his travels as a presidential candidate to present average, small-town people and families, and their optimistic resilience in the face of hard times.
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Review
- By Dorothy Ella on 02-13-15
By: Mike Huckabee
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Angry White Men
- American Masculinity at the End of an Era
- By: Michael Kimmel
- Narrated by: Aaron Williamson
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the enduring legacies of the 2012 Presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night, after Obama was announced the winner, a distressed Bill O'Reilly lamented that he didn't live in "a traditional America anymore". He was joined by others who bellowed their grief on the talk radio airwaves, the traditional redoubt of angry white men. Why were they so angry?
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Interesting book; Wrong reader
- By Carolina A. Miranda on 05-02-18
By: Michael Kimmel
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Blunder
- Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions
- By: Zachary Shore
- Narrated by: Zachary Shore, Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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We all make bad decisions. It's part of being human. The resulting mistakes can be valuable, the story goes, because we learn from them. But do we? Historian Zachary Shore says no, not always, and he has a long list of examples to prove his point.
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helpful extension of the genre
- By Andy on 07-11-09
By: Zachary Shore
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Brainwashed
- Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority
- By: Tom Burrell
- Narrated by: Sylvester Brown Jr.
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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"Black people are not dark-skinned white people", says advertising visionary Tom Burrell. In fact, they are much more. They are survivors of the Middle Passage and centuries of humiliation and deprivation, who have excelled against the odds, constantly making a way out of "No way!" At this pivotal point in history, the idea of Black inferiority should have had a "Going-Out-of-Business Sale." After all, Barack Obama reached America's Promised Land. Yet, as Brainwashed testifies, too many in Black America are still wandering in the wilderness.
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Guidance against the odds.
- By Henry Lee Faulkner on 01-05-21
By: Tom Burrell
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Viral Justice
- How We Grow the World We Want
- By: Ruha Benjamin
- Narrated by: Ruha Benjamin
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.
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Fantastic book!
- By Avie Kearney on 05-21-23
By: Ruha Benjamin
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The Black Male Handbook
- A Blueprint for Life
- By: Kevin Powell
- Narrated by: Ezra Knight, Kevin R. Free, Glymph Glymph
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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An NAACP Image Award nominee, The Black Male Handbook is an impassioned call to end the problems facing today's Black men. Author and activist Kevin Powell offers insights on steering away from violence and toward a more responsible manhood. A new climate is rising in the Black community. Despite a shared thirst for cutting-edge opportunities and fresh directions, today's hiphop generation is still plagued by many long-standing problems.
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Awesome and very useful book.
- By Derek on 06-10-18
By: Kevin Powell
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An Inconvenient Book
- Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems (Unabridged)
- By: Glenn Beck
- Narrated by: Glenn Beck
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The world is a mess. It seems that everywhere listeners turn, there's another problem. What is needed now are solutions. If only there was a man who could simplify things, cut through the rhetoric, and fix everything. Then, if he was just able to put all of that insight into something that people could buy...in a store and online...man, that would great. Wait a minute!
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Waste of Time and Money
- By Crystal on 04-11-09
By: Glenn Beck
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Makers and Takers
- By: Peter Schweizer
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In Makers and Takers, Peter Schweizer broadens his scope to examine the damaging effects of liberal philosophy on ordinary Americans. Drawing on national polls and academic studies, as well as the revealing testimony of liberals themselves, Schweizer shows that liberals are, on the whole, less honest, less generous, lazier, and more materialistic than their conservative counterparts.
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Excellent!
- By Eileen J. O'Connor on 03-08-16
By: Peter Schweizer
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Bad News
- How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy
- By: Batya Ungar-Sargon
- Narrated by: Batya Ungar-Sargon
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Today’s newsrooms are propagating radical ideas that were fringe as recently as a decade ago, including “antiracism,” intersectionality, open borders, and critical race theory. How did this come to be? It all has to do with who our news media is written by—and who it is written for. In Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy, Batya Ungar-Sargon reveals how American journalism underwent a status revolution over the twentieth century—from a blue-collar trade to an elite profession.
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Balanced, informative, and insightful
- By J. B. Eibel on 06-06-22
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How Evil Works
- By: David Kupelian
- Narrated by: Jon Gauger
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Despite the human race's extraordinary capacity for invention and progress, we clearly have a millennia-old blind spot in one all-important area: We don't understand evil -- what it is, how it works, and why it so routinely and effortlessly ruins our lives. Put another way, we don't understand ourselves.
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Has the advantage of bluntness
- By Suppresst on 07-14-10
By: David Kupelian
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Men Explain Things to Me
- By: Rebecca Solnit
- Narrated by: Luci Christian Bell
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit takes on the conversations between men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't. The ultimate problem, she shows in her comic, scathing essay, is female self-doubt and the silencing of women. Rebecca Solnit is the author of fourteen books about civil society, popular power, uprisings, art, environment, place, pleasure, politics, hope, and memory, most recently The Faraway Nearby, a book on empathy and storytelling.
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Great read - horrible performance
- By Denise Johnson on 03-26-15
By: Rebecca Solnit
What listeners say about The Shame Machine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- wj
- 05-19-22
A Bit Slanted, Marginally Pro-Bullying
I read *Weapons of Math Destruction* several years ago, so I had a feel for where the author lay on the political spectrum. And for the most part, this book was good with the examples and points being made especially around situations that are non-malleable or totally in control by an individual (e.g. weight, economic status, gender).
Where she gets a little derailed on the more social-related issues where the shaming is considered OK if you are "punching up" and in the majority view. The problem comes from the lack of nuance and subtlety in her examples, and that "punching up" ceases to be OK when the target is no longer an entity, but more a person.
Societal beliefs are fickle and changed and are somewhat controlled by a reinforcing algorithm (just like the suggested reading lists on this website). People follow the crowd based on whatever information they cherry picked from their already cherry picked surrounding and start shouting. There is no accounting in the book for that. The author pre-supposes the mob is right because the majority makes the rules. She does mention that society rules will change as a matter of time, but completely ignores the accountability of what these changed rules have done to the lives of the targets back when the mob thought they were in the right. See the events in Kenosha, WI (which she referred to in the book, but before the results were in),
In the book, she recommends "Super Sad True Love Story" as an example of social media shaming to an extreme and I'm about halfway through it. Possibly a better example would be the more easily approachable episode of The Orville - "Majority Rule".
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- S. Gray
- 03-24-22
Good Book For Therapists
I enjoyed this book because it goes in depth with group-shaming, as in race, overweight people, drug addicts, etc. I am a therapist, and I will use this information to help my clients deal with their shame.
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