Doesn't "Shame Flute" Sound Like a Gay Metal Band?

Until about the 16th century, before the age of large, modern prisons, public humiliation was often used by local communities to punish minor crimes and sinful acts. Imprisonment, while it certainly existed, was usually reserved as a form of coercion rather than chastisement.

The tools of public humiliation show the limitless expanse of human imagination, especially when combined with the conviction of divine province and having way too much time on your hands, which priests and busybodies invariably do.

Various “masks of shame” can be seen in museums across Eastern Europe, each depicting the wearer's transgressions: pig masks for slovenly and unkempt men, dragon masks with long ears and flicking tongues for gossiping women, even “dunce masks” for dim-witted children. Giant rosaries, weighing as much as 20 pounds, were forced upon the necks of people that did not meet the requirement of compulsory church attendance, and fools and braggarts had sit upon the “donkey of shame,” a rocking mule made of iron, in the village square while the other villagers hurled insults and probably rotten vegetables.



Public humiliation was not only a form of punishment, but also a manner of entertainment. Two women who habitually quarreled were strapped into a “quarrel violin” together in the center of town and only allowed release when they’d settled their differences. Needless to say, these exchanges provided endless entertainment to the other villagers.

My favorite, however, is the “shame flute.” Unlike the other implements of humiliation, the “shame flute” was not used as punishment for sins, but was a shame reserved for bad musicians.



Exactly what qualified someone as a “bad musician,” I haven’t the foggiest, but the item is a flute-shaped object with a set of nasty prongs attached to the top and mean looking loop at the mouthpiece. The “flute” was hung around the offender’s neck and his fingers locked into the prongs, and he was then forced to parade around town enduring the jeers of the villagers.

Suffering and humiliation, much like violence, is part of the human experience, and when it’s absent, people will subconsciously seek it out. From “rubbernecks” that slow down traffic on the highway for the chance at seeing some poor slob getting frisked by a highway patrol officer to the morons that invariably gather outside courthouses to shout insults at has-been celebrities when they get nabbed for distributing child pornography, these people reflect the wanton desires with which we all contend.

What better way to appease these deep-seated desires than in the privacy of your own home? The success of “caught on tape” shows are evidence that watching a grown man get hit in the crotch by a bat-wielding four-year-old provides the same catharsis as throwing rotten turnips at the local gossip hound.

There is no better example of the ingrained human need to see others suffer and be humiliated than the success of reality television. Watching some asshole who hasn’t showered in twelve weeks eat a rat on national television, all for the prospect of a million dollars, gives the viewers what they really want: suffering and humiliation.

The Biggest Loser, America’s Next Top Model, Fear Factor, The Apprentice, The Surreal Life, The Swan and countless others are shows, when you strip away the stupid games, the backbiting and ad spots, that are focused on exposing the flaws and ultimately humiliating the contestants, all for a shot at a great job, expensive plastic surgery, or a whole lot of money.



In Japan, instead of rewarding knowledge, ther game shows punish ignorance with electric shocks and dumping contestants into tanks of live eels. Do you think people watch that show to see who knows the annual rainfall of Kobe? One popular program, a show called Ironman, is truly all about pure physical pain. The contestant that can endure the most, wins. The first round features about one hundred men in an Olympic-size swimming pool, underwater, breathing through straws. The host of the program walks around the pool with a bag of cayenne pepper, tossing shovels full into the water and into the straws of the contestants. If you stand up, you’re disqualified, and it only gets worse from there.

Reality television in America has reached its crescendo and is finally on the wane. For the first time in almost five years, the majority of the programs being touted by the major networks have actually written by human beings and don’t feature anyone eating rats (although I heard Keifer eats a severed toe in a Turkish prison in season 5 of 24).

I never liked reality television, except for Fear Factor (something about a Playboy Bunny in a tank of stinking, gelatinous lampreys makes me feel warm inside), but I could always respect it. The greatest aspect of a capitalist society is that it’s not only profitable, but morally right to give people what they want, and what they want is humiliation.

The reason this part of our primitive brain is so starved is because of the lowered standards and political correctness that surrounds us. We all see it in our public schools. It’s not fair to humiliate Billy with a failing grade because he’s a junior in high school and thinks Napoleon Bonaparte was a really great movie (GAWD!) No, Billy’s not stupid, he’s just “differently-abled!”



You know what, Billy’s a fucking moron! Billy once tried to piss in some guys’ gas tank and got his dick caught in the vapor trap!

In a recent poll, high school students across the country agreed that if the standards and expectations put to them by their teachers and parents would increase, so would their productivity.

Liz Beattie, a former teacher, went before the British Teacher’s Association suggesting to have the word “failure” removed from the school system, in favor of the far less demoralizing phrase “deferred success.”

Oh, give me a fucking break.

Of course Howard Dean thinks it’s a good idea, that fucking ponce.

Success and failure are part of being a human, just like the violence and the humiliation and the bizarre sexual tendencies towards squirrels. To live on the planet Earth requires that you deal with assholes, that you be responsible for your own actions and that you use your fucking blinker when you change lanes.

You like reality television because you like to see other people suffer, especially really pretty people. You like making fun of Billy because he’s a fucking moron. Don’t deny your own nature, and don’t be ashamed of it, except for that squirrel thing, that’s just weird.