Stigma

Jonah Goldberg at NRO's corner blog looks at the value and function of stigma in a free society:

 

Charles Murray had a really excellent post on the value of such stigma the other day. He writes (emphasis mine):

Stigma is the only way that a free society can be generous, whether through private help or government programs. The dilemma is as old as charity: how to give help without creating a cycle in which more people need help. Stigma is the way out. Stigma does three things.

 

First, stigma leads people to socialize their children in ways that minimize the chance that they'll need help as they grow up. When children are taught that accepting charity is a disgrace, they also tend to be taught the kinds of things they should and shouldn't do to avoid that disgrace.

 

Second, stigma encourages the right kind of self-selection. People in need are not usually in a binary yes-no situation. Instead, they are usually somewhere on a continuum from "I'm desperate" to "Gee, a little help would be kind of nice." Stigma makes people ask whether the help is really that essential. That's good—for the affordability of giving help, and for the resourcefulness of the potential recipients.

 

Third, stigma discourages dependence—it induces people to do everything they can to get out of the situation that put them in need of help.

 

All of these benefits of stigma reflect tendencies. Of course there are lots of exceptions. But large-scale assistance is shaped by tendencies. The European model says that people should look upon assistance as a right. Once you say that, the tendencies you create commit you to a cradle-to-grave system of government-decided support systems and corresponding limits on the ability of people to make choices for themselves.

The role of stigma in a free society is one of the least appreciated topics in modern discourse, I think.

Stigma is what keeps a society free without descending into the bad sort of anarchy (and such anarchy breeds a natural desire for a unhealthily powerful state to impose order).