There is no Pride or Shame.

The year is 2012: Webster's will remove the words Pride and Shame from the dictionary. Liberal Progressive University studies have shown that the vast majority of Americans do not have these emotions any longer and thus these words have no meaning. The studies noted that in America's heyday, each of these words meant something and that they caused America to come together in a meaningful way.

In recent years Pride and Shame have been replaced by the term "don't be judgemental" and "understanding". For example, a family once would feel shame if it had a pedophile in its mist.
Today, Americans are encouraged to "understand" why a pedophile behaves the way they do.

There was once a time when people would feel "Shame" asking for or taking handouts.
Today millions try to get something for nothing. In fact, the more you can get for free is actually admired. Thus, what was once considered shameful is now a source of pride.

The Universities estimate that it could take up to 16 pages to explain the evolving differences of these words and thus decided that it would be much easier to simply eliminate these words. The studies authors concede that taking such a lazy approach might have been looked down upon by their predecessors, but then notes that society is not what it once was. They point to the globalization of language and the Internet as making formerly ubiquitous words meaningless.

They cite the example of the word "Pride" which is usually used in sports terms today or by Muslims who clearly have no pride. Sure, they kill masses in the name of "pride for Allah" but they do it in a cowardly way. If they were in fact proud, wouldn't they fight like men in a battle? Instead they hide behind hoods and masks, strapping bombs onto women and children and use sneak attacks to kill more women and children.

Sociologists have stated that Pride was once used to inspire people to be better than they could have otherwise been. Today it is used as an oxymoron to hide otherwise shameful events. For example the term "gay pride" is often used during parades which have the intended effect of covering up the shame which participants have for tearing a society apart for their own selfish urges. Ironically, things like "American pride" are considered to be xenophobic.

For myself, I thought this would be a cyclical thing and that America was just rebounding from a bunch of baby boomers in San Francisco and Cambridge. However, this cancer has spread to other parts of America and the next generation. A recent survey of students aged 12 through 14 revealed that 98 out of 100 could not identify a time they felt Shame. When asked to define Pride only 10 of 100 could accurately do so and that is giving credit to 9 students that identified it as a collection of lions and one that labeled it a brand of turkey.

What has become of every society that let its people run free to the point that there was no recognition of Pride or Shame?

Simple: those societies found themselves extinct.