The author explores the shame that infiltrates the souls of many Americans in a class struture social system in which people are judged by outward signs of wealth or the present state of the economy that that has little use for them. He recalls from his childhood the many ways that he as a member of a poor family experienced this shame. He looks at the many ways people, especially men, cope with this shame.
Anger dwells as deep as the pain leveled by being shamed and humiliated. From road rage, to internet trolling, to the compulsion to humiliate women in certain forms of porn, to right-wing radio ranters, to violent video games, to gun-sown episodes of mass murder — the shame-besieged psyche of the American male, in vain, attempts to mitigate a psychologically devastating sense of powerlessness.