Whatever Happened to Shame?

see Rousseau, The Social Contract.

 

A bully's MO is to humiliate you before you can humiliate him.

There's a deep pathology of shaming and deflecting shame at work there.

 

I’d start with the idea that I’m not sure I want people to feel shame very often. Humility? Yes. Even modesty. Shame? I’m not sure how helpful an emotion that is.

But I guess when I think about the lack of it, I think, for example, of the naked woman in Portland who exposed herself to police during the riots. She was a sex worker and dubbed “Naked Athena.”

Is that an example? To some it could be. To others, she’s celebrated for making a political statement.

When the idea of “personal truth” - that is, whatever I say is true to me is true, and you get your own truth but I get mine - has the traction it does, just about everything goes.

I dunno. There’s blame to go around as to why it’s happened. Personal responsibility was way down before Donald Trump.

 

Small sample size, but one of my Vol Deplorables posted yesterday, "I'm ashamed to have voted for this asshole."

So there's one.

 

I guess I'm not sure that 'shame' is any healthier when applied to nakedness, rather than a behavior.

I certainly don't want children to feel 'ashamed' of their bodies.

But I might want them to feel 'ashamed' of lying.

 

Well, when you can parlay a sex tape into a billion dollar business it's tough for people to see the use in shaming people.

Oh, this wasn't caused by the Kim and Kanye thread?

 

The only reason he fears shame is because he fears getting caught.

 

I think shame is part of the "rehabilitation process" for people whe commit bad behavior. I don't "wish" it on anyone, but I do think it is a "step" that helps society at large. Without it, we have people trying to "outdo" the latest example of bad behavior. And that's not good for society.

 

What's "bad" behavior? Who decides? What should we be ashamed of?

We, as a nation, used to agree more about what that was and wasn't. Before the Internet. Before social media. Now, you can find your "people" online who believe just about anything you'd want to believe, and they'll tell you...you're right. There aren't that many standards left when everyone gets to have their own personal truth.

 

No Shame:

When the NBA forces racist Donald Sterling to sell but gives a pass to Animal House owners James Dolan and Mark Cuban.

 

So you've met my family.

Seriously, you're right. Shame has been weaponized as a way to turn back discernment. To acknowledge it in oneself is to admit to weakness. We can't have that.

I understand being scandalized by nudity.

At the same time, exposure to naked bodies is inevitable in some fields of inquiry.

The cadavers I looked at in A&P were not clothed nor were many of the bodies I saw during an intra-university exchange at a forensic anth lab.

I was even accused of shaming the first studio model I encountered in art school. A big blond guy with a dork-knob threw off his robe and started posing at the front of the classroom.*
He made eye contact with me and said, "Hiyee! I'm Sparrow. Are you the new person** from Nashville?" I sighed and spent the rest of the class trying to approximate Sparrow's occupation of positive space on newsprint. I also did not try to explain Sparrow was the first naked man I'd ever seen and talking to him would not have helped.

tl : DR Sometimes shame can be a matter of personal mores.



*Yes, I was tempted to write it was PHYS 101.
** He was too woke to assign me a gender or even a vague indication of species. Bless his heart.

 

This is a hoot!