For those who follow the Book of Blue series, there is a new thread on the nature of shame and guilt. Book of Blue does not have a comments area; but those who wish to reflect on any of the points I bring up are welcome to do so here.
Here is an excerpt:
Just how insidious an emotion shame is deserves some reflection. One of those forms is, “What would my father/mother think if they saw me like this?” Or, “What would my husband/wife think if they knew I had this feeling or concept?” These internalized expectations of others, which lead us to make choices to prevent us from allegedly being shamed by others, are basically a means to hide things about ourselves from ourselves; to not explore ourselves; and to exist in an incomplete state of existence, nearly all the time.
Shame has a parallel concept, which is dignity. I know that dignity is one of those things that everyone extols as a virtue (along with pride), but I would like to open the topic that most dignity, or the impulse to preserve dignity, is a pretense for covering up what we are ashamed of, leaving the real material below the surface, hidden and thus unaddressed. If dignity becomes an excuse for not exploring what we feel ashamed of, it’s false dignity. This is about the “appearance of being good” and adjusting how we present ourselves to the expectations of others. This becomes yet another burden – one of the biggest we carry in both Eastern and Western civilizations.
Hello Len
The power aspect is a big one. I think that in the BoB post, where I quote the passage from How To Be Your Own Lover, I get into that; but it is worth repeating. Shame and guilt are often introjections of the treatment and expectations of others, which are designed specifically to control our behavior, feelings and thoughts. In fact shame and guilt form the basis of nearly all repression. Or you could say social control, on the most intimate or widespread scale. This is why every sex scandal is about the repression of all sex. It’s why holding down the rights of sexual minorities is an attempt to control everyone else at the same time. For example, if ‘gay marriage’ is bad, then that means (in fundamentalist logic) heterosexual marriage is not only good, but presumably mandatory.
Thank you, Eric, for being both a resource and forum on these important issues. For my own input, it would seem important to look at the issue of “power over”. If i don’t have anything to fear, to lose, to regret, then shame and guilt go away. Our schools could conceivably teach children NOT to feel shame and guilt (since such things do seem to be learned) but they don’t. Parents – same thing. If you can’t shame somebody and make them feel guilty in a way that sticks, then you actually have to turn to positive reinforcement to manipulate their behavior – and we can’t have that, can we?
You Go E,
Len Wallick