Shaming: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Twere shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless. ~ William Shakespeare

Shame (Noun) a painful emotion resulting from an awareness of having done something wrong, dishonorable, improper, unworthy, degrading, ridiculous, etc.
Shame (verb) To cause to feel shame.

Joseph Burgo Ph.D. said: Although many people use the two words “guilt” and “shame” interchangeably, from a psychological perspective, they actually refer to different experiences. … [Shame] reflects how we feel about ourselves and [guilt] involves awareness that our actions have injured someone else. … In other words, shame relates to self; guilt to others. I think it’s useful to preserve this distinction, even though the dictionary definitions often blur it. … Many people crippled by shame have very little capacity to feel guilt, for example. In order to feel guilt about the harm you may have done to somebody else, you must recognize him or her as a distinct individual, to begin with. Thus a person who struggles with separation and merger issues might not feel true guilt even if he or she were to use that word to describe a feeling. Many people who display narcissistic behavior often suffer from profound feelings of shame but have little authentic concern for other people; they don’t tend to feel genuinely guilty. The lack of empathy to be found in narcissistic personality disorder makes real guilt unlikely since guilt depends upon the ability to intuit how someone else might feel.

Neel Burton M.D. said: Embarrassment is the feeling of discomfort experienced when some aspect of ourselves is, or threatens to be, witnessed by or otherwise revealed to others, and we think that this revelation is likely to undermine the image of ourselves that we seek to project to those others. …

People with low self-esteem are more prone to shame, because, having a poor self-image, they are harsher upon themselves. In some cases, they may defend against shame with blame or contempt, often for the person who incited their shame. Ultimately, this is likely to lead to even deeper shame, and so to even lower self-esteem. While overwhelming shame can be destructive, mild or moderate shame is mostly a force for good, spurring us on to lead more ethical lives. …

Shame is ego dystonic, that is, in conflict with our self-image and the needs and goals of our ego, and high levels of shame are correlated with poor psychological functioning. In particular, eating disorders and many sexual disorders can largely be understood as disorders of shame, as can narcissism, which is sometimes thought of as a defense against shame. Guilt on the other hand is ego syntonic, that is, consistent with our self-image and the needs and goals of our ego, and, unless left to fester, is either unrelated or inversely correlated with poor psychological functioning.

Faced with the same set of circumstances, people with high self-esteem are more prone to guilt than to shame, and more likely to take corrective or redemptive action.

Sharkly B.S. says:  Recently I have kept running into the concept of shaming.  Most people seem to be very against shaming being done to them, but are quite ready to do it to their opponents.  Some people are against shaming entirely and seem to go to great lengths to shame those who are still shaming. 😉

But, does shaming have a positive purpose, and if so, why do some claim to be opposed to it?  One person claimed that shaming should not be used because it might drive someone “underground” or back in “the closet”.   However that might indeed be a very powerful reason to use it.

Are we ever to shame the wayward, or are we only to humor them?  Can you shame a person’s deeds without devaluing the person?  It has been said that if you attack someone’s due dignity, your relationship will suffer.  Is there a way to shame people without attacking their human dignity?  Should we even slave to keep close relations with the shameless?  Should our relationships be subject to some basic level of expectation?  Or is it imperative that everybody be nice, polite, and unconfrontational?  I hope, with this post, to spur contemplation of shaming, and to start a discussion on the appropriate and best uses of shaming.

It would seem obvious that if society is to be peacefully reformed, we will absolutely need shame, as a force for good, spurring us on to lead more ethical lives.  And even if you favor a violent revolution, won’t you still need shame to peaceably maintain your mores after you’ve installed them via gun barrel diplomacy?  What would a chaotic world without shame even look like, where everybody did what was right in their own eyes?