Oh, the shame!, part two

Well, that was fast. Let me take the comments on shame culture one by one, with Dave first:

What about the downside of shame? After all, guilt seems to be based in some sort of objective fact-seeking process. Shame, by contrast, rests primarily in community consensus.

"Good!" you might say, as we are sort of conservative and thus sort of love communities. As does Barack Obama. But isn't the flip side of feeling shame for things you're connected to, making people feel shame for things they did(n't) do that _weren't wrong_ just because the community says so? And yes, this is always somewhat arbitrary, but do we really want to embrace a culture founded upon that?

A couple of things: finding of fact is never perfect, and I take comfort in the fact that shame is external. I am inclined to be forgiving of my own faults, more so than I ought to be. The last thing that needs to happen is for me to be the ultimate arbiter of my own emotional punishment; when that happens, I always get punished less than I deserve.

Secondly, I'm (usually) jazzed about people suffering humiliation for things that aren't wrong; it breeds humility in a way that nothing else can. Humiliation is to humility as suffering is to character. Think of Paul Scofield as Saint Thomas More; he wants to find a loophole in King Henry's loyalty pledge that will allow him to sign it, even though it would make the English public suspect him of being Anglican rather than Catholic. His freedom of conscience is important here, but so is his willingness to suffer at the hands of rumor.

This tough line needs to be mitigated, certainly; for instance, one's family should never be agents of shame. To look to pop culture again, think of Dana telling her brother "What do you say I be the one person in your life that isn't pissed at you right now?" And we should be vigilant about making sure that we're not systematically shaming people for moral acts, or shaming people just because they're different, all of which argues for good honor culture, not no honor culture. I am sure you'll understand where I'm coming from after you watch The Winslow Boy, Dave. (I assume you've seen A Man for All Seasons and Sports Night.)

X.: Haven't read the Nussbaum, but I'll get back to you on it.

Dara:

I'm really unconvinced that just because we prefer guilt to shame, guilt can become a matter of pride. In a nonconfessional culture, guilt would become a much more corrosive and damaging thing--in fact, on issues we collectively don't wish to address it already is (Holocaust, etc.) It seems to me that the better answer is to bring down the culture of oversharing.

I think the fruitful comparison here is between German guilt over World War Two and British colonial guilt, but I know that Kate is cooking something up on that, so I'll toss it to her.

Noah:

Aren't the problems you identify with "guilt culture" actually problems with Christian culture? This is building off of Dara's point on oversharing. It seems like we overshare, particularly in the political sphere, because the act of confessing brings virtue (for reasons unclear to me). All you have to do is say "sorry."

I agree with everything you've said, except that I would replace "Christian" with "damnfool Protestant."

Housemate TKB:

So I'd originally thought the most meaningful difference between guilt and shame was how it was expressed: communicating our guilt relieves, communicating our shame humiliates. The distinction comes from the way we anticipate others' reactions, not from some inherent emotional difference.

I cheat on my boyfriend: guilt, because the action itself is only bad because of the circumstances- if I hadn't had a boyfriend, making out with some guy is perfectly fine.

I cheat on my boyfriend with a really ugly ten dollar gigolo: shame, because doing anything with a really ugly ten dollar gigolo is never acceptable, regardless of context.

Yes! And this assumption that other people will be sympathetic is exactly the problem with guilt.