Guilt and Shame.

 

Sometimes I feel so frustrated that I want to get up, run out my front door and scream.  This reaction comes about most often when people who are supposed authorities come out and say something that is patently false yet whose views will be propagated through the cybernetic world, unchallenged. One recent example of this was when a friend posted a link with Oprah Winfrey hosting one Dr. Brené Brown, PhD, etc. who has written extensively on shame.  Her assertion that shame is the number one classroom management tool used in ‘all schools, all classrooms, every day’ will make ‘every’ teacher who hears the interview (to which I refuse to link) bristle.

But that’s a topic for another note; because I want to examine the concepts on which Dr. Brown is supposedly the last word: shame, guilt, humiliation and embarrassment. (Since the last two are merely extreme responses it is best to speak of them only in terms of shame and guilt rather than to give them an equal footing in this note.)  Shame and guilt are words/feelings that limit an individual’s ability to achieve total happiness, whatever that may be.  They are a self talk that brands us, punishes us, and diminishes us, but they are also necessary social governors as well, that keep us functioning in a cooperative society. 

So let’s do some defining of terms so we all know what we’re talking about.  Shame, alphabetically last but probably with the most far reaching effect, is the feeling of having let other people and ourselves down.  It is an acknowledgement that we have acted, thought or felt in a manner that is proscribed because it is contrary to the expectations of our society, our community, our family or ourselves.  Shame doesn’t gnaw at you like guilt does but peeks into your darkened room at awkward times. As such, shame is all about you and requires that you care what others (or the proxy others that live within you) think much more than how they feel.

On the other hand, it is the concern for how one has negatively impacted the feelings of another that lies at the root of guilt.  It is much easier to openly acknowledge guilt than it is to admit shame. Guilt is largely predicated on having transgressed on an individual or group rather than the flouting of a rule or convention.  In order to feel guilt we have to be capable of empathy; in order to feel shame we can ignore people and be capable of merely of knowing the rules and conventions. Guilt is likely to lead to a quest for atonement and reconciliation whereas shame, where it elicits a response other than the reddening of the face, can often lead to an attempt at retaliation.

There are shame based cultures and guilt based cultures that are very different in the way they approach social control and deal with transgression.  Shame based cultures, such as those found mainly in the east, accentuate social harmony above all else.  Many of them have religions based on ancestor worship and a deep regard for family honour.  Disgrace is to be avoided at all cost, more ;because of the consequences to friends and family than concern for personal pride and security.

Guilt based cultures, which are almost exclusively Christian in their composition, tend more to a focus on guilt.  A lot of it seems to center around the concepts of unworthiness and sin and their consequences for the individual.  Rather than being ancestor centered, guilt based cultures tend to be more concerned with the self and the impact of wrong-doing on the perpetrator’s soul than with the besmirching of one’s family and ancestors.

Just some food for thought . . ..