kerravonsen | The Illumination of Chapter 2

I've been reading my eldest brother's PhD thesis. No, this is not a usual thing for me. But we were discussing punitive justice the other day (as one does) and he suggested I read it, and loaned me a copy -- a big hardbound book which looks twice as big as it actually is, because apparently PhD theses are printed double-spaced on one side of the leaf. Perhaps that's so examiners can write all over it? I dunno. Anyway, he said to skip the start and begin reading at chapter 3. I looked at the table of contents and began reading at chapter 2. Why? Because it looked as if chapter 3 was using concepts defined in chapter 2, so I wanted to understand them first.

Oh, and what is my brother's PhD thesis actually about? It combines theology and psychology in an examination of the Eden narrative in Genesis from a psychological perspective. But not a Jungian symbolic perspective, or of trying to get into the psyche of the author, but examining the psychology of the people in the story. As people, not symbols. But I haven't gotten to that bit yet. I've only just read chapter 2, where there's a defining of terms. The terms of "guilt" and "shame". I don't know about you, but for me, guilt and shame go hand-in-hand so much that I've found it somewhat difficult to untangle them in my head. I mean, I know they're different from each other, but I haven't been sure what precisely it is that distinguishes them. Reading that chapter 2, I it found rather clarifying, so I decided to stop and write this post. The following are my reflections and thinky thoughts about what I got out of it.

Guilt is in relation to a specific deed.
Shame is in relation to what others think of you; what they think or what you imagine they might think.

With guilt, you done wrong, it was an action of yours, you did it. And choosing-not-to-act is also an action, which is why people can feel guilty for things they failed to do.

Shame has to do with our relationship with a group of people, of society (or the tribe, or the clan, or the town etc.). Individualism is all very well, but human beings are hard-wired to seek a group or groups to belong to; it is a matter of survival. When you're a cave-man with your stone tools being a hunter-gatherer, if you don't belong to a tribe, you will die. So the belong-to-a-group thing is fundamental. And shame is a sign of not-belonging.

"Anticipatory shame" is from what we imagine others in the group might think of us; we want to avoid the shame, so we do stuff to try to prevent what we anticipate might happen. It is an internalised form of shame.

Then we have external/public shame, which comes in two forms: public disgrace, and stigma. Public disgrace goes with guilt, because it is usually in response to a deed you have done that the group considers to be disgraceful, dishonourable, wrong. So the group publicly shames you.

Stigma, on the other hand, is more insidious and subtle. If a person is stigmatised, it isn't that they have done a wrong thing; it is that they are undesirable; they have characteristics or behaviours which the group deems to be unwanted rather than immoral. The specific things will depend on the group; it can be all sorts of things: obesity, disability, mental illness, weakness, lack of hygiene, lack of wealth, ancestry etc. etc. Stigma is often more about who you are rather than what you've done, which means it might be impossible to remove. Not without removing yourself from the group. The ultimate removal is, of course, suicide. A happier removal is to find another group to belong to instead... if such a group exists. Share your thoughts, if you will.