Dr. Brothers believes that "maybe it's time to invite the useful aspects of shame back into our culture." This, in view of such supposedly shameful cultural phenomena as trash TV (too much sex, aggression, and acted-out personal hostility), trashy attire (too many piercings, too much skin), and a general "indecency" factor permeating our popular culture.
I doubt Dr. Brothers is right about the cure for this disease being a return to shame.
She points out, quite correctly I think, that up until the 1960s, shaming children for their "bad" behavior was a primary tool of parents and teachers. Then the '60's youth generation — my generation — declared war on an ethos which saw (in an example Dr. Brothers' herself gives) kids being made fun of by teachers in front of their class for wetting their pants.
I also think her point well taken that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction: incessant self-revelation. 24/7 self-exposure, à la celebrities like Madonna (whom Dr. Brothers quotes as saying, "I have no shame") is the order of the day.
Where I disagree with Dr. Brothers is her prescription: a return of "good" or "positive" shame to our culture.
I doubt there's such as thing as "good" shame. Yes, there is a type of shame which (as she notes) is hard-wired into Madonna and everyone else, by virtue of being human. It — in the way that fear is also — is a powerful emotional response to a particular kind of situation. When we are exposed as doing what society abhors, however we may try to cover our reaction, we feel shame.
Even Madonna, I'm sure, knows exactly what it is that she says she has none of. For shame is something we feel when the occasion is appropriate ... it is not supposed to be something we have.
In this way, again, shame is like fear. When we feel fear in appropriate circumstances, that's good. But when we continue to feel fear beyond the immediate justification for it, we call it anxiety and consider it bad.
The so-called "good" shame which Dr. Brothers calls on us to have stands in relation to actual shame as anxiety does to actual, justifiable fear.
No, there's too much danger in Dr. Brothers' prescription for having more "good" shame. It would all too easily become a rationale to go back to the cruel, repressive, counterproductive shaming ethos of an earlier era.
What's needed is not an increase in shame or shaming. It's not more humiliation, but greater personal humility.
Humbleness has all the positive attributes Dr. Brothers identifies with "good" shame. It
- gives you new insight about yourself
- encourages you to make improvements
- expands your value system
- makes you more sensitive to others, and
- makes you want to elevate the culture around you.
But humility is not (in Dr. Brothers' definition of shame) "the feeling that there's something wrong about you."
Furthermore, there's no implicit link between humility and (I might as well say it) sexual or bodily shame. As soon as you start using the word "shame," our culture, given its history, implictly prefixes "sexual" or "bodily" to it.
Whatever else you may think of Madonna, you have to admit that her career stands in staunch reproach to such prudishness. She's been embraced by the popular culture as much for that as for her talent. Now, humility is not her strong point ... which is why I can take her or leave her. But because of people like her, I seriously doubt our culture can ever go back to enshrining a "good" shame which can't help but have implicit sexual or bodily antagonisms.
So, let's focus instead on cultivating "shame light": humility. For I doubt any more draconian approach could ever work.
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