Topical Guide 234
Mark Dorset
Shame and Shaming
Good and Evil
The door of the coach’s office opened again, and the Precious Metals began filing out. They looked the way they always did after a humility session: humiliated. Their eyes were down, and they shuffled along. Mr. Summers followed, walking stiffly, his demeanor stern.
“Pervert!” called one of the mothers in the front row.
Mr. Summers twitched. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I must have misheard you—”
“Humiliator!” cried another of the parents.
Other voices rose from the crowd, one by one, and some of the braver Tars joined in, too. Memory can be tricky, of course, but I seem to hear them calling—
“Ridiculer! Mocking your Scribe’s unwillingness to cut corners!”
And all the people assembled in the gym cried, “Shame!”
“Demeaner! Heartlessly belittling your Scribe’s conviction that there is a right way of doing things!”
And everyone cried, “Shame! Shame!”
“Treacherous instructor! Falsely counseling that good enough is good enough!”
And they all cried again, “Shame! Shame! Shame!”Little Follies, “The Young Tars”
Joseph Burgo’s Shame Paradigms
There are many different reasons that people might feel shame. According to [psychiatrist] Joseph Burgo, there are four different aspects of shame. He calls these aspects of shame paradigms.
[. . .] The second type of shame is unwanted exposure. “Something personal that we would like to keep private is unexpectedly revealed, or when we make a mistake in [a] public [setting].” This would take place if you were called out in front of a whole class for doing something wrong or if someone saw you doing something you didn’t want them to see. This is what you would normally think of when you hear the word shame. . . .
[more to come on Monday, April 11, 2022]
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