[lit-ideas] Re: Kamikaze versus 9/11 Terrorists
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:13:32 -0500
Shame is a serious topic of study in the psychological community. It's
known as the "master emotion". It's much more than pop-sociology jargon.
Body shame is more than not liking one's body. Body shame is taking the
feeling of being fundamentally defective (really the definition of shame)
and applying it to one's body. Therefore, someone like Marilyn Monroe
could very easily have body shame. Many beautiful women think themselves
ugly, the way anorexics think they're fat.
Shame starts very early in life, predating guilt. Also, shame isn't a
problem. Small amounts of shame are what conscience is based on. Healthy
people must have it. Sociopaths have no shame. "Toxic shame" is the
problem. Toxic shame starts with the very young child's (guilt is formed
by the age of 2, so this is earlier than that but I don't remember exactly)
blaming himself for mom not coming to his rescue when he cries, etc. It's
what children do, it's all they know how to do, blame themselves for
everything bad. Basically, it's too threatening to think the adults are
crazy; crazy people can't take care of him; it's much safer to think he's
the problem. A child blaming him/herself equals believing they're
defective. (The first thing trauma workers tell even adults is, it's not
your fault.) Dysfunctional parents provide many opportunities for the
child to blame himself. ("If I was good enough Dad would play with me, not
hit me, etc.") Add to that overt shaming (be a man! (uh, like what's a
man?), and much worse stuff), violating boundaries verbally and physically,
the worst of which is sexual abuse, and on and on. Someone once added up
something like 18,000 hours in an average childhood of negative influences.
That's where toxic shame comes from.
Toxic shame sounds like it should be psychobabble but it's a real thing. I
think it was Alice Miller who coined "poisonous pedagogy". That's based in
toxic shame. It's the parenting style credited with creating Nazis.
People think money is the root of all evil. Toxic shame is the root of all
evil; pharma's price gouging, war, etc.
You're right, though, shame is very different from modesty. People who
have appropriate levels of shame are relatively modest.
> [Original Message]
> From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 3/28/2006 4:38:18 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Kamikaze versus 9/11 Terrorists
>
> In the links you posted, 'body shame' (a piece of pop-sociology jargon)
> seemed to refer to a dissatisfaction with one's body (one is too fat,
> too flat-chested, too wrinkled). Such dissatisfaction has little to do
> with 'modesty.' The Ancient Greeks were cited as having little 'body
> shame,' because youths lounged and exercised naked in the gymnasia; but
> this says nothing about 'body shame' in the first sense. Here you seem
> to equate, curiously, 'body shame' with lack of adornment; yet here the
> Greeks would seem to be very close to the Amish (and other sects); they
> dressed plainly and uniformly. Are you saying that in the gymnasia they
> lacked 'body shame' and in the Agora they displayed it? This seems a bit
> confused. 'Shame,' 'prudishness,' and 'modesty,' are not just different
> names for the same concept: one may think one has an absolutely splendid
> body, yet choose not to display it in public, just as one may not be
> concerned with whether one's body comes close to some ideal, for one
> thinks that nudity, nakedness, and/or any concern with such things is
> somehow sinful.
>
> Robert Paul
> (until MG returns, the Atlas of the list)
>
> Eric wrote:
>
> > How are the Amish an example of body shame?
> >
> > The "plain people" avoid all kinds of adornment. Like the Muslims, they
> > have strict rules for clothing and dress. "Body shame" is more an
> > outsider's term. Adherents to these views tend to refer to "modesty."
>
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