2.10. Shame and Shamelessness
We now turn to Shame and Shamelessness; what follows will explain the things that cause these feelings, and the persons before whom, and the states of mind under which, they are felt.
Shame may be defined as pain or disturbance in regard to bad things, whether present, past, or future, which seem likely to involve us in discredit, and shamelessness as contempt or indifference in regard to these same bad things. If this definition be granted, it follows that we feel shame at such bad things as we think are disgraceful to ourselves or to those we care for. These evils are, in the first place, those due to moral badness.
Such are throwing away one’s shield or taking to flight, for these bad things are due to cowardice. Also, withholding a deposit or otherwise wronging people about money, for these acts are due to injustice. Also, having carnal intercourse with forbidden persons, at wrong times, or in wrong places, for these things are due to licentiousness. Also, making profit in petty or disgraceful ways, or out of helpless persons, e.g. the poor, or the dead—whence the proverb “He would pick a corpse’s pocket.” For all this is due to low greed and meanness.
Also, in money matters, giving less help than you might, or none at all, or accepting help from those worse off than yourself. So also borrowing when it will seem like begging; begging when it will seem like asking the return of a favour; asking such a return when it will seem like begging; praising a man in order that it may seem like begging; and going on begging in spite of failure: all such actions are tokens of meanness.
Also, praising people to their face, and praising extravagantly a man’s good points and glossing over his weaknesses, and showing extravagant sympathy with his grief when you are in his presence, and all that sort of thing; all this shows the disposition of a flatterer.
Also, refusing to endure hardships that are endured by people who are older, more delicately brought up, of higher rank, or generally less capable of endurance than ourselves, for all this shows effeminacy. Also, accepting benefits (especially accepting them often) from another man, and then abusing him for conferring them. All this shows a mean, ignoble disposition.
Also, talking incessantly about yourself, making loud professions, and appropriating the merits of others, for this is due to boastfulness.
The same is true of the actions due to any of the other forms of badness of moral character, of the tokens of such badness, etc. They are all disgraceful and shameless.
Another sort of bad thing at which we feel shame is lacking a share in the honourable things shared by every one else, or by all or nearly all who are like ourselves. By “those like ourselves” I mean those of our own race or country or age or family, and generally those who are on our own level. Once we are on a level with others, it is a disgrace to be, say, less well educated than they are, and so with other advantages. All the more so, in each case, if it is seen to be our own fault. Wherever we are ourselves to blame for our present, past, or future circumstances, it follows at once that this is to a greater extent due to our moral badness.
We are moreover ashamed of having done to us, having had done, or being about to have done to us acts that involve us in dishonour and reproach; as when we surrender our persons, or lend ourselves to vile deeds, e.g. when we submit to outrage. And acts of yielding to the lust of others are shameful whether willing or unwilling (yielding to force being an instance of unwillingness), since unresisting submission to them is due to unmanliness or cowardice. These things, and others like them, are what cause the feeling of shame.
Now since shame is a mental picture of disgrace, in which we shrink from the disgrace itself and not from its consequences, and we only care what opinion is held of us because of the people who form that opinion, it follows that the people before whom we feel shame are those whose opinion of us matters to us. Such persons are: those who admire us, those whom we admire, those by whom we wish to be admired, those with whom we are competing, and those whose opinion of us we respect.
We admire those, and wish those to admire us, who possess any good thing that is highly esteemed, or from whom we are very anxious to get something that they are able to give us—as a lover feels. We compete with our equals. We respect, as true, the views of sensible people, such as our elders and those who have been well educated. And we feel more shame about a thing if it is done openly, before all men’s eyes. Hence the proverb, “shame dwells in the eyes.” For this reason we feel most shame before those who will always be with us and those who notice what we do, since in both cases eyes are upon us.
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