About this episode
“Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.” …Guilt: I’m sorry. I made a mistake. Shame: I’m sorry. I am a mistake.”-Brené Brown, PhDDon’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan. I sobbed through the end of her Netflix special. Brown has done amazing work bringing the vocabulary of emotions to the masses and demonstrating the power of vulnerability.But while I find her to be a winning and gifted communicator, I don’t think she’s entirely right about shame, and I worry about how the above definition impacts our ability to form communities.Brown has described us as living in an “epidemic” of shame. She points out the negative health outcomes associated with people who exhibit high levels of shame, including depression, eating disorders, and suicide.Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.In a way, I agree—we’re living in an era defined by shame. But is it an over proliferation of shame? There I’m not so sure. It feels like many good people are feeling too much shame while others (including many in power) are completely shameless.Speaking for the anti-shame side, let’s look at social media shaming. Sometimes necessary, as in the Weinstein case. But there are a fair number of folks out here catching strays. (Remember that white teen who went to prom in a Chinese-style prom dress?) Public shame is a clumsy cudgel, flattening context and often leveling behaviors several magnitudes apart. Too often it’s cancel first, investigate later.Shame doesn’t feel good, and so it’s perhaps natural that we don’t want to inflict it on others. That’s very “love your neighbor,” right? Plus, shame can be such an overwhelming emotion that it triggers defensiveness rather than sober reflection.On the other hand, I have a creeping feeling that our anti-shame movement can be detrimental to community building. That’s because shame has a social aspect. Psychology Today puts it this way:“Shame makes people behave in ways that allow them to co-exist with others, and it makes people adhere to cultural norms and laws. In that way, occasional shame isn’t always a bad thing. Shame can foster humility and teach people about boundaries; without healthy shame, we would have no way to understand how our behavior affects others and manage it.”(Emphasis mine.)Shame is the threat that certain behaviors will lead to social exclusion and ostracization. It’s saying, “This behavior is outside the bounds of our group. You cannot keep doing this and still belong with us.”I fear that our hyper-individualistic society prioritizes individual comfort over group s
