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 Poetics of Shame

By Nathan Joe

A thought experiment: consider the ways in which shame has saved you. Consider the ways in which shame has kept you well behaved. Consider the ways shame has stopped you from straying. 

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Straying from what though? The thing you most desire?

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To carry shame is thought to be a bad thing. An unhealthy thing. The product of a repressed mind. 

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To be shameless is also to be undignified, abject, obscene.  

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Idea for a scif-fi novel: a society where its inhabitants do not feel shame. Whether it be chemically removed or socially overcome, doesn’t really matter. What would that look like though? And what happens when an outsider shows up and disturbs this “perfect” equilibrium?

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A child typically learns shame at such an early age. It is a social practice. A part of the social contract one is forced to sign. Can one truly unlearn shame - or is it simply ignored and endured? What is the difference between healing and simply becoming jaded? What is the difference between becoming numb and becoming tougher?

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I don’t think I could trust a man who says he’s never felt shame in his life.

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What kind of man are you if you begin to internalise shame so much that you see it as positive? As a necessity? But without shame we are shameless. Without shame we are nothing but animals, no? 

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Is shame the thin border separating us from hedonism? Transgression?

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Aidos - the greek word for shame - the greek goddess of shame. Shame made corporeal. Shame personified. 

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The concept of face (the sociological concept) seems to go hand in hand with the concept of shame. They bear cross-cultural similarities. Without shame, face would not feel necessary. Shame is the cold chill and face is the duvet one huddles under desperately for warmth.

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Face. Decorum. Custom. Tact. Shame preserves these. 

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Shame as a vehicle for desire. You as the passenger. Or you as the driver. 

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Is the ‘walk of shame’ shameful because it is named so, or because it is inherently shameful? To name something is to give it power. 

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Shame as self-preservation. A mechanism - like pain - that feels bad, yes, but exists to protect us ultimately. 

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Or is that a sick romanticisation of shame?

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Shame as Stockholm Syndrome. Bound and gagged by shame and growing to like it. Even proud of it. 

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Case study: The Ancient Greek Tragedy of Phaedra and Hippolytus. A stepmother and her stepson. She desires her stepson and the only thing preventing her is aidos. That is, the Greek word for shame. Playwright Euripides pushed this story of desire to its inevitable and destructive end. He implied shame as the only thing preventing her from confessing her desires to her stepson. The only thing keeping her from debasing herself. But shame is presented as a double-edged sword. Shame makes her sick, shame drives her mad. Shame (spoiler alert) destroys her in the end. 

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Perhaps incestuous desire is too extreme a thing for audiences to empathsise with. 

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Facilitators of shame. Our parents are surely the greatest. But children can be too. Shame is wielded when those step outside their expected roles. Shame is used to toe the line.  A child shaming a parent strikes me as a sort of revenge. A role reversal. 

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The further one is from one’s parents, the greater one’s capacity to combat and ignore shame. The mathematics of shame. The geography of shame.

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The coming out narrative is a sort of shame game. It is the weighing up of pros and cons. The protagonist asks: Is the net happiness I achieve greater than the shame incurred? High risk equals high reward. For some people, the risk is deemed too high. The shame is too immense. Shame wins. The closet remains closed.

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And what about those who never come out? One either bottles up desire or lets desire slip out. Desire and discretion playfully flirting with each other. Shame makes desire more potent. 

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If the dream of ‘coming out’ is a cathartic relief, the end of shame, a final destination to end the long, tired journey of hiding  oneself, the reality is somewhat disappointing. 

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Anyone who has ever actually come out knows the process is one of ongoing struggle. Of repetition. Repetition of selves shattered. Catharsis is not doled out so easily. 

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Catharsis like the tears after a bad breakup. Catharsis like the end of an acid trip. Catharsis like in the movies. Catharsis like how we love to quote the Greeks.

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I think of my present operating self as my truth minus my shame. 

(I = my truth - my shame)

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The notion of living one’s truth seems juvenile at best.  A pipe dream.

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Shame is often an exercise in imagination. If I pursue this desire, what might the consequences be? How will I be perceived?  How shall I catastrophize? 

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Another expert on shame: Blanche DuBois of A Streetcar Named  Desire. Tennessee Williams found a vessel to pour shame into. We write to exorcise shame. So she sweats his shame. She is a fantasy crafted. She crafts her own fantasies to hide behind. Shame makes her a dreamer. But that dreaming is weaponised against her and (spoiler alert) destroys her in the end. 

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Shame is so often tied with sex. Therefore sex must be the most shameful human experience. But is that intrinsically so?

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Live your truth. Be yourself. 

Familiar phrases in the pursuit of personal happiness. A particularly western notion. Collectivism versus individuality. Society contradicts itself.

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The internet is a no man’s land where shame can exist mostly uninterrupted. Is the internet a reflection, then, of how humanity would be without shame? Or is it simply a response to a culture that has had to operate under the tight grip for so long? 

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Shame is the result of desiring something we know (or are taught) we should not. Shame is the gap between what we have and what we want. A hot burning distance. 

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Kinkshaming. The argument against kinkshaming is predicated on the basis that what one does in the bedroom is their business (assuming it is consensual). That no matter how tawdry it might seem, it is okay. Whether it be violent or otherwise. Because, for all intents and purposes, it is “performative”. 

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Case study: The fictionalised Roy Cohn in Angels in America distances himself from homosexuality (despite having sex with men), pointing at clout as the point of differentiation between him and homosexuals. He has clout; they do not. One cultivates shame to cultivate clout. Need I say it? Shame (spoiler alert) destroys him in the end.

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The relief or catharsis of overcoming shame. By the same token that pleasure only comes from knowing what pain is - they are opposing forces. Surely shame results in pleasure too. Is that just a form of sadomasochistic delight? 

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Shame’s close cousins: guilt, embarrassment, humiliation.

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A memory: when it visits - when they visit - your past that is. Your parents. You feel yourself folding into that old skin. You wear yourself out. You wear yourself. This costume of you. Nostalgia so forgotten it almost seems new. 

Your past - your parents - take no notice. This is you. This is you. This IS you. 

And when they meet your friend - your flatmate - your lover - you wonder if there is a click of understanding. Or maybe they are as ignorant as you need them to be. As they need to be. The contract of the unspoken. A contract that says I am the good son, You are the good parent.

When they go, it’s like they were never here. 

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The society we live in teaches some people to experience shame more than others. Yes, the obvious cases: women, people of colour, queer bodies. People who hold shame in their blood and bones. 

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When we talk of overcoming shame, we talk about it as a personal endeavour, work that one must do, self-care, self-improvement, self-actualisation . It is made out to be something that must be overcome on an existential level. 

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What would it take to overcome shame on an institutional level though? 

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Surely shame is a perfect example of where the personal and political meet. The intersection. 

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Maggie Nelson ponders, “Empirically speaking, we are made from star stuff. Why aren’t we talking more about that?” 

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Are we really stardust? It’s a notion that is SO amazing, SO astounding, that it becomes corny. Cringe-worthy even. It’s a phrase that inspires shame and embarrassment in its own right. 

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But I don’t imagine that the stars felt shame. What a waste of stars. What a waste. 

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When this is all over, when I return to the sky, I wonder if shame will follow me.