Who Says We Are Not Aware of Shame and Humiliation?

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Who Says We Are Not Aware

 of Shame and Humiliation?

"The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but that this humiliation is seen by everyone."
Milan Kundera as quoted by Hotch on “Criminal Minds”

The full quote appears to be “The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter and that this humiliation is seen by everyone.”

Shame and humiliation are concepts that have become more prevalent in the psychological literature over the last twenty years. At the forefront of articulating their meaning and use have been those who work with the concepts of Silvan S. Tomkins and Donald Nathanson.

This short piece is the result of my in-depth use of these concepts in my work and study of Affect Psychology for several years and nascent ideas about how I see these ideas playing out in the culture, especially in the popular media.

The final impetus for this was an episode of a popular TV series called “Criminal Minds.”

This show revolves around a fictional FBI task force stationed at Quantico Vg. of mainly criminal “profilers” that can be called into action by invitation by local authorities to investigate difficult crimes. Usually, these are serial killers. They are a “strike team” with their private jet. In reality, the FBI has no such force. At Quantico, there are, however, special agents with profiling skills that can be called.

There is much fantasy here: first that there would be federal dollars to support such a task force on an ongoing basis. They are just not that many cases in reality and the more disturbing fact is that it portrays the mentally ill as statically much more violent than they are.

Why this case? There is no particular reason other than it was just one more plot of many I have seen that is based on the motive of humiliation for murder.

Synopsis:

Three talented young women disappear; they are all preparing to go off to college on athletic scholarships.

A relative of one of the girls contacts one of The FBI team members and gets them involved. Jumping to the conclusion of the episode it is found that the suspect must have been on the soccer team long ago. He is a garbage man, he blew out his knee in the championship game, lost a scholarship to Notre Dame, and everyone forgot about him. As many of these scenarios are they are rather gruesome.

But their gruesomeness introduces an interesting twist. They are gruesome to pique our interest and excitement. In being so gruesome and extreme we tend to put out of mind that such crimes do take place. We put reality out of our minds and somehow play a trick on ourselves. We feel that if we put the humiliating acts out of mind we can pretend that such humiliation only takes place in extreme cases or to other people.

In this case, the man had sequestered the three girls in a dungeon-like room without food or water until they decide who they would kill. They had to kill one of the three so that two would live.

One of them was sick so as she became weaker the more aggressive of the three took control and convinced the third they simply had to kill her. They yell to their captor telling him they have decided and his response is to throw them two large hammers.

Once they realize what has happened one weakens but the other becomes resolved that they have to kill their mate while they are agreeing the third revives sneaks up, and hits the aggressive girl in the head killing her instantly. A neat twist, thus saving the audience and the girls from the other horrid outcome of the other two wailing away freely on their teammates. Here we have a more clear-cut case of self-defense.

One might be quick to say that none of the synopsis of the murder adds much to my theme of shame and humiliation except to suggest and remind us of the debts to which toxic shame can lead people. I mainly recount the main plot for completeness.

Yet it has some further purpose. What is the murderer doing? This TV crime show is not just a silly excitement riddled story. The killer is playing out his morality play of and repeating a ramped-up version of his humiliation as payback to this pristine community for the years of “nothingness” he has felt.”

It is what I call the dangers of inadvertent humiliation. Society has not a clue, nor in this case should they, of what happened in this young kid's mind so many years ago and how it festered. How it could show up in such pathology so many years later? And we know it is quite rare that such a scenario would or does happen. Yet every mass shooting, that has its origin in humiliation, is certainly, not rare.

The important point is that humiliation was and is used in almost all crime stories used as a motivation for the action. But I emphasize also all the creator is doing is describing a real tangible dynamic.

I note that the motivation of humiliation is not even spelled out or followed through on in this particular episode. It is implied. We see the agents unite friends and relatives of these girls in this small town and then watch as they start fighting amongst each other and then see the agent telling them that this is what the suspect wants. Why? They don’t say it but the only reason would be to redress some previous wrong, that is for revenge.

Then all we find out is that he is a garbage man and supposedly all others involved have much higher stations in life. Of course, the three girls are star athletes and going off to IVY league schools and we learn that he lost a scholarship to Norte Dame. But there is no further comment about him. No interview, just his arrest.

It seems as if a slight misstep in the writing or just the time constraints of the format leaves no time for exploration of motive. That is not the point of the show. As always in American TV it is the case that it is our addiction to “excitement.” That does not diminish our growing maturity in recognizing shame and humiliation as a motivation for crime. Or it might be more sophisticated; a recognition that the viewer can sort all this out.

All this said it is and was for me an opportunity to comment on how humiliation has become a mainstay, a workhorse of motivation in TV drama as well as in “reality” TV. There has been some discussion of this on email lists but with this episode, it just occurred to me how it is really “right under noses” and yet not explored.

It has been suggested to me that at least the general public will more or less readily accept and understand the humiliation and the concept of shame at this level. The level of it being a motivation for murder whereas we, as already suggested, we have a much harder time understating the concepts in our day-to-day emotional lives. What do you think?

What do I mean? I mean that this whole point of this is a segue to talk about that despite the concepts of shame and humiliation being in the literate for many years they are not readily or easily accepted or introduced to the public or patients. Yet, as we see in this episode of “Criminal Minds” they are used in popular culture.

This raises some interesting questions that I think are being ignored.

First, I should be clear that for those not familiar with television drama this episode of “Criminal Minds” is by no means isolated. I wish I could offer a statistical analysis of several shows but I can’t. I can attest that any number of episodes of the set “CSI” series, the set of “Law and Order” series, and well as “Criminal Minds” base the motivation for the murder on revenge, revenge for having been humiliated. Of course “revenge” is an age-old motivation. What is different is the addition of the motivation for the revenge. That addition is the articulation of being shamed and humiliated.

Likewise, for years now, there have been several “reality shows” of all types. Shows that pit people against one another in artificial situations such as “Survivor” to shows such as “Hell’s Kitchen” and The “Weakest Link.” All of these in one way or another, in non-fictional ways, put people in situations or play-up situations where they are apt to be or ritually shame and humiliate each other.

I have broached the idea for some time that quite possibly we are simply discovering these concepts and there is no particular positive way to come to peace with them. Or they are, for the first time, coming fully into human consciousness. 

Technology and the entrainment medium offer a somewhat “safe” arena to, gain, and come to terms with these powerful emotions. We have always had the battlefield and 2000 thousand years ago we had the coliseum with Gladiators to “play with our emotions.” We still have the battlefield but to a much lesser extent despite popular opinion and we still have the coliseum for the NFL to the WWF but we also have the reality that we have seen concerning how war technology places soldiers in a surreal world where killing becomes a video game.

This is about an observation that we are making progress. Shame and humiliation are coming into consciousness and unless they do we will not be able to mitigate their power.

Although we are making progress. When I and my colleagues present these ideas in talks and therapy sessions we marvel at how little excitement and understanding there seems to be.

I will say that I think we as teachers might be missing powerful teaching moments by not referring more to and pulling examples from popular culture.

Then the question is why is it that popular culture, in my mind at least, is equal with or ahead of science in this area?

There is a saying that “the artist gets there first.”

This is completely consistent with the concepts that neuroscience is teaching us. The idea is that our information flow is in that order. It is preconscious in our deep memory banks of “affect” bundled up with “imagery” and it is only finally that it comes into consciousness. So it would seem that groups and history would follow the paradigm of the individual. The artist works on the subconscious level. They simply are pulling up the feeling and imagery more quickly then society at large.

It is said that the history of modern physics is portrayed in early modern art.

I will leave you with a synopsis of what I think is one of the poorer crime shows and that is “CSI Miami” It focuses almost totally on the mechanics of yet-to-exist technical crime techniques and very little character development. I say this as this episode had a fairly strong storyline based on humiliation.

The telling of the tale, however, takes only a few lines. The story takes place during the famous “Spring Break” in Miami. Two young men are found dead under suspicious circumstances. It turns out that at some previous point, they had severally humiliated a young lady who was overweight making her feel as if she was “nothing.” So much so that she lost the weight and became quite attractive, came to spring break, and enticed them sexually. They were none the wiser as to whom she was. At the appropriate moment, she let them know who she was and then killed them.

My final comment is this type of understanding of shame and humiliation is articulated over and over again. The writers have a very conscious understanding of it or so it would seem. They must be familiar with the literature. I invite comments about it. So it would seem that we in the business seem to be, to me, on a “high horse” of sorts and with blinders thinking we are the only ones of sorts “holding these concepts in consciousness.”

Shame is inevitable. It is at base a biological signal that something went wrong. We then learn what that signal means. It can mean many different things  The opening quote is complex and accurate on all levels. Shame is certainly not some “personal mistake of ours.” But it is precisely the helplessness we feel in the fact that we have no choice in the fact that our desires are interrupted by life willy-nilly and we are brought to our knees that we, often, feel immense humiliation. And when we are exposed it can drive us insane.

  

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"TREE OF FAILURE"

 

By Brian Lynch"

 Updated and revised

 This is a commentary on the David Brooks essay linked here

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14brooks.html

  

David Brooks has always seemed conversant. He has had a regular gig on the "News Hour"  was for years in a "civil" setting with Mark Shields (1937-2022) another civil man. The conversation now continues with other co-contributors. They had a civil conversation. It is and was not about winning but exploring ideas for a few minutes. 

 

 "So this is where civility comes from — from a sense of personal modesty and the ensuing gratitude for the political process. Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation. They are useless without the conversation." Brooks

 

 Brooks's essay is a commentary on a speech President Obama gave in Tucson in 2011 at a memorial after the mass shooting that involved U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords. 

I first say that when I listened to Obama's speech I was pleased and shamed.

 I was shamed for a short while because before the speech I had jumped on the bash the Sara Palin bandwagon. She had a few months earlier been associated with an ad that put several congressmen in the crosshairs of a target. One of those was Congresswomen Giffords. 

From the first lines of the President's speech, he set a tone that raised the bar. I came back to work and had conversations about it. That said it is also important to point out we too need not have the language of "hunting" and killing in our political speech or business. Witness the man arrested at the town meeting telling the "Tea Party" member "your dead." Of course, this was and is a mental health issue.

 

 But I protest to myself a bit in a "conversation" with myself. Is it so simple? In the ensuing days, the conversation in the media was somewhat civil and rational and brought in discussion of the mental health issue and the insanity of the system and how those in psychotic states get bantered about the system and usually will end up in jail often with felony counts. This conversation was introduced firsthand to me, through direct experience, when it was first happening, years ago, when the hospitals were being emptied and the community health centers were not being built and were not being funded. Not a political issue? And therefore not directly or indirectly related to the shooting? I think not. There is a direct cause and effect. Things do come home to roost. 

 

 There was mention of that the danger of the "self-esteem" movement is that I come to think that I am the center of the universe and that I should not have any bad feelings at all. Can there be too many trophies given out? 

These ideas apply more to those of us who should be capable of "conversing" and fixing the problems and helping the psychotics, than those not capable of conversing at least much of the time as many of those do need many trophies because they are often where are because they have been destroyed by shaming and humiliation. But for those of us, capable, Brooks’ point is well taken when he says "The problem is that over the past 40 years or so we have gone from a culture that reminds people of their limitations to a culture that encourages people to think highly of themselves." 

 

 I see this too in the larger society. This is the irony and the conundrum of the "rights" movement and I have often expressed it as such. Everyone is "equal." Unfortunately, everyone becomes equal in all ways. So why would anyone have anything to say to anyone? Everyone is right in their way and beautiful as the song says. Give me my space and I'll give you yours. Just leave me alone. No discussion. I can't risk the humiliation. 

 

 As a physician, one that de facto has to be in a position of "power" from time to time, I like many here, have had to suffer through many embarrassing situations of being told that someone is just as "equal" as themselves or at least insinuated that they where equal to me; a janitor, "housekeeping", an administrator tells you would you please (or and your lucky to have the politeness thrown in there) vacate the room now, tell them exactly when you will be done, finish your work in thirty minutes or whatever when in fact you are engaged entirely in patient-centered care. I have essentially been fired on the word of the janitor. I had asked the janitor to please come back when my group was done as he was mopping under and around the conference table as the group was going on. 

I make clear yes everyone is absolutely equal in that they have a common set of human needs and rights. We can not, however, all fly the plane.

 

 I am too not sure that calling us to and reminding us of our "sinfulness", as Brooks does, is an answer. Brooks: "But over the past few decades, people have lost a sense of their sinfulness. Children are raised amid a chorus of applause. Politics has become less about institutional restraint and more about giving voters whatever they want at that second. Joe DiMaggio didn’t ostentatiously admire his home runs, but now athletes routinely celebrate themselves as part of the self-branding process."

 

 Yes, I agree with the overall sentiment. And that is again I think the idea of looking out to the community to a "conversation" but I do cringe at "sinfulness." This is what I think we do not want. Brooks is struggling due to a lack of vocabulary to go "back in the day when." Except I and I think we all get queasy or should when we talk about a "wished for day"? A wished for day of "conversation?" When and where exactly was that? Yes, there were times of greater bipartisanism of the great backroom deal of great conversation. And I suppose you can say that is what helped start bringing us out of segregation, and sexism and gave us social reforms. 

 

 But of course, conversation of yore did not precisely include all. Ted and Orin were able to reach across the aisle in the greatest deliberative body. We can only hope it will continue to be that and I suspect there is no reason to believe that other odd pairings will not materialize. The challenge is that the tent is now big, the reforms now made, and the positions taken. Can we risk the humiliation and leave "Everyone is right in their way and beautiful as the song says. Give me my space and I'll give you yours. Just leave me alone. No discussion." behind? I think this challenge to be true on all levels no matter even our understanding of affect.

 Edit: This was written in 2011. Things have not gotten better by any means.

We have to even be careful, unfortunately, of what we mean and how we carry out "conversation." I went well out of my way to steep myself in the tradition of education vis-a-vis what anyone might call "civil conversation" and have found it to be the refuge for many of those who wish to "cogitate." The elite or those by nature that are engaged in the life of the mind as an avoidance and not an engagement of the world. Certainly not all, of course, but it is no news to anyone here that one might say the problem of all education is an almost complete lack of education in emotional intelligence. So that students can be highly educated in the "art of "logic" and 'the art of conversation'" for four years and come out emotional cripples or at least no better off than when they entered. 

 

 Online encounters with my alumni community proved later to show that four years of formal education in "conversation" ( and indeed this being the centerpiece of the school) seemed to have caused no effect on their basic "true" affective/emotional makeup. Online those years of civility instantly disappeared. At a alumni gathering a "prospective" parent who was a psychiatrist shied away from me when I pushed the idea that schools should deal with emotional health and education. "Oh no they have enough to deal with!" 

So a conversation, I suppose, you have to start somewhere.

Some quotes from the Brooks article:

Every sensible person involved in politics and public life knows that their work is laced with failure. Every column, every speech, every piece of legislation and every executive decision has its own humiliating shortcomings. There are always arguments you should have made better, implications you should have anticipated, other points of view you should have taken on board.

Moreover, even if you are at your best, your efforts will still be laced with failure. The truth is fragmentary and it’s impossible to capture all of it. There are competing goods that can never be fully reconciled. The world is more complicated than any human intelligence can comprehend.

But every sensible person in public life also feels redeemed by others. You may write a mediocre column or make a mediocre speech or propose a mediocre piece of legislation, but others argue with you, correct you and introduce elements you never thought of. Each of these efforts may also be flawed, but together, if the system is working well, they move things gradually forward.

Each individual step may be imbalanced, but in succession they make the social organism better.

As a result, every sensible person feels a sense of gratitude for this process. We all get to live lives better than we deserve because our individual shortcomings are transmuted into communal improvement. We find meaning — and can only find meaning — in the role we play in that larger social enterprise.