"Humiliation"

Brian Lynch

Humiliation is a big issue and could be a theme in almost all I write, it should be incorporated more. It is nevertheless it seems to be more appreciated in horrible and subtle, and sophisticated ways in literature, television, and the movies. It needs to be spoken about, lived in the moment in the sense of being brought to consciousness. We have to stop avoiding the moment of humiliation and learn that I am in the act of humiliation and need to stop and learn another way or that I am being humiliated and must do what I can to save myself in nonviolent ways from this violence.

There is a way of thinking of “humiliation” as part and parcel of the shame dynamic. Shame is a feeling that is at first something that truly catches us off guard. It is akin to being surprised but not nearly as abrupt. Being surprised will make you forget everything that was just happening and focus on the here and now. What is it that I should be paying attention to now?

 Shame, so to speak, is surprise under the radar. It happens when we are interrupted in our pleasant activities we were interested in and we still have that desire. Yet we cannot continue. Shame is this horrendous gap between what I had within my grasp and what I now find much out of my reach.

So what of “humiliation”? I think we usually think of this as a more public act or spectacle. I often recount now that for many years I spoke only of “shame” and then about three years ago it hit me that it might be better, especially when introducing these ideas to start with the word “humiliation” as almost everyone can envision a time when they were humiliated in public. A surprising number of these incidences of humiliation were in school, and early school, but there can certainly be private humiliations, how many times have we felt “humiliated” by not being able to remove a bottle cap with not a sole in sight?

Yet “humiliation” carries with it the sense of some forceful action from without. The eyes of others are truly on me. “I am weak.” “I am not worthy.”

Evelyn Linder makes a great contribution to the study of shame and humiliation when she points out that it was not until 1759 that the meaning of “humility” and “humiliation” were parsed. That is up until that time the terms were interchangeable.  In short, it was unthinkable for one lower class to humiliate one of a higher station. All were “humble” before their masters and all were humbled and humiliated before God. It was not until the mid-18th century that the two words start to have their more modern meaning. This, it is argued, helps give rise to the individual rights movement as it levels the playing field. Now everyone can humiliate anyone! And are we not suffering the consequences of that negative quirk now!? And humility is a rarer and rarer commodity. The solution is not backsliding but discovering the opposite sides of this great discovery, which is the emotive force of “interest” and healthy pride. Oddly enough, we have to wade through the negative to get to the positive.

Brian Lynch