Honor and Shame: You Can’t Have One Without the Other

A society can't experience shame without a universal acceptance of right behavior

In ancient Sparta, mothers emphasized fighting honorably by exhorting their sons to come back with their shield or on it. n_defender/Shutterstock

Shame, it seems, has become a homonym, a word spelled and pronounced the same, but with two different meanings.

Many today regard shame as a negative emotion, a tag of accusation imposed by others or by ourselves for our faults and failures, with damaging psychological consequences.

In her book “Daring Greatly,” author Brené Brown defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love or belonging.” During her research, she asked people for examples of shame. A few responses were “Shame is bankruptcy,” “Shame is my husband leaving me for my next-door neighbor,” and “Shame is my DUI.”

One of Brown’s main points is that while we might carry this burden for some wrong committed—gossip about a co-worker, lying to a friend—shame should never define our personhood. It’s never completely who we are. And she’s right. The employer who says, “Jones, you’re a mess” as opposed to “Jones, you’ve made a mess out of this report” is relaying two harsh but quite different messages.

Brown then offers therapeutic tactics designed to break the bonds of shame, such as confiding in a friend or treating ourselves with compassion.

“If we’re going to find our way out of shame and back to each other,” she writes, “vulnerability is the path and courage is the light.”

Agreed.

But there’s another side to the coin of shame.

An Older Sense of Shame

Legend has it that as their sons and husbands marched off to war, Spartan mothers and wives would call out, “Come back with your shield or upon it.” In other words, come back victorious or dead. Otherwise, don’t come back at all.

Until quite recently, Western societies abided by a code of honor and decorum which, if broken, might rain down a torrent of shame on the offender. From the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans right up to the middle of the 20th century, in breaking the code by which your community or family abided, you risked censure and humiliation.

We see a shift in this perception of shame in comparing Brown’s definition above to an entry from the 1986 edition of “Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary,” which informs us that shame is “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety ... something that brings strong regret, censure, or reproach.” In this definition, no mention is made of “believing that we’re flawed.”

Evidence that this more traditional sense of shame has gone missing from our society is abundant. Those politicians and generals who created the debacle of our withdrawal from Afghanistan seemed unembarrassed by their incompetence and failure. The architects of the disastrous COVID-19 lockdowns have offered no signs of remorse for their dictates and mistakes. The organizers and performers of the drag queen story hours in our public libraries, which are aimed at preschoolers, seem unaware of committing any improprieties. If the law enforcement officers who stood by in Uvalde, Texas, while a deranged young man shot up a classroom of elementary school students have expressed sorrow or humiliation for their failure to act, we have yet to hear about it.

The Link With Honor

“Where there is no shame,” 17th-century German poet Martin Opitz writes, “there is no honor.”

We can turn that line on its head and apply it to the 21st century: “Where there is no honor, there is no shame.”

Without some societal code of conduct and propriety, some universal acceptance of right behavior, there can be no shame in a culture.

In the article “Why Shoplifting Is Now De Facto Legal in California,” for instance, changes in the law now mean that “stealing merchandise worth $950 or less is just a misdemeanor, which means that law enforcement probably won’t bother to investigate, and if they do, prosecutors will let it go.”

The commandment “Thou shalt not steal” has gone by the boards.

And that’s just one example of the strange times in which we live, this age when virtues such as integrity are ignored or mocked, when behavior that would have shocked earlier generations is celebrated.

Time to Go Counter-Cultural

So, how in a time and place where shame has lost its meaning do we practice the virtues?

As so many cashiers and baristas say to me these days, “No problem.”

To begin, we turn our backs on the fads and fictions of today’s culture. If something strikes us as noble, righteous, or good, we adopt it. If it’s garbage, we toss it. “Pick the best and throw away the rest” is a good rule of thumb here.

Next, we identify and stick with positive values we already possess. If we know ourselves to be honest in our business practices, we keep that gold standard shining and polished. When temptation appears, as it always does, we deliver a good, swift kick and send it skittering to the gutter.

If we have children or grandchildren, we follow that old proverb: “Train up a child in the way he should go.” We can best do so by offering them ourselves as examples of how to live. To help us in that obligation, our libraries and bookstores contain multitudes of novels and biographies with that aim in mind. Teach our young people honor, and shame will teach itself.

And remember this: We’re in good company. Despite what we may see in the news, millions and millions of Americans still know and revere the meaning of honor and live accordingly. We aren’t making this journey alone.

Finally, we recognize that human beings are fallible, including ourselves. We fail, we disappoint, we make boneheaded mistakes, and we land in a bog of shame and self-pity. As Brown and others tell us, when we goof up and find ourselves embarrassed or humiliated, we make amends, seek some help if needed, and move on.

When the culture is out of whack, it’s time to become a rebel. Let’s live as honorably as we can.

A Last Thought: The Deterrent of Shame Is a Sidekick of Honor

Let’s say a raw recruit is hunkered down on the front lines in Ukraine right now. A Ukrainian, a Russian, take your pick. It’s nighttime, black as coal, and he and the men around him come under a heavy bombardment. The noise of the explosions is terrifying, the earth shudders and heaves, all around him soldiers are screaming in agony, and all he wants to do is turn tail and run like mad as far away from this nightmare as he can get.

But he stays in position, weapon at the ready.

And why does our soldier stay put? Is it from a sense of honor? Or is it fear of the shame of running away that pins him to the ground?

It doesn’t matter. Either way, he stays the course. He holds the line. He does the right thing.

And so can we.