Shame: A Guardian of Honor

"Adam and Eve banished from Paradise," c.1427, by Masaccio. Public domain

According to legend, the apostle Peter was fleeing Rome and Emperor Nero’s persecution of Christians when he met Jesus walking toward the city.

“Domine, quo vadis?” Peter asked in astonishment. “Lord, where are you going?”

Jesus replied, “I am going to Rome to be crucified again,” and then vanished.

Shamed by his cowardice and the betrayal of his faith, Peter returned to Rome and was soon crucified.

Shame has a long history in Western culture. Spartan women, for instance, reputedly enjoined their battle-bound menfolk to “come back with your shield or upon it,” meaning return with honor or not at all. Renaissance painter Masaccio vividly depicted the mortification felt by Adam and Eve on their exile from the Garden of Eden. Soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War often served alongside friends and neighbors, adding a powerful incentive to do their duty.

"Adam and Eve banished from Paradise," c.1427, by Masaccio. Public domain

Shame of a certain type is a destroyer.

In “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead,” professor and author Brené Brown wrote: “We live in a world where most people still subscribe to the belief that shame is a good tool for keeping people in line. Not only is this wrong, but it’s dangerous. Shame is highly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders, and bullying.”

But what of a society that seems bent on abolishing shame altogether? In particular, what happens when a personal sense of shame, one that we might use to keep ourselves in line, disappears?

Senate staffer Aidan Maese-Czeropski was recently fired after filming himself naked and engaging in lewd conduct with another man in a Senate hearing room, yet in his response to his egregious and foolish act, this young man offered no apologies and exhibited no sign of embarrassment.

This lack of remorse seems but one more mark of a society in which shame appears to be a relic of the past. The corrupt in our government, for instance, rarely display any discomfiture, much less contrition, when caught in their crimes. Millions of Americans routinely watch online pornography, public salaciousness is celebrated, and language once considered beyond the bounds of propriety is now the norm.

In private life as well, some people behave abominably with no outward signs of regret. Under a pseudonym, they smear others on social media. Some steal supplies from the workplace and then laugh it off: “Everyone does it.” Some look at sex as recreation and care not a whit about those they hurt.

This diminished sense of shame is symptomatic of a deeper cultural rot: the absence of a common code of ethics and virtue. Many men and women, likely a majority, adhere to some traditional measuring stick of correct behavior, yet society at large has erased many of the communal religious and moral strictures of our ancestors. Aristotelian ethics, the four classical virtues, the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule: These and other moral basics of the past are undervalued and undertaught these days. In their place is a “selfie” culture focused on individual rights unbounded by individual responsibilities, steered by a philosophy loosely called relativism. This ship sailed years ago, and few of us possess the resources, skills, or bully pulpit to reverse its course.

We can, however, refuse passage on this rudderless vessel. We can instead ask ourselves the question put to readers by Leon Kass in “Leading a Worthy Life: Finding Meaning in Modern Times”: “How to live, in order to live well?” With that question as our compass, we can then navigate life’s seas and storms by relying on the time-tested truths and morality that built our civilization.

With this lodestar of virtue as our guide, we can live with honor and dignity—and without fear of shame—and shine a light enabling our children to follow us.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.