Posted by
Rilaly on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 5:14:31 PM
Growing up in the Catholic religion, I learned all there is to know about shame. In my teens and twenties, I rebelled against the religion’s idea that shame is a virtue, but watching the American icon-igensia has led me to believe that a few of them could use a dose of Catholicism’s shame. In other words, shame can be good.
If you don’t let shame get in your way, in America today, you can accomplish a great deal. Hollywood and Washington have filtered through a number of dirty words of our lexicon. They've selectively ruled some words as good and some as bad. As they run out of dirty words, they develop new ones. One particular word that has taken on a new taboo: judgment.
“Don’t judge me,” says the man who is almost unworthy of our judgment. Judgment is idea that one man holds another man to a standard, and when that man falls short of that standard we judge him to be of poor character. His defense is to point the finger to others and call them hypocritical. The goal of his defense is to never be held accountable for his actions. This defense is usually successful, because those who judge do not want to be held accountable for our own actions.
This makes for excellent fodder in Hollywood plotlines and in sermons from the talking heads of political arena, but as it permeates our society it appears to be taking necessary bricks out of our country's moral foundation.
One of the examples of a change in the use of shame in our society can best be exemplified in two recent presidencies. Richard Nixon committed a measly, little crime. It was stupid. It was dumb. In hindsight, we all know that he didn’t have to do it. When it was completed, however, Nixon compounded the crime by committing an array of horrendous crimes. I don’t want to run through the list of Nixon’s crimes, but suffice it to say that most of them were abuses of executive power. These crimes prompted Nixon to resign from the presidency in shame. Would Nixon have resigned in self-imposed shame when all was said and done? Nixon claims that he resigned to save the nation from the spectacle that would’ve arisen from the impeachment trials. Historical documents and interviews with Nixon suggest otherwise. What happened is that he was forced into shame by his fellow Republicans. The Republicans informed him that they would be forced to vote against him, and the rest is history.
Twenty some odd years later, another president, Bill Clinton, found himself in a similar predicament. He committed a measly, little crime. It was stupid. It was dumb. In hindsight, we all know that he didn’t have to do it. When it was done, however, he compounded the crime by committing all kinds of horrendous crimes. I don’t want to run through the list of Clinton’s crimes, but suffice it to say that most of them were abuses of executive power. Would Clionton have resigned in self-imposed shame when all was said and done? We all know the answer to that. We all know that Clinton was willing to put himself, and the nation, through the shame of a grand jury testimony, an FBI semen test, and an impeachment hearing. Why was Clinton willing to leg it out, because he knew that his fellow Democrats were not about to shame him into resigning.
I don’t know if this slouch toward Gomorrah began in my lifetime, but it has been provided an accelerant in the form of our media. Who is O.J. Simpson? I remember when O.J. was first indicted for his crimes. Little kids were stopping him on golf courses to get autographs. These little kids were far too young to know O.J. the athlete, they were too young to know O.J. the broadcaster, and I think they were too young to enjoy the humor of the Naked Guns. They only knew O.J. the murderer, and they wanted his autograph. Was this a result of the media, the parents of these children, or their peers? Is the sociopathic nature of an O.J. Simpson a result of some sort of natural, chemical imbalance in his brain, a result of him being protected from shame by his star studded status throughout his life, or is his nature endemic of our society?
Then you have Kobe Bryant. My greater concern is not with the purported crimes that are committed by the celebutants that are brought before a judge. Purported criminals have been getting away with crimes since legal systems were developed, but the concern should be properly placed on us. Kobe Bryant was a prime time star in the NBA, even before the alleged crime was committed, but the alleged crime put him on the map. His star took off. A public relations expert could not have envisioned a greater publicity stunt for Bryant. His status and stature were never better. I think it was the ESPY’s that Bryant walked into to receive a standing ovation. For what? For alleged raping a woman. People later wanted to say that they ‘had his back’, and that they were they were there for him. For what? Moral support? The man may have been guilty for all they knew. I think that the greater message that those in the seats wanted to send is that they are not going to judge him regardless of the outcome.
We all know the Madonna, Britney, and Paris scandals, but there was a particularly interesting one that arose recently that involved the young Mylie Cyrus. If you don’t know Mylie, she is the star of the Disney show Hannah Montana. Recently, there were some scandalous pictures taken of Cyrus by a photographer named Annie Leibovitz. As with most of these celebutant scandals, this scandal didn’t interest me either, until I saw our reaction to it. Mylie’s status and stature are taking off to heights presumably higher than what it was before. A recent Etv special stated that fans expressed a general sentiment of “what’s the big deal?” in their new found endearment to her. If I had a cynical mind that slipped under a marketing cap, I would say that Mylie’s youthful show Hannah Montana may be running it’s course as Mylie ages. I would say that Cyrus’ handlers may have been a little worried about her post Hannah Montana career, so they wanted to give her a very adult scandal. If I were one of her handlers, I would’ve presented Cyrus with a proverbial cost benefits package that informed her and her parents that there may be some drop off in her stature and status as parents came to grips with the fact that their children were watching a product involved in a scandal. The drop off, I would assure them, would be short term, and the long-term benefits would far outweigh that which was coming to them.
As someone who enjoys the study of our nation’s history, I can’t think of another era in which shame had reached such historic lows. I know the Dickens quote: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times…” I realize that we humans are almost conditioned to believe this of our era, but I can’t come up with an era that has had such a preponderance of evidence that even hints at the current lack of shame in our current society.