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shaming shame

Shaming comes in many forms: anti-selfishness shaming, anti-pride shaming, anti-ego shaming, anti-fear shaming, anti-grief shaming, anti-vulnerabiliy shaming, anti-violence shaming, anti-passivity shaming, anti-hostility shaming, anti-homosexuality shaming, anti-homophobia shaming,  anti-Republican shaming, anti-Democrat shaming,  anti-negativity shaming, anti-evil shaming, anti-crime shaming, anti-poverty shaming, anti-shame shaming and so on.

<Published on: May 2, 2012>

All of those targets of shaming are just possible targets of the mode of relating calling shaming, which is basically a type of fear or distress or hysteria. Anything could be the target of shaming, and the targets vary with age or developmental maturity as well as within cultures and subcultures. Popular targets of shame could include:  anything socially unusual (especially if it is physically visible, like disfigurement or the inability to walk), nudity (especially of physically mature females), feces, snot, blood, farting, accents and speech impediments, place of origin, skin color, obesity, diet, religious affiliation, political affiliation, sexuality, death, emotions, thoughts, species, star systems, geographic locations, colors, temperatures, numbers, shapes, poverty, wealth, “the love of money,” etc….

For instance, in music the harmonic relationship called a “flat fifth” is considered too disturbing (dissonant) for certain audiences and thus was considered shameful to use, at least in the midst of sensitive or immature audiences. In 18th century Europe, that musical interval was widely known as the devil’s interval (or Satan‘s interval). The sound was considered repulsive, “oppressive”, “scary”, and “evil.”

See Tritone – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Likewise, other targets of superstition (or alert) in western cultures are the number 13, which is considered “bad luck,” and the number 666, which is a number invested with tremendous power and associated with shame in some cultures, as is the swastika (at least the clockwise Nazi variation). Here are a few shapes, some of which people in various cultures have been taught to associate with shame (terror, hysteria, etc):

 A written character of the Chinese language representing the number 10,000.

 http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/34/3413.html

 http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/15/151.html

 http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/13/131.html

http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/13/132.html

English: Swastika in NATOsymbol Deutsch: Swast...

English: Swastika in NATOsymbol Deutsch: Swastika im NATOsymbol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Shaming is also called things like the spirit of divisiveness and antagonism and contentiousness and hatred, or the diabolical spirit of the devil. In Christian terminology, the English word shame is not often used in the New Testament translations, but Jesus repeatedly references the behavioral process of shaming:

” I am saying to you, that everyone who will be angry against his brother without cause is condemned before the judge, and everyone who will say to his brother, ‘I spit on you’, is condemned before the assembly, and whoever will say ‘You fool.’ is condemned to the Gehenna of fire [the hell of distress or rage or animosity or resentment].” Matthew 5:22

http://aramaic-plain-english.scripturetext.com/matthew/5.htm

 

Note that I consider that above common translation in to English as potentially erroneous. Momentary anger is natural and normal. However, blame, resentment, jealousy and contempt are dangerous. Anger itself is not impure. “To the one who  is pure, all things are pure,” right? However, contempt is distinct from a momentary anger resulting from disappointment and fright. Consider the parent angry with their child for walking toward a busy intersection with automobiles. That moment of anger (“HEY!”) is loving, with fright present as well. That is not the sinful contempt or “shaming” that Jesus was actually referencing in Matthew 5:22.

 

Not only is Jesus warning people away from the activity of shaming, but he is also threatening them with punishment (shame) in the form of condemnation by the assembly, the jury, the congregation, and one’s peers. Jesus repeatedly shames the Pharisees as orthodox hypocrites whose worship is vanity (pretentious idolatry) and he also shames those who are gathered to execute someone who has been accused of the death-penalty crime of prostitution:

They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” http://bible.cc/john/8-7.htm

“Do not condemn.” http://bible.cc/luke/6-37.htm 

Matthew 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” 

Romans 2:1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

The English word shame appears only 3 times in the New Testament (at least in the following English translations). The first quote contains the word shame twice:

“27For God has chosen the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and he has chosen the weak of the world to shame the mighty.”http://erv.scripturetext.com/1_corinthians/1.htm

“I am saying this to shame you. Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues?”http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/6-5.htm

See http://bible.cc/search.php?q=shame

Note that those uses of the word shame are in regard to rebukes, not contempt or personal animosity and a divisiveness of spirit.

If there is shame regarding a particular pattern, such as the imperialist tyranny symbolized by the Nazi Swastika to Westerners, then the shame would prevent the recognition of one’s own involvement in a system of imperialist tyranny or even from recognizing the presence of the such an imperialist tyranny. Note the rage typical of “reactionary patriots” as they trace back the reality of tyranny through the history of their own home nation: current tyranny, recent tyranny, distant past tyranny, original tyranny, etc….

In the US, those ashamed of tyranny tend to represent tyranny as being something in the distant past (prior to the American Revolution and conducted only by those evil British loyalists or perhaps those rebellious slave-owning Confederates, not to be confused with the slave-owning founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, considered to be the primary authors of the Declaration of Independence). Further, those most hysterically ashamed of tyranny consider it something that must be constantly guarded against as a possible future, which tends to be an extremely exhausting use of energy and attention.

For those who have the maturity to perceive, new dimensions of reality may be revealed. For those who argue in terror and shame that they already “know it all,” they may eventually learn otherwise.

St George Swastika

St George Swastika (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Swastika It symbolizes Harmony, Lord Ganesh ha...

Swastika It symbolizes Harmony, Lord Ganesh has it on his right hand. Differs from other uses of swastika by the four dots inside each of the four arms. Also, it is always drawn with the four inner arms at 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees on the compass, unlike other inscriptions where the inner arms are in the form of an ‘X’. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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The Hindu Swastika Symbol.
The Hindu Swastika Symbol. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Double swastika from the wall of the ...

English: Double swastika from the wall of the XII c. church in Kruszwica. Polski: Podwójna swastyka na ścianie kolegiaty z XII w. w Kruszwicy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

http://www.castlesandmanorhouses.com/castles/bran

Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia , more commonly known as Dracula, was a three-time voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462.

Historically, Vlad is best known for his resistance against the Ottoman Empire and its expansion] and for the cruel punishments he imposed on his enemies. In the English-speaking world, Vlad III is most commonly known for inspiring the association of the name of the vampire in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.

Vlad’s Russian surname Dracula, the name he was referred to in several surviving documents, means “Son of the dragon”, and points to his father, Vlad Dracul, who received that epithet from his subjects because he had joined the Order of the Dragon. Dracul, from the Latin word Draco, meaning “dragon”, is derived from the Greek word Δράκων (Drakon), though in modern Romanian Dracon means “devil”. His other epithet Tepes or Impaler originated in his killing opponents by impalement. In Turkish, he was known as “Kazıklı Voyvoda” which means “Impaler Prince”.

On September 26, 1459, Pope Pius II called for a new crusade against the Ottomans and on January 14, 1460, at the Congress of Mantua, His Holiness proclaimed the official crusade that was to last for three years. His crusade failed and the only European leader that showed enthusiasm for it was Vlad Tepes, whom the Pope held in high regard.

In the West, Vlad III Tepes has been characterized as a tyrant who took sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing his enemies. Estimates of the number of his victims ranges from 40,000 to 100,000.

Above: mutilated bodies left on public display as a warning near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

http://www.jalaybi.com/2009/05/25/bloody-intersection/

Lynching in the US (Indiana) on August 7, 1930.

http://www.nathanielturner.com/strangefruit.htm

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This entry was posted on July 10, 2012 at 8:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “shaming shame”

  1. shakilakhtar Says:
    July 14, 2012 at 3:35 am | Reply

    very comprehensive post. Shame is called here in NZ as bullying of students by fellow students and is alarmingly common. Much is being done to discourage it. You in this article have covered this bullying to outright tyranny now and in past here and there.. more than enought to wake up any one.

  2. Christian Says:
    August 28, 2013 at 3:35 am | Reply

    Like how you also managed to leave out “anti-National socialism” shaming, etc… Yet managed to bring up the Swastika quite often. You must be Jewish, or in the pay of one?

    • jrfibonacci Says:
      November 25, 2013 at 7:45 pm | Reply

      Either you fear shame or you respect it and are grateful for it. It is rare that one is mature enough to realize how past humiliations produced motivation, which led to competence and then to confidence.

      If you say that you have never received a payment from anyone Jewish, you are probably just afraid of humiliation. Unless you are very young, I would challenge you in regard to how well you think you know all the people from whom you have ever received payment.
      All around are “sympathizers” and “co-conspirators,” most of them totally ignorant of the system in which they participate, so let’s not pretend that we have never been influenced by the followers of Jews like Noah, Isaiah, Judas, and Jesus. 😉

      “They may accuse me, but I barely notice. They may condemn me, but I know that they are ignorant of me and also of themselves- they know not what they do. They may yell and threaten to abuse me, but they may be nothing more than fools, seeking for attention and approval.”

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