Guilt and shame

PINOY KASI


Guilt and shame
First posted 00:23am (Mla time) April 07, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the April 7, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IT HAS been 60 years since the anthropologist Ruth Benedict wrote "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword," which proposed that the Japanese mainly used shame for social control, while Western societies applied mainly guilt.

Many social scientists still use this "shame/guilt" dichotomy. The latest version says that Muslim societies are driven mainly by shame and honor, and that this translates into strong aggression to defend one's honor, more specifically the honor of the Islamic "umma," or community.

These propositions are controversial, especially because there's always an underlying assumption that "shame" societies (mainly "non-Western") are less advanced than "guilt" (mainly "Western") societies, but I've wondered if we might want to use that framework, and maybe test it, by looking at the Philippines. In today's column, I'm going to present some very preliminary thoughts about this. As you might have guessed, the idea for doing this was provoked by the recent resignation of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and a deluge, in conversations and through texts, of the snide and the witty, from "Thaksinin Now Na" to "The Thais have such a powerful sense of shame."

Before we look specifically at the Philippines, let me just get the terms in place. Shame societies tend to use ostracism for social control. A person behaves well because it is -- well, the Filipino term captures it all -- "nakakahiya" [shameful] not to. Notions of shame are very much tied to concepts of face and of reputation, especially of the larger social groups one belongs to, for example, the family.

Guilt, on the other hand, is tied to a realization that one has done something wrong, captured in Christian societies by the notion of "sin." I have done something wrong, I am guilty, and I must do something to confess and then to atone for that wrong. Westerners sometimes think "guilt" societies are superior to "shame" societies because it is more ethics-based: One behaves in a certain way because it is the right thing to do.

Greater good

The problem I have with the shame/guilt formulation is that it is a dichotomy. It does not recognize that there will be sharp variations among both shame and guilt societies. The Japanese, for example, represent one extreme of shame societies, where the honor of the entire nation may be invoked, and where the defense may involve suicide, as in the case of the kamikaze pilots of World War II.

In "high-shame" societies, even the slightest hint of scandal or dishonor may be enough to provoke a resignation. Japanese executives have been known to commit suicide because of financial anomalies in their company. And in South Korea last month, Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan resigned after he was criticized for playing golf even as a nationwide railway strike was underway.

On the surface, shame seems to be tied mainly to "face" and to reputations, but ultimately, they are linked to the idea that the greater good must be served. And this is where we find variations: Not all societies have such an expanded sense of the "greater good" as the Japanese or Koreans do.

We shouldn't entertain illusions here about the greater good always being noble; there are still vested interests working here. The South Korean prime minister's golf addiction was unfortunate because elections were coming up and there was probably great pressure from his political party to resign.

At the same time, it is still always amazing to consider how far people will go to avoid shame. And I feel Westerners often trivialize this shame by reducing it to a matter of preserving reputations. Shame does have its own complicated ethics, "right" being defined by the greater good. In the Thai example, no less than the king intervened to ask Thaksin to resign. In one stroke, political tensions were drastically reduced and the country started to move on. No talk here about the lack of qualified successors, or of thieves taking over from thieves like we have in the Philippines.

Westerners also trivialize shame societies by talking about aggressive acts to preserve honor. There is little recognition of a sense of atonement that exists and how this is often inwardly directed. Look at how President Bill Clinton clung to his post even amid the sex scandals; in shame societies, there would have been a resignation, or worse. Seppuku (or hara-kiri, considered a more vulgar term) literally translates as slicing open the stomach. It is agonizing atonement, even as it takes on a symbolic meaning of letting the spirit free to leave the body.

Filipino shame

So where do we fall in the spectrum of shame societies? Certainly, "hiya" [sense of shame] is a core value, tied so much to a sense of "face." We even pride ourselves with this hiya, claiming it is very communitarian, making us different from individualistic (read: "walanghiya") Westerners.

Yet I have to wonder about our claims to a communitarian orientation. Yes, we think about the family's reputation but not much beyond that. Maybe sometimes we talk about regional pride, and occasionally about Filipino pride, but we tend to rant and rage about the superficial, like branding as racist those "Filipina" cookies sold in Europe.

I'm afraid, too, that our notions of shame have mutated, grafted on to all the worst features of rugged individualism, to the point where we now equate individual good with the greater good. Politicians are especially prone to that perverted version of hiya: The country would collapse, and therefore it would be "nakakahiya" if I resigned.

Moreover, our notion of shame is often expressed in the form of aggression against those perceived to be threatening our honor. No seppuku or hara-kiri in the Philippines; instead, when threatened, Filipino politicians lash out with calumny and libel, with lies and demolition jobs, to restore what they think is honor.

It doesn't have to be that way. If we could just develop a true sense of the greater good, tied to a concept of nationhood, shame could become quite productive, as we are seeing now in Thailand.

We need to develop both an ethos as well as mechanisms that will help future politicians to recognize that there is honor in resignation, in accepting defeat. We don't need a king to mediate; civil society can do that, paying homage to those who have the decency to make a graceful exit when needed.

All that will take time, but this early, I also feel strongly that we need to moderate the shaming techniques that we think will bring down the corrupt and the dishonest. Ironically, the shaming here -- especially because it is so sensationalistic, so showbiz -- drives the stakes higher for the target of the shaming, making them more obstinate, more vicious until eventually, they begin to believe that it is actually dishonorable to be honorable.

There are many different models of shame societies. Unfortunately, ours seems to take off from a Western variant: that of the Mafia.

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