120 philosophical essays you must read in your life

Chapter 76

Chapter 4 Section 16 Shame

[French] Sartre
Shame realizes another inner relationship I have with myself: I discover an aspect of my being through shame.

Shame is not a reflective phenomenon in the first place, although shame discovers that certain complex and derived forms can emerge when it is reflected.

In fact, whatever conclusions one may draw from shame through practice in solitude, the original meaning and original structure of shame is shame in one's presence.

Pure shame is not the feeling of being the blameworthy object of one way or another, but of feeling one's self as an object, a person who one has recognized as devalued in the eyes of others, in a subordinate position.

Shame is the experience of primordial depravity, not because I have made a mistake of one kind or another, but simply because I have "fallen" into the world.

Shyness, especially the fear of being encountered in the nude, is only a symbolic expression of primitive shame: the body is here a symbol of our naked objectivity.

【Together with you】

Shame is sometimes brought to us by others, and sometimes it is brought to us by ourselves.

Shame is a feeling of humiliation and shame for a person's dignity and personality, and it is also a person's feeling when he or she is most thoroughly derogatory to oneself in the moral judgment standard.

A person who still has a sense of shame will not degenerate to the point where his dignity can be sold.

The emotion of shame can prevent a person from committing certain despicable acts.

And remorse for a shameful act is precisely the saving of a life.When a person lacks judgment, it is easy to form a prejudice against things.It is easy for children to form prejudices against the world because their parents still have prejudices against the world, and once children have judgment, the prejudices are often corrected.

(End of this chapter)