This follows on from my consideration of how we have lost our way morally by ceding the idea of the inner to something first based in moral action and ultimately only in moral 'performative' or speech acts.
As I continue to listen to Robert Solomon's Great Courses series on the emotions, more and more ideas spark that seem to relate to this subject.
Most recently, it's guilt and shame that have got me thinking.
In some societies, it would be too shameful to leave a truck-load of litter in someone's field. Some people would be too guilt-ridden to do something so selfish and irresponsible.
But now, if they can't be shamed on social media, it's all just fine and dandy, it seems.
Shame, says Solomon, is a social emotion. We feel shame when our society deems us to have done wrong and we accept, or feel, that judgment. This is the shame culture that is evident in hunter-gatherer societies. But Solomon says it is still a factor in more connected societies - for example, in East Asia. It matters what society thinks of you; it matters to have good standing. And bad acts will bring shame on your family, your city, your company. There is a strong sense of responsibility in these cultures too. I seem to recall an example of a boat that sunk leading to hundreds of deaths, a Korean boat, I think. And the captain felt that his sense of responsibility was such that he had brought shame to his company, his nation - I seem to recall he killed himself.
In our very individualistic societies, for a long time shame has been less of a factor. We are certainly unlikely to feel we deserve to feel bad if a member of our family or group has committed a crime. If we are not directly responsible - and if we disagree with the judgment - we are unlikely to feel shame. And as we don't feel responsible for very much, we seem to be inoculated against it. Apart from on Twitter. I'll get to that.
Guilt is an inner sense of having done wrong. No one else needs to know. If we are Christian, then God will know. It would be He to whom we would hold ourselves to account. In a secular sense, it would be a matter of conscience. Apologies and reparation to any individual or group we had harmed might make erase or lessen the guilt. But we could still feel it for a very personal infraction that harms no-one else - breaking a diet, say, or thinking malicious thoughts.
As I said, guilt is reliant on our own feelings of having done wrong, not on society's judgements of us. That means it's reliant on us having a scheme of morality which determines right from wrong, good from bad. And a sense that we are responsible for our actions and are deserving of some punishment - if not from God, then from our conscience - if we deviate from the good.
So, in an individualistic society where we do not feel this wide social sense of responsibility; where punishments are removed from the personal realm to the legal; and, crucially, where there is a cult of 'authenticity' which dictates that what I think is 'right' because 'I am being true to myself', then where does shame or guilt come from?
Back to Twitter and 'public shaming'. It's like we have gone full circle. The Homo sapiens who discovered that by limiting selfish behaviour they could function co-operatively morphed into Western liberal individuals who believed that conscience was an adequate guide and then into libertarians versus disciplinarians, without either showing a real sense of either co-operation or conscience.
Yes: lost.
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