Shame

Shame (The Public-Private Image and the Individual-Person)

"Everybody has a piece of the Truth; Everybody has a piece of the Lie"--Healthy Culture Proverb

{note: as I said, this blog will eventually contain the significant posts from my defunct Motime blog of the same name as well as new posts on the theme of healthy culture. The following post is one from that blog which I think is worth carrying over to this one, though In a future post I intend to revisit and develop this theme in the context of what I am calling "Alienated Phonies Anonymous" (the Alienated-Phony being the ever present shadow of the Individual-Person) as the kind of identity-politics that would prevail in a culture of recovery and healing, which would involve recovery from shame, as well as arrogance among many other things...---I-P}

Strange how one can feel ashamed for things that one doesn't actually feel guilty for (not because the things are not wrong or stupid but because ...well because no body's perfect...), and feel guilty for the shame itself. At least I can sometimes feel this way...

From the point of view of Healthy Culture, shame is a "public/private" aspect of the culture of apartness rather than an "individual-personal" aspect of healthy culture, and the difference between the public/private and the individual-personal is precisely the one-sided dissociation of a persons "piece of the Truth" from their "piece of the Lie" that is embodied in the concept and reality of a "Public Image". Usually the public side of the image is the side that constitutes ones "piece of the Truth" or rather its the part that corresponds with what is praiseworthy or at least acceptable to "ones public" and usually to oneself. Ones "piece of the Lie" (or at least ones "piece of the currently not respectable") is in this case relegated to ones "private" life if its is acknowledged at all.

On the other side of the public/private coin, the whole concept of the "private" seems to be based on the assumption that "it ain't nobodies business if I do", which is to say that there are certain things and behaviors in our lives that no one has a legitimate interest in but ourselves because they effect no one but ourselves. However its not clear why any thing or behavior would be hidden in this privacy if there were not some chance that sharing it would threaten the one-sided public image of ourselves that we have bought into and identify with. Its also clear that many things considered "private business" in this way, such as excessive drug use (legal or illegal), or alcohol use are arguably the legitimate interest of others since they potentially effect others in the form of car or other accidents emotional callousness or violence to others etc..in fact most "private business" has some kind relevance or effect on others because, from the individual-personal point of view our very existence is inherently social (personal) just as much as it is "psychological" (individual) and vis-versa.

But of course, as I said, what keeps the "private" private is precisely "the public", that is, the one-sided and phony public image that in a culture of dissociation and apartness becomes the norm. In such a culture the actual togetherness of everyones "piece of the Lie" with "their piece of the Truth" and the paradoxical and unpredictable fluidity with which both the Lie and the Truth manifest in this or that given situation and individual, is not accepted at all, and so the dualistic, simplistic either/or kind of logic that dominates all other areas of sick culture does so here as well. From such a public point of view of mandated one-sidedness, a one-sidedly positive public image can only be replaced with an equally one-sidedly negative one. That is, if you are not a "good guy" then you are a "bad guy" and that is that. Anyone then trying to come out of the passive isolation and alienation of "private life" into a more authentic form of relationship with others and themselves has to expect, not an exchange of his or her phony public image for acceptance as an authentic and imperfect Individual-Person who obviously has changing moral/ethical strengths and weaknesses like everyone else, but rather they can reasonably expect summary relegation to the equally phony and one-sided negative public image of a "bad guy", with all the ostracism and shaming that that implies. Under such silly circumstances its certainly understandable that most people choose to keep their "private life" private even though in the long run this is not conducive to happiness or real belonging.

I think this entire situation has a lot to do with family dynamics and with so called adults being stuck in a less than mature stages of human development in which the unrealistic idealization or blaming of a parent gets carried over into adult life. The parent who can do no wrong (or at least the one on whom we feel most dependent) becomes the first idealized "Public Figure"--the first "hero" for the child who, if they cannot yet be such a hero themselves, can at least find safety and belonging in his or her good graces by being a loyal and obedient "follower". This situation is usually made more complex in that often which ever parent is not awarded this positive hero public image gets to carry the negative "bad cop" or "villain" role. Indeed the "hero" imprint will often arise precisely from the dynamics of feeling "rescued" from one parent by the other (though I don't think the one-sided public figure problem changes any when both parents happen to be idealized or both vilified since, among other things, in that case other adults usually become the "bad guys"). There is also the fact of sibling (and later "peer group) dynamics which however, in the absence of any actual maturity in the participants, can only vary the game of who gets to be the stand in leader/parent/good guy public image role, who gets to "follow" this "hero", who gets to be the "bad guy" and who is kicked out of the game all together. I am not sure that this exhausts the possibilities, but you get the picture.

One can also see the elements of the beginning of competition here, in that the object of such sibling or peer group games in time becomes deciding which of the players will be assigned which of these roles, with the Hero being the same as the "Winner" of course...see footnote.

All of this is understandable in infanthood and childhood because an infant or child by definition lacks the maturity, insight, detachment, perspective, sophistication (and education) to see their parents as simply imperfect "individual-persons" suffering from a sick culture like themselves and everybody else. They are pretty much forced by cognitive limitations to experience everything in a more or less, cartoon, simplistic, almost mythological manner. And of course in such a culture as ours, the sad case is that the parents themselves will also lack the full development of most of these things, though usually to a lesser degree than their children.

Under such circumstances it should not be surprising that such dynamics underly the political and social "games people play" as pseudo adults, which fact accounts for the simplistic one-sided public image of the Leader/Parent/Hero and the negatively one-sided public image of the villain,"criminal", or bad guy. It also accounts for the equally phony and one-sided positive public image of the "in-group" of followers of the "right" leader(s) who like wise exchange their authenticity for the pseudo-belonging of membership in that group (the price of which is a tacit agreement not only to ignore and repress, or downplay the leaders piece of the Lie but in large part their own as well, usually projecting all evil on "the bad guy" and his or her, it or their deluded followers).

Its worth emphasizing here that all of this one-sidedness has its emotional origins not only in the trauma of extremely one-sided feelings of aversion (fear), abandonment, and alienation experienced by every infant and child, but in the further cognitive development by which the child's first phony identity (as a "good" or "bad" boy or girl in good graces with the parent/¨hero¨) begins to be founded on such experiences, which constitutes a first self-betrayal of their (good and bad and good/bad-transcending) authentic individual selves. This betrayal of authentic experience of self and other in exchange for at least a convincing substitute for real, safety, acceptance and belonging (and for the corresponding diminishment of at least the acute experience of unbearable fear and pain), is the template one which later phony Public images are developed.

The implications of this development of, and enslavement to, a phony one-sided persona and self-image, and the listing and discussion of all of the contributing factors to it are much too much to go into here, though i would like to briefly mention in passing the unhealthy kinaesthetic patterns that come from the compulsive or reactionary holding of ourselves in postures which trap us in an alienated relationship to gravity and cut us off from the effortless and elegant working of our own bodies, as these are not usually understood as resulting in large part from the trauma and stress of "posing" as a "good or bad boy or girl" (and later as a "cool", ¨sexy¨ or "successful" ¨man¨ or ¨woman¨) in exchange for what we accept as belonging and love.

All of the above will be gone into further in future posts, but what I am really bring all of this up for right now is to go into how all of it relates to my efforts to communicate and share my ideas about and experiments in, healthy culture in this blog (which is after all a kind of "Publication" and as such exposes me to the some version of the "public image" game).

What I struggle with of course is the fact that, if i want to get anybodies attention (even if its just to point out the childishness, and lose-lose nature of the simplistic, competitively one-sided and phony public image game, and to offer an alternative to it), I have to risk entering that very game (at least in the minds of those who cannot help but play the game them selves). In other words, just to communicate, in the dominant sick culture I have to risk being projected upon as a leader or hero or as an equally phony member in good standing of the "right group of followers or even (if more of a sibling thing is going on) the right elite group of co-leaders.

In order to escape being caught in such a "positive" one-sided and phony public image I have often been tempted to focus intensively and exclusively own my own many pieces of the Lie and post that (I've made many drafts of "blog confessions" of this kind). Obviously though, doing such a thing would not actually challenge the one-sided and childish immaturity behind the whole dynamic but just lead to my assuming a negative public image in the minds of those who were previously being one-sided and silly in the other extreme. Just as bad, such an "act of courageous defiance" might strengthen me as a real Hero in the minds of people in whom this whole dynamic is more sophisticated then usual but nevertheless equally unhealthy beside the point.

What makes all of this even more complicated is the fact that I do still suffer from sick culture myself and am of course therefore susceptible under the right conditions (though I thinks these conditions would be pretty unusual), to any and all of the above forms of phoniness (or to any other form for that matter). I could very well be drawn into some kind of phony "public leadership" role (which silly "rise" would inevitably lead to an equally silly "fall" in the typical tragic hero manner). Moreover, I do have moments of Shame regarding some of the sick culture that I have been, continue to be (and in some cases probably always will be) involved in simply because I, like everyone else was born and initiated into sick culture and am susceptible to its one-sidedness and alienation. This Shame I speak of is of course itself just another manifestation of that sick culture; of the part of me that buys into one-sided expectations of righteousness and the brief and empty thrill of false acceptance and solidarity that goes alone with all of that. All of which is just to affirm that I myself have a piece of the Lie and a piece of the Truth and that there are conditions (some of which I don't know and some of which I do) during which the former (in this case in the form of a susceptibility to public image and the Shame that goes along with that) would manifest more than the latter. I am not sure if I feel ashamed of this Shame but I guess I still feel somewhat guilty for it, which makes just as little sense (but is just as understandable...).

It occurs to me that in writing this I could still be making some kind off underhanded or unconscious bid for "public approval" rather than making, from one individual-person to another, the appeal to adulthood good sense, goodwill, and living friendship that I think I am making, so I suppose I should say something a little more explicit just to make sure.

The Idea with all of these blog entries of mine is really just to start a conversation that leads to us comparing notes about what is going on in the world and in ourselves with an eye to doing something healing together about both these things (ourselves and the world) at the same time. For the most part, despite my previous "confession", I really am interested in Friendship rather than "public Leadership", and this means to me an inner and outer dynamic of listening, support, and challenge and not any kind of rigidly unilateral dynamics or hierarchies. So far as I can tell, my general understanding is appropriate (tentatively Good, True, Beautiful, Alive,) but a big part of my reason for sharing it is that I know that I could be wrong about this and want to be corrected if I am. (Even I am not corrected, as far a I am concerned, the Theory of Healthy Culture will always be a "Tentative Universal", always susceptible to challenge and alteration either in whole or in part, otherwise it would not be Alive...

So the invitation is something like this:

Lets stop seeing ourselves as leaders and followers with public/private self/other images and just be individual-persons trying to befriend and heal ourselves, each other and the world from the sick culture of apartness, alienation, phoniness, competition etc that we All suffer from, and lets try to nurture the living healthy culture that is also within us all. Lets see what we can do to create a culture of true friendship and adulthood that would begin to transform and heal sick culture inside and outside us. Rather than collude with (or against) each other in complacent in-group self-rightousness, lets create an open circle of listening, support, challenge and inner and outer healing in the egalitarian, compassionate, paradoxical (and somewhat ¨comic¨) spirit of living friendship. This blog and my other writings amount to my notes about possible ways and reasons to do that...What are your Notes? What do you think? Lets compare notes and discuss the whole issue critically and in good faith. And if we can get some tentative agreement, lets collaborate further.

Now I am not sure that this message and its implied disclaimer (a disclaimer that disclaims inferiority as well as of superiority mind you) is really getting through in a primary way. Maybe some of my posts sound more righteous and dogmatic and less tentative then they should (I am dealing in many cases with universals, but hopefully it is at least clear by now that these are always offered as tentative universals rather than rigid dogmas)... I can't really get behind the Socratic thing of pretending I have no opinion or ideas about things (as if this were really possible with anybody), and that has always seemed annoyingly phony to me. Its always seemed better just to be explicit about ones diagnosis and prescription and be open to challenge. But that openness to challenge extends to critiques about the way I am going about expressing myself as well as what I am expressing so feel free to give feedback about that too.

Welcome and Thanks,

--I-P

{footnote: I think its worthwhile going into the effect of competition (as a regression to this unconsciously childish game of who gets the phony role of "hero"/winner, and who has to wear the equally phony one of "villain"/loser), on what should be adult discourse. I say this since I think it is the main reason for the future-diminishing dynamics between persons, nations, parties, religions,etc.., during disagreements or negotiations which otherwise would lead to the finding of the common ground and consensus necessary for cooperation rather than coercion. I'm mean, if the subtext of the discussion is really to find out who is the hero/insider/good guy/good boy and who is the villain/outsider/bad guy/bad boy, then the real common ground of unpredictably fallible (and unpredictably "virtuous") human individual-personhood is pretty much excluded at the outset by the implied rules of the game, and with it the possibility of a resolution without shaming. Such an underlying subtext insures that the outcome of the discussion will never reflect the real truth of either the specific or general situation. Since the implication of my "winning" the discussion is that I have no "piece of the Lie" (or at least none worth paying attention to), and your losing forces you to "admit" that you have no "piece of the truth" with the same qualification, the result of the game can never lead to either of our growth into mature self-aware adults since it precludes the possibility of any realization that can lead to such growth from the very outset. (compromise almost never has to do with any such realization or growth, but is usually just an unsatisfying expedient born of exhaustion).

Moreover since the final result of such a game can never be True ( and so really Fair, since ultimately Fairness is inherently related to Truth), there is, deep down, no reason to think that "Fairness" has any thing to do with the game at all--the point really being just to win by any means necessary (in order not to have to relive those horrible infant and childhood feelings of "Badness", abandonment, vulnerability, rejection etc...),and so by the only means that the game allows, which is forcing that experience on ones competitor. The fact that such dynamics underly the structure and functioning of basically all our social political, economic, social, religious, and international institutions and discourse obviously does not bode well for that realization of a better future which is the primary preoccupation of actual adults (as opposed the ubiquitous psychological children and adolescents posing to themselves and each other as adults in "Public"--and Private-- life..)}

P.S. I suppose one could say that there is a kind of "legitimate leadership" which is based on spontaneous group consensus (at a given time in a given situation) that this or that person happens to know what is happening and what to do about it, and that there need not be any fear, coercion of sick culture involved in this. I acknowledge the phenomenon but decline to call it "leadership" since that word connotes for me a relatively static role and creates expectations beyond the actual moment of authentic collective consensus....in my experience it tempts people into a premature laxity or deferral of responsibility and critical, creative thinking. In such a way the circulation of attention, expectation, inspiration and creativity of a group can be short circuited (as it can by the rigidity of the groups boundaries itself). The speed at which an individual or groups piece of the Truth can be replaced by their piece of the Lie makes the individual or shared role of Leader misleading enough in its connotations for me to think it unnecessary most of the time.

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