There are, of course, two kinds of shame. One is a social, ostracizing shame, a shame that casts you out, that scapegoats. The second is a self-inflicted shame, a shame that comes from the realization that you have violated your own deepest values.
It is this second, transformative form of shame I wish to argue we employ more in UU congregations. But while it is a self-inflicted shame, it can certainly be precipitated by others. In fact, this is one service that true friends offer to one another—you shame your friend privately so as to save her from the public, ostracizing form of shame. And yet transformative shame can occur in public, if that is where the moment of realization occurs.
My hunch is that many of my fellow religious liberals will regard the intentional, public precipitation of transformative shame as "sinful," presumptous, improper, or otherwise unbecoming of a Boston Brahmin. My hunch is based on five years of observation of a noticable lack of public shaming. But perhaps we believe we have evolved beyond the need for transformative shame?
There are two things to know about transformative shame. First, it is always deserved. Or at the very least, you believe you deserve it. Otherwise, why would you inflict shame on yourself? Because it derives from a recognition that you have violated your own deepest held values, there is no escaping it.
Which leads to the second point: transformative change is always necessary for personal moral transformation. You must first recognize the violation if you are to correct it. It is perhaps possible make the necessary change without facing the shame of recognition, but this would be a change enabled by denial. Transformative shame, unlike ostracizing shame, doesn’t involve dwelling on it. The shameful moment only needs to last as long as it need to last.
These two points lead me to say this: if you do not wish transformative shame for your fellow UUs for their deep moral failings, you are no friend of your fellow UUs and have no respect for their deepest held values. Even more: if you will not act to precipitate transformative shame (at appropriate moments, of course) for your fellow UUs, you are no friend of your fellow UUs and have no respect for their deepest held values.
Two examples.
First example: Suppose you understand one of your deepest held values to be a free Tibet. You campaign regularly on behalf of that cause. Now suppose you have asked your congregation to pass a resolution on behalf of a free Tibet and then that resolution fails. Are you right to precipitate shame in your fellow UUs?
No, and on two accounts. First, if you believe something as particular as a free Tibet to be one of your own deepest held values, you either misunderstand your own values or have an immature set of values. Odds are, someone who campaigns regularly for a free Tibet does so on behalf of values such as territorial integrity, anti-imperialism, and/or cultural independence, all of which would seem to flow from deeper values still. It is those "deeper values still" that motivate your fellow UUs (and likely yourself), and it is there that you should connect your efforts.
Secondly, if you have judged a free Tibet to be among your fellow UUs’ deepest held values, you have understood your fellow UUs quite poorly. They are unlikely to feel any sense of transformative shame on behalf of a free Tibet because they are unlikely to believe that Tibet is un-free because, somehow, of their own violation of their deepest held values—assuming you have no high ranking members of the Chinese Community Party in your congregation, of course.
Second example: Suppose your large-ish congregation has employed a full time Director of Religious Education for several years running but have yet to meet the recommended minimum salary, or even pay her a living wage, despite regular public acknowledgement that this should change. During her tenure, RE participation has almost tripled, and everyone is happy with her job performance. You are the incoming Interim Senior Minister. Your contract stipulates that you cannot be dismissed by the congregation except for gross negligence, and that DRE serves solely at your pleasure.
At an early Board meeting, you tell the gathered leaders of the congregation that unless 50% of the DRE’s recommended minimum salary, plus a $5,000 bonus, is pledged by the time "this piece of paper" makes it around the table, you will immediately dismiss the DRE. Further, you tell them that unless the remaining portion is pledged within 30 days, you will dismiss her then. The congregation must decide whether it wants an excellent RE program in exchange for an excellently paid DRE, or else no DRE at all. In either case, they will be stuck with you and your increasingly public assessments of this situation.
Is it wrong to shame your new-ish congregation like this?
