Word: shame
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...nothing shameful, nothing harmful" anymore? This is the question Christopher Brown poses in his metapsychological defense of Professor Mansfield's recent indictment of homosexuality. It is an interesting question, indeed a profound one, both for conservatives and liberals alike. Are we, as a society, no longer capable of shame? Brown would have us believe that shame ought to be reserved for matters of sex. It is in this notion that he squanders the value of his liberal education...
...Shame, Christopher, is the feeling one has when one treats another with disgrace and disrespect. Shame is the human experience of realizing that one has acted inhumanely. Shame is the sense of embarrassment and regret that overwhelms each of us when we appreciate how callous we have been, how intolerant or fearful. Shame is what we feel when we are young and mean to one younger, poor and indifferent to one poorer, willing to act superior toward those more rejected than ourselves...
...rather than letting it happen. In either case procreation is considered to be part of a perfect or complete human life. Sex without procreation is imperfect, even though it's fun and permissible (it's never safe). But sex in which procreation is inconceivable is not permissible and is shameful. Where this line is drawn, and whether it includes heterosexual practices, is debatable. But at least the view that sex is for procreation accommodates our sense of shame...
...Shame, by our hypothesis and in fact, is not rational. It is a passion that represents our human dignity, since it reminds us of what is undignified to do even though the act may be profitable, useful or pleasurable. Its strength and limitation consist in the fact that one cannot give an adequate account of it; shame is variable and seems arbitrary. But because reason cannot get rid of it, reason has to direct it; and here is where natural law or natural right comes...
...elevated relationship if it is complete? It is hard to think of the business of conceiving and raising the next generation as merely optional, in which society has no interest. Surely we teachers depend for our livelihood on an ever-renewed supply of young people. And what of shame? Where is the protection--always as difficult to justify as it is indispensable--for human dignity...