Psych-Out

How do most people die when lost in the wilds? They die of shame. (1) These are the thoughts spoken by Charles Morse (Anthony Hopkins) in the movie The Edge. He and Robert Green (Alec Baldwin) are lost in the Alaskan wilderness – on their tracks, a man-eating bear. (For scene from the movie, see video below.)

Charles: Yeah, see, they die of shame. “What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?” And so they sit there and they…die…because they didn’t do the one thing that would save their lives.

Robert: And what is that, Charles?

Charles: Thinking.

Silvan Tomkins writes, “… shame strikes deepest into the heart of man…. shame is felt as inner torment, a sickness of the soul…the humiliated one feels himself naked, defeated, alienated, lacking in dignity and worth.”(2) Shame interferes with our capacity to think. Shame keeps us from acting decisively on our own behalf.

Shame is embedded in what can seem an uncontrollable physiological response, possibly akin to gestures of submission we see throughout the animal world. Lowered gaze. Cowering. Playing dead. Hiding. Making one’s body smaller and less threatening. (3) For human’s, shaming is arguably one of the oldest forms of social control.

Humans evolved in a mosaic of hostile environments. Group living was crucial to our survival. Greater numbers brought safety, but also a need for greater cooperation and social organization. We hunted in groups. We collected food in groups. Social cohesion radically changed humans from scavengers and opportunistic hunters into super-predators that could hunt almost any animal on earth.

Shaming was one way of ensuring cooperation. It could protect scarce resources from cheaters and non-cooperators by making them pay dearly through evoking feeling alone. (4) To be shamed, one has to be able to feel shame. This feeling is rooted deeply in our neurophysiology as well as in our own evolutionary history.

When shamed we are struck by an urge to withdraw toward life’s margins. We go into hiding. Today, we’re less likely to be shunned to the outskirts of a village or tribe. Instead, we hide into ourselves. We don’t speak. We don’t show up. We hide our faces inside masks and disguises.

Often, we are ashamed of shame itself. We deny carrying such a feeling. Shame? Me? Still, denial or not, it chases us into dozens of daily little deaths. We fail to go to the doctor – our symptoms shame us. We fail to go to the gym – our bodies shame us. We fail to raise our hand and ask that question – our lack of knowing that one thing shames us. We avoid that crucial discussion with partner or spouse. We fail to take that next step. We give in; stop trying. Shame stops thought. It diverts action. It absorbs us into an unsettling vortex. When shamed we don’t ask, “what do I need to do now?” or “what does this situation require of me?”, but instead, “where do I hide?”

Shame is an emotion always in hiding from itself.

We all get lost in the wilds of our own lives — however small or large those wilds be. Refuse to slink off because of some little whisper of shame. Face the bear that stalks you. Step up. Step out. Think. Then, go get it.

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1) Survival expert John Wiseman wrote, “When facing a disaster it is easy to let yourself go, to collapse and be consumed in self-pity,” he writes. “But it is no use giving up or burying your head in the sand and hoping that this is a bad dream that will soon pass.”
2) Nathanson, D. ed. The Many Faces of Shame. New York: The Guildford Press, 1987.
3) When a male lion is defeated by an intruding male lion, he is forced out of the territory. In essence, he must “leave his pride.”
4) Pinker, Steven. How the Mind Works. New York: W.W. Norton & C., Inc, 1997. (p. 404)