Friday, April 18, 2014

insufficient shame

Rattling around in my brain:

Proclamations of heroism and the dispensing of military medals are concomitant with an insufficient public/political capacity to feel shame.

2 comments:

  1. A book by Barbara Ehrenreich titled Blood Rites discusses how we are hard wired for sacrifice. It can be seen in herd animals fleeing a predator, once a member of the herd is taken the rest can stop running and return to eating. The sacrifice allows business to resume as normal. Humanity has found a variety of ways to select the sacrifice rather than leave it to chance. A medal can assuage the guilt of the sacrifice perhaps, or divert suspicion from the selectors agenda. There's a lot of sadness involved, and we do our best to avoid it.

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  2. When I think I ain't having enough shame, I take a small twist of mindset and I notice that I had used shame in getting beyond shame..

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