Discourse: 11.2: The Disappearance of Proper Shame and Manliness

Social Observations II

“I don’t propose to die with polite insincerities in my mouth”

-CS Lewis – from “That Hideous Strength”

                Some of you live pathetic lives. Some of you are Kings. But who gets to define what is one and what is the other?

From reading the title, many will assume I am about to tell you how to define the two, some taking it as presumptuous or narcissistic, others are nodding their head already in agreement that the world is filled with people who are little more than swine. To that, I would have to say the title is a bit misleading, but your assumptions about swine may still indeed be true.  

It seems to even start this brief discourse, I once again must focus on the meaning of a word, in this case, Shame. To begin with, for this essay, Shaming is not the same as guilt-tripping or some intellectually immature framing of “if you don’t do X then you are Y.” Proper shame is also not coercive, but it is exclusive, which I will expand upon shortly. Shaming also requires a sense of modesty, which for it to manifest in a psyche requires an individual to be self-aware and free from narcissism.  Present culture does not on average produce people capable of shame, which is one of the prime reasons we have such overwhelming cultural rot and ambient spiritual sickness. A sense of shame usually accompanies not only a developed moral sense as discussed by Anthony Ashley Cooper in “Characteristics of Men, Manners Opinions, Times ETC”, but also by having trained sentiments as discussed in C.S. Lewis’s “Abolition of Man.” This is why Lewis discussed men without chests, a concept I expanded upon in an earlier discourse by stating that we now have a society without chests. Without shame of any sort, men become weak, like the cowardly lion and the tin man amalgamated into one. Without shame, civilization collapses.

Historically, it has been the determinates of shame that has shaped the inclusions and exclusions of tribes, communities and nations. These boundaries create and sustain civilizations more so than any other metric. Organically, people would associate with other humans based upon a sense of community, the foundations of which are always better understood by knowing what that community is against instead of what it is for.  The social reality of organic human culture is inherently voluntary, a concept touched on by John Searle in his book “Making the Social World- The Structure of Human Civilization”, which is unlike our modern world with its artificial engineering of superficial and performative shameless culture. Our society of the spectacle.

Deep into antiquity, cultural anthropology has taught us that in every civilization there has been the shaman, the sacred clown, the priest… whose essential function was to nudge community members into inclusion by pointing out absurd behavior, shaming them by pointing at the fence surrounding the undesired action. At its best, it was these community elders who passed on hard learned wisdom with the intention of training sentiments so one could live in harmony with the community and within themselves. While this strategy has at times certainly gone too far as civilizations have grown, particularly as the technology of culture was captured and shaming became conflated with coercion, it was in the past an effective way to self-regulate a culture. Noncompliance was not criminalized per se, as nudging was intended to be edifying, but repeated failures could lead to exclusion, banishment, or ex-communication. Shame was levied by the group voluntarily refusing to associate with the abnormal behavior. This being the basis for nations as previously mentioned, has of course led to, or has been used as a reason for wars between tribes and nations.

The modern world has been intentionally inverted, designed so that the new shaming is forced compliance through anti-discrimination laws, which of course is a form of coercion. Not only is using the government to instill your values onto society at large by force unethical, but it also undermines the organic culture shaping power of shame. Mutual shame builds cohesion. Discrimination laws should not exist, individual values should be put through the organic social litmus test, not festering in the shadows. You cannot legislate cultural homogeneity, it must happen naturally. We do not all have to shame the same things, but we should all have the ability to choose for ourselves what we shame and associate ourselves with voluntarily. We could build from there, but they won’t let us. We will have to endure and make our way despite the mountain set before us.

It must be understood that for a global state to emerge, all boundaries between cultures and previous civilizations had to be taken down. Meaning, a bunch of cultural Chesterton’s fences have been paved over to make way for the new world order’s global parking lot. Government had to become the sacred clown, but instead of one that sought to banish those who took on the form of the absurd, it became a clown of death that seeks to mold everyone into its own image by force. Internationalists have long known they needed to make society shameless, that way it could be remolded into something new. A golem made of clay. Something unhuman and artificial.

In this new system, the shameless attempt to shame those with modesty because they do not conform to this new paradigm. They grow louder and more ostentatious because they feel self-righteous in their sense of banal freedom because they perceive they are still inclusive when they should have been banished. There are no consequences in a society built on consequentialism, especially when it is void of shame. Without consequences culture itself can have no identity as there are no demarcations between this or that, good or evil. Shameful or proper.  Not having cultural identity probably has contributed to our bland architecture in the 20^th and 21^st century, as well as the death or originality, this of course on top of the general decay of civilization in general. It has all become colorless, anxious, and highly schizophrenic.  In an organic culture we would have had the freedom to associate with those whom we wished, including the shameless who can associate among themselves in their own groupings. There would be clear delineations as to what was improper and where such things could be proper if at all.  If another group sought to change our ways, they would have needed to convince us that their ideals were superior, or it would be war. Forcing ideals by the monopoly of force is not the end of war, rather it is the tinder that will eventually cause one.

The shameless, including those who use shame improperly by attempting to convert others to their ideals with the monopoly of force of the state, are leaving most of us without options but soft acquiesce, which is often framed as “tolerance”. They are but mere foot soldiers for this inhuman golem, useful fools who undermine even their own agency.

Tolerance is a tricky topic, but it has certainly been weaponized. Tolerance should never be conflated with acceptance, but that is often what it turns into when one does not hold the line.  This is where the use of individual proper shame comes into play. While shame in general has to do with how you feel against the perception of others, it is the very sense of individual shame internally that helps us self-govern our own behavior. When properly developed we do not need to be told to do, or not do a thing.  

There are similarities to this topic that echo’s my section about magnanimity in my essay “Walking and Talking with God”. What we object to, especially for ourselves, says more about us than what it is we agree to. Much in the way by how a man is defined more by what he chooses not to do than by what he has done.

I am not against tolerance; in fact, I am all for it. For me to demand that I have the natural right to determine my own beliefs, morals and ethics, I must recognize that right in others. Live your life how you wish as long as you are the only one affected by it. Once you cross that line, like using coercion or flashing your pecker at my daughter because you were in a parade, does not fall under the umbrella of tolerance. That falls underneath the category of war.

In a free society, I can tolerate you by not asking the state for you to conform to my ideals. If I do not like what shames you, or any other metric, I should have the right to refuse to associate.  In this sense, I advocate for being a porcupine, a non-aggressive animal that if attacked can inflict painful wounds even to something as powerful as a lion, but will mostly mind its own business.

But we do not live in a free society, and we seemingly lack enough men to take a stand effective enough to draw that line at tolerance. This is why it was engineered that way; it has been a brilliant tactic. Cultural Marxism and queer theory have been weaponized not only for their own sake, but to create a post-shame world were the only cultural fence allowed is that of the belief an omnipotent nanny state where men lack chests.

Not to single out men, but one of Americas founding fathers, Dr. John Witherspoon was correct when he said that the virtue of magnanimity should be associated with true manliness. It is also said that hard times create strong men. So, I ask you, are you a strong man? According to Witherspoon, the virtue of magnanimity requires five commitments.

1)      Attempting great and difficult things.

2)      Aspiring after great and valuable possessions.

3)      Facing dangers with resolution

4)      Struggling against difficulties with perseverance

5)      Bearing sufferings with fortitude and patience.

To bring proper shame back to this world, and the world our children will inherit, means we should attempt these great things while enduring great hardships. For this task my shoulders are strong by the grace of God. Prepare yourself, the fight is upon us.

-For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

-Isaiah 9:6