Shame
Today I feel shame as an American. News reports of the brutal torture and death of two young Afghans in U.S. custody are stomach turners. At the end of the NY Times article the reporter writes that several of the interrogators came to believe the man who was tortured to death was innocent. He was a taxi driver who drove past an American outpost at thr wrong time.
Now I'm not one for wringing my hands about this sort of thing. Terrible things go on in the world and we certainly have no monoploy on perpetrating them.
But there are circumstances in which they are not only more likely to happen, but are even sanctioned, encouraged. And our attitude toward our place in the world during the Bush administration is as provocative of contempt for the parts of the world that are different from us as any I have experienced in my lifetime.
I believe one can practice and discipline one's self to become more open and peaceful in engaging the world, particularly the often frightening stranger. To call entire nations evil or to regard the sometimes necessary use of violence as good and just, is to make ourselves a malign and corrupt force among nations. In fact we take on the very characteristics we have claimed we are trying to eradicate with our military might. We have set up an international mirror and have yet to recognize that we are looking at our own disturbing image.
I worked hard over many years in psychotherapy to release myself from the shame that my family used to shape what they believed were proper values. It is a crippling and cruel tool in the hands of overbearing parents. Because I believe my parents thought they were doing what parents ought, using averse conditioning to shape behavoir, I have been able to forgive them, realize that their failings, like mine as a parent, were their best effort at the time. I deplore shame as a shaping tool.
But not when a national policy toward the world turns self-righteous and without reflection or self-doubt. Then I believe shame is the right name for what they (we) are about. And national repentance is the antidote to shame.
Now I'm not one for wringing my hands about this sort of thing. Terrible things go on in the world and we certainly have no monoploy on perpetrating them.
But there are circumstances in which they are not only more likely to happen, but are even sanctioned, encouraged. And our attitude toward our place in the world during the Bush administration is as provocative of contempt for the parts of the world that are different from us as any I have experienced in my lifetime.
I believe one can practice and discipline one's self to become more open and peaceful in engaging the world, particularly the often frightening stranger. To call entire nations evil or to regard the sometimes necessary use of violence as good and just, is to make ourselves a malign and corrupt force among nations. In fact we take on the very characteristics we have claimed we are trying to eradicate with our military might. We have set up an international mirror and have yet to recognize that we are looking at our own disturbing image.
I worked hard over many years in psychotherapy to release myself from the shame that my family used to shape what they believed were proper values. It is a crippling and cruel tool in the hands of overbearing parents. Because I believe my parents thought they were doing what parents ought, using averse conditioning to shape behavoir, I have been able to forgive them, realize that their failings, like mine as a parent, were their best effort at the time. I deplore shame as a shaping tool.
But not when a national policy toward the world turns self-righteous and without reflection or self-doubt. Then I believe shame is the right name for what they (we) are about. And national repentance is the antidote to shame.
posted by Blayney at 10:14 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home