Commonweal editor Alexander Stern recently appeared in The Washington Post to discuss guilt and shame during a shameless era, and more particularly, to Frédéric Gros’s new book, A Philosophy of Shame: A Revolutionary Emotion. 

In his review, Stern explains that Gros thinks shame might be leveraged towards social good: “Today, [shame] tends to be judged harshly — a negative emotion imposed on us, for example, by a hypercritical parent or a repressive culture. But, Gros asks, what if our aversion to shame has deprived us of a valuable resource in antisocial times?” 

In fact, the author contends that shame might be at the heart of philosophical inquiry: “Gros goes so far as to say that shame in this sense is the very point of philosophy: Socratic questioning shames us by forcing us to reckon with our own ignorance. It exposes our weakness and dependence, drawing us out of ourselves where guilt might drive us inward.” Shame might be a useful tool, then, in a moment marked by a political and cultural shamelessness indifferent to truth and human connection.

At the same time, Stern warns that Gros fails to address the broader transformation that might be required to render shame useful to begin with in an era where the hyper-rich increasingly separate themselves from humanity altogether. “Bringing the shameless to heel will require more than a ‘revolutionary emotion,’ especially one that can very easily spiral out of control. It will require both new articulations of what we owe one another and new commitment to reining in those who refuse to admit they owe anyone anything,” Stern explains.

The full article, which ran on June 14, can be found here.