by Mark Sircus
June 17, 2014
from DrSircus Website

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to Psychology Today,

"Embarrassment is a painful but important emotion. It makes us feel bad about our mistakes so that we don't repeat them and one of its side effects - blushing - signals to others that we recognize our error and are not cold-hearted or oblivious.

 

Shame, a related emotion, can be felt even when no one knows about a slip-up."

 

Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition
there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
George Soros

 

 

Normally shame is seen as a negative emotion because unnecessary shame creates so much pain in our lives.

 

In the words of one of our contemporary scholars of shame, Gershen Kaufman,

"Shame is the most disturbing experience individuals ever have about themselves; no other emotion feels more deeply disturbing because in the moment of shame the self feels wounded from within."

This wounding from within are what victims of rape and child sexual abuse feel, often for the rest of their lives. Arrogant people do not normally feel shame, psychopaths and sociopaths are not even capable of it.

 

Politicians also have a hard time with shame.

 

 

The only shame is to have none.
Blaise Pascal

 

 

Reading the news these days brings to me a deep feeling of shame to be part of the human race.

 

The particular incidents that triggered my feelings were reports of three rapes in India that finally had the new leader appealing publically for Indians to stop the violence on women, which is especially common in Hindu and certain Moslem strains of fanaticism.

 

In the recent Hindu cases it was not enough to rape the women but the men had to hang them from the nearest tree to show the world how disgusting humans can be.

 

It was always a shame to find out that the most dangerous place for women and children in the United States is actually in their own homes - homes being the place where we actually find the most violence.

 

Family life in our insane civilization has turned into a nightmare for way too many people, but then again we have had the same problems throughout history.

 

 

There is no flag large enough to cover
the shame of killing innocent people.
Howard Zinn

 

 

 

 

The Tears of War

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I read about the fighting in Ukraine and as the young boys drop from the skies dead I think of my own son of 20 years of age. Politicians love to send young boys to their graves and for that they are disgusting to me.

 

Wars are fought with young lives but that does not stop America or anyone else from getting into wars.

"We're brutally and cold-bloodedly sacrificing the psychological well-being of these men and women," wrote Bob Herbert for the New York Times as he described the conditions of fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Who is the "we" Herbert was talking about?

 

He was talking about Americans who vote for a government who fights the world as it prepares, with massive purchases of ammo, to fight its own people.

 

In the Ukraine, we see America's modus operandi with the new government calling everyone who is against them terrorists. Now on top of that we have real terrorists taking over large parts of Iraq (and for what they are going to do to the woman they deserve to be stopped) and so sorry says America if another country and ancient culture is put to ruin.

 

In this case its religious fanatics who will re-enslave the woman of that country and hundreds of thousands are fleeing.

 

The human race is not good enough to be good. Thus, our survival is in doubt because we are not smart enough and sensitive enough to embrace the deeper feelings of the heart.

 

We will probably destroy our entire world before politicians and the elite contingents of our race learn anything about empathy and compassion.

"The sociopaths and elites have no ability to turn the ship of states around as their policies have created the collapse. that is coming to our economic and financial worlds", wrote Ty Andros. 

He also said,

"Never in my 30+ year career as a market observer have I seen so many out on a limb which is about to be SAWED OFF. Those who live within the matrix are fully loaded for a recovery which is not and will not appear.

 

Like a boat where all the passengers are on one side of the boat and it is about to capsize, investors similarly have no fear. Investor confidence is at superhuman levels."

The age of mass destruction is closing in on us and even if our new wars do not go nuclear, the level of suffering in the world will go off the Richter scale as it has done many times throughout history.

 

Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are on a march to nowhere as Islamic maniacs and this morning we read about the massacre of 1,700 young men.

 

It is the Nazi and even worse, who are back on the loose, and when they come there is nothing to do but fight or die. The Nazi is not confined to the borders of Germany anymore, and it never was, in fact!

 

Fascism is alive and well, even in large free countries, whose citizens delude themselves about what is going on right behind their backs.

"In a rational world, re-fighting the Iraq war would be inconceivable: in the world we are living in, however, it is all too probable.

 

If we had a foreign policy that made any kind of sense, we would partner with Iran in keeping the peace in the region: they are in a much better position to clear out ISIS. In our world, however, this is a virtual impossibility: there is too much of a chasm between Washington and Tehran.

 

Our present conundrum is entirely self-manufactured: there was no Al Qaeda presence in Iraq prior to the US invasion, in spite of the Bush administration's ridiculous attempts to hold Saddam Hussein responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks."

 

 

 

Lessons in Shame

 

Psychology Today also offers up this almost unbelievable story to show us how sensitive we can be, at least when we are still babies.

"We didn't know it until fairly recently, but infants are born hard-wired with the ability to experience shame.

 

Here is an example of a scene that shows an infant's response to feeling shame. Baby is sitting on the kitchen counter in his infant seat. Mom steps out of the room for a minute. When Mom starts walking back into the room, Baby hears Mom's steps, and anticipates making joyful eye contact with her when she gets back.

 

But this time Mom is preoccupied, and when she comes back into the room, she does not meet Baby's eyes. The muscles in his neck then lose their strength, and his head drops down. He turns his face away from her, his eyes are cast downward and he may even drool.

 

This is shame/humiliation. Mom did not meet his high interest; she did not make the connection.

 

Baby's shame is the result."

Humans are perfectly vulnerable when they are born.

 

Scientists even assert that in the womb fetuses are already hypersensitive to the emotions of its parents meaning unwanted children are already feeling the pain of their existence before birth.

 

The heart is the vulnerability of being and this is hard to swallow in a world dead set against vulnerability, listening, empathy and love.

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Noam Chomsky writes that there is a,

"remarkable project to expose to state scrutiny vital information about every person who falls within the grasp of the colossus – in principle, every person linked to the modern electronic society. Nothing so ambitious was imagined by the dystopian prophets of grim totalitarian worlds ahead.

 

It is of no slight import that the project is being executed in one of the freest countries in the world, and in radical violation of the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, which protects citizens from 'unreasonable searches and seizures,' and guarantees the privacy of their 'persons, houses, papers and effects'."

The United States government has forgotten what good was or never quite got what good was all about.

 

Even the best of them, like Abraham Lincoln, arrested thousands to squash dissent as he sent over a million boys to their death to save an unholy union that is dead set against everyone including its own people.

 

The constitution of the United States has been murdered. The land of liberty is now the land of surveillance and there will be hell to pay for it. Obama, Bush and most of congress have betrayed the founding fathers but this goes back through time to the founding of the Federal Reserve and before.

 

President Jackson fought bitterly against the bankers but now they have the entire human race enslaved to a criminal Ponzi scam of debt and interest that only benefits those who are on top of the human heap.

 

So yes ashamed to be human fits the bill of being part of an insane race who year by year fall further and further from the path of love and understanding.

 

In addition, there is a special shame of being an American:

...the list and hurt goes on and on.

 

Is it all for the sake of money and power or does evil really exist meaning many people enjoy being bad.

 

One of the biggest shames is the destruction of the future, which means our children are already taking the hit. We reached our pinnacle and I am afraid it is going to be a long trip down because we know no shame.

 

It really is a bad joke because most people are convinced, according to the mass media that good times are just around the bend when it's an avalanche of bad news turning worse that is just up ahead.