From Episode 749 of "This American Life," "My Bad" (about embarrassment).
I've thought a lot about embarrassment, and I sometimes wonder what might life could have been if I'd found my way to immunity from embarrassment when I was a child. When you're a really young child, learning to speak, learning to walk, babbling nonsense, falling on your ass every other minute, it's all in good fun, and you never get the idea that everyone's laughing at me and I keep making a fool of myself. You have to learn to be embarrassed, but some people learn not to be embarrassed.
Can Methodism help?
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Embarrassment certainly comes of self-focus. Remove the self-focus, remove the embarrassment. The quest to build and preserve reputation is a fool's journey. You don't, and never will, own your reputation.
Lately I have wondered: if you are cancelled on social media, but you don't have any social media accounts - do you feel any emotional pain?
Theory of Mind is a core focus of developmental psychology:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/theory-of-mind.html
https://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development
These are universal human principles. Methodism and other religious systems may overlap, reinforce, or go against these principles. Some argue that childhood training and experiences permanently color adult attitudes, and there are numerous theories as to how. Sigmund Freud is certainly the most famous psychologist, but also incredibly controversial and sometimes downright odd.
I guess, it could help if you need to be told what to do.
Alternatively, she's a sociopath who happens to go to church.
>>This worldview, that others weren't judging her, helped her not judge herself. Those thoughts just didn't occur to her.<<
So, she deemed not judging herself a good thing?! Seems to me she was missing a fundamental and valuable tool for self-improvement. I, myself, will take some self-judgment any day, thanks.
Althouse said...
You have to learn to be embarrassed, but some people learn not to be embarrassed... Can Methodism help?
There's "Methodism" to your madness?
Most methodists never learn that lesson either.
There are times when people should be embarrassed.
Not for being a clutz or screwing up in good faith.
Lying.
Acting in bad faith.
Stealing.
On this board there is a group of people who cloth their tribal hatreds and greed in support for democrats and uniparty republicans. They support hateful and destructive policies they would never support if a Republican pushed them.
BLM/Antifa was 9 months of political violence and stealing from others.
This is the type of thing you should be embarrassed about.
I don't know if it is " Methodism" or not because I am a practicing Roman Catholic and I pretty much agree with the sentiment that most people probably don't give me more than 5 seconds of thought, for those that do care about me sure they think of me more but they are 'safer' so I worry less about being embarrassed. Sure I do stupid stuff that is embarrassing but really most people are going to forget about that incident shortly after they see it.
Viral stuff is the exception to the rule, but for every viral embarrassing incident, there have to be a million others that are related to the dustbin of our minds never to be thought of again.
The armchair social scientist makes me wonder is it yet another thing to blame social media for? If you are seeking out attention, doesn't that increase the chance you will be embarrassed or feeling that you are being judged? I really don't know anything other than the anecdotes that I see forming as I compare the way I grew up pre-social media to the way my nieces/nephews are growing up with social media. My kids are too young to get heavily involved in social media but I do see it creeping into their lives in 4th and 6th grades.
More young know-nothings today should be Methodists...they're just not very important.
As for embarrassment, I have a trick that sometimes works. I am an introvert by nature, but my wife's work puts me in a lot of social situations where I have to be 'social.'
If you don't know anybody in the room, they don't know you either. You can be anyone. You can be the lampshade on the head guy. Nobody will know any better.
But it's a lot of work and can be very tiring...
Okay, can someone please explain Hillary Clinton, who also was brought up as and still claims to be a Methodist?
Embarrassment is akin to guilt, and guilt is central to the acquisition of a sense of personal responsibility to other individuals specifically and the larger community of mankind generally. Embarrassment, chagrin, social discomfiture, how ever one expresses this fundamental and characteristically human emotion ("Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to." -- Mark Twain) is minor guilt over minor sins, which teaches us to avoid those incidents in the future.
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
One may hope that embarrassment ought to be that power, however we are often undone by the common fault of being embarrassed over the perceived inadequacy of our material possession or our less than exalted social standing. (My sneakers are knock-off Air Jordans, the cool kids reject me, smoking makes me wheeze, beer makes me spew, etc, ad nauseam, the embarrassed child's litany of woes.)
As for Methodism, I haven't noticed any detectable immunity or hypersensitivity to embarrassment among my acquaintances who are or have been adherents of Wesley. Among Protestants the most perplexing are the Presbyterians. (Quaestor's confession, long since lapsed) Predestination, the supposed logical consequent of the existence of an all-knowing god, a foundational tenet of Calvinism, might be expected to produce such imperviousness to discomposure and shame. Numerous 16th and 17th critics of Calvin and his follows made accusations of such arrogance, cocksure as they were of Man's inability to alter his final destiny. However, the Calvinists whom I have observed, myself included, ware as sensitive about their social position as any working-class high schooler trying to impress the daughter of a country club board member.
"Why would you think anyone but God gives a shit about anything you're doing, ever? They don't."
Just about everything in that strange little rant was false.
Lefties don’t “embarrass easy”.
Isn’t developing a sense of embarrassment linked to developing a sense of empathy towards others? We don’t just feel embarrassed when we draw negative attention to ourselves. Our embarrassment is often, indeed usually, linked to the understanding that the negative focus on us it due to our having behaved in a some way that causes discomfort in others.
I know plenty of Methodists, my wife was born and raised a Methodist. Most of her relatives are Methodists. They all seem to be able to feel embarrassment.
My great grandfather was a Methodist missionary in China but pretty much the whole family fell away from the church after that, probably because his service had taken such an awful toll on everyone. China was a dirty, violent pit of disease.
But it's possible that Methodist attitudes persisted a couple generations because I sure never felt like anyone was watching me or cared.
As a result I was never embarrassed enough, when I should have been.
I think most people worry too much about what other people think. That being said, a little bit of embarrassment can help you in life, especially as a kid. Media overly romanticizes the weird and odd, as just quirky and fun. But if a person is overly weird, they are more likely to be passed up for friendships, passed over in hiring, passed over in promotions, and passed over in romantic pairings. It is hard to rationally analyze each particular way a person might excessively deviate from social norms. And the feeling of embarrassment picked up from social cues of others can help people avoid the dangers of being weird. But like I said, on balance, I think most people could benefit from injecting a little weirdness into their routine. Just don't go on a full out jihad against normalcy. People who are very normal overlook the benefits of largely fitting in.
"This worldview, that others weren't judging her, helped her not judge herself."
So she actually does view herself as the center of the universe.
Embarrassment has a function: to care enough about what others think to want to make social situations work well. Being properly embarrassed means it's not about you. That is what you have to learn.
I was raised Methodist myself, and embarrassed about everything. I thought that was one of the main goals, and I'm not embarrassed to say so.
"Never is not Russian. Jane was never embarrassed."
Therefore, Jane is not Russian.
Having been raised deeply in Methodism, the culture it promotes is humility. If one does great things, it is for the glory of God and by the grace of God. When honored, one reflexively bows one's head. Yet one is expected to use his or her God-given talents for the betterment of humankind, which requires energetic and sometimes aggressive action.
Conversely, Methodists actively discourage attempts to embarrass others. Importance is placed on the views of God. Each and every one is precious in His sight. If someone is embarrassed, the strong tendency is to show active support for that person to take away the sting of embarrassment.
"Jane was never embarrassed, and for a pretty specific reason. The way she grew up — she was Methodist — she was taught you are not the center of the universe..."
This is objectively testable.
Religious teaching isn't taught from birth, it occurs over childhood, and it sounds like the relevant doctrines here (not being the center of the universe) don't take hold until at least six years old, or, more likely about ten years old or even older.
But, personality features such as embarrassment and self-centeredness, comes earlier than that.
So, if Jane didn't show embarrassment at an early age, too, Jane's lack of embarrassment cannot be attributed to religious teaching.
I, personally would be astonished if Jane's lack of embarrassment wasn't apparent before age three. Personality is deep, often apparent from birth, and not easily shaped by religious teaching.
I was raised in the Methodist church although I am a born Atheist. It was not so much that we were taught not to be embarrassed as it was that we were not to show it.
“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
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so then what is cause of embarrassment? dishonor or bad reputation?
lack of embarrassment could be when secure in one's honor
Great read, thanks Althouse. What was interesting about the Methodist inspired lack of embarrassment was once she experienced embarrassment, then she became more susceptible to it demonstrating neuroplasticity is a double edged toggle switch.
Being Methodist still has something to do with God?
Embarrassment is connected to what we see as our identity structure. If our identity is in our faithfulness to God, we're not fighting against embarrassment in the way that society usually cares about, it just doesn't occur to the person. Just like how a parent isn't embarrassed by the same things as a high school girl.
Methodists, especially the early ones, weekly (or more!) met together and shared where they fell short, confessing their sins with each other because they didn't see these as embarrassments but as a kind of brokenness that invites healing, sharing their failings like we share our symptoms with a doctor.
Nowadays, we're afraid of this kind of confession because we're wanting to find our meaning and value in all the rest of the stuff, and our sins/mistakes are embarrassing.
What embarrasses, and there's always some area of life where if we make a mistake we're embarrassed, shows where our core sense of self is.
Therefore, Jane is not Russian.
Nice work Tim!
To their everlasting credit, my church-going parents (Methodist and Presbyterian) resisted fashion. This meant: don't let the supposedly cool or fashionable people embarrass you into doing something you don't want to do. I remember the teenage fear: why do I have to chat with my parents' friends? What are they going to think of me? I think I deliberately resisted that: why should my actions be limited in any way by what they think (subject to something like ordinary politeness)? More recently I have tried to absorb Jane Austen novels, where the rule seems to be: be nice to the bores. Not just coldly polite: draw them out, make them feel comfortable, even when you can predict the nonsense they are going to come up with. This is real kindness to people who might live in a self-inflicted loneliness, and it is part of the art of being a host/guest, keeping a gathering cheerful, with everyone feeling included. Austen herself must often have been the brightest and funniest person in a crowd, and perhaps she spent a fair bit of time hiding these qualities so as not to make anyone feel bad.
above comments are quite strongly in favor of embarrassment >>> quite revealing of a deep lack of understanding its psychological roots
- I have made an attempt to connect what Blogger Peter Spieker said below to what Black activists are trying to do by accusing other blacks of acting white so as to embarrass them into changing their ways
...Isn’t developing a sense of embarrassment linked to developing a sense of empathy towards others? We don’t just feel embarrassed when we draw negative attention to ourselves. Our embarrassment is often, indeed usually, linked to the understanding that the negative focus on us it due to our having behaved in a some way that causes discomfort in others ....
I admit I was embarrassed to go ask the math teacher for help. That was common though, and the geometry teacher wondered aloud why our cohort in general didn't ask for help. We just sat there passively.
In my case I was embarrassed. Grown men intimidated me. There just weren't many in my life.
Yay divorce.
Back in the hippie days we talked about those great people who were “together.” I think back on some of those “together” people and, knowing their later lives, smile. Together my ass.
This lady sounds like she thinks she got it all together. LOL.
“You wouldn't worry so much about what people think of you, if you knew how seldom they do."
- Mark Twain
Okay, can someone please explain Hillary Clinton, who also was brought up as and still claims to be a Methodist?
First of all, no religion can be explained by its deviants from God's teachings. God gave us the ability to choose between right and wrong, and Hilary Clinton is an example of a person who chose wrong a long time ago and continues to this day. My view is that a person can choose evil once and it might be a temporary weakness or mistake. But someone who chooses evil her whole adult life is evil. Remember she started in college when she did a project for Saul Alinsky who dedicated his book to the Devil. Hilary knows what she is doing. She is an active agent of evil.
Howard writes, "...then she became more susceptible to it demonstrating neuroplasticity is a double edged toggle switch."
Cease the mechanistic technobabble. Your screed reads like something written with little knowledge of combustion, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, or basic Newtonian mechanics discoursing on the subject of "speed holes" and why they make the car go faster. No one here knows Jane or comprehends the merest facet of her psychology and character. She's no machine. So away with this condensed edition of Morgan and Ricker, else I'll be inclined to regard you as a machine with loose screw.
I don't think it was church teaching in his case, Lutheran I think. A customer once responded to my explanation about some situation, that I was worried what others would think about me.
He pointed out, correctly.
"you wouldn't worry so much about what others think about you...If you realized how little they do."
I have repeated that often to my kids,(now grown) and others suffering from youth.
Morgan and Ricker? I'm not that smart. I gleeped neuroplasticity from the imminent pop Stanford professor podcastrator Dr. Andy Huberman. If you say his name three times, you get 20% off neutropics from a reliable source. Boundary layer manipulation is another story.
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