Guilt And Shame

I am trying to understand these two words.  In an exchange over coffee in the lower hall after church last Sunday a parishioner and I were talking about how to motivate selfish narcissistic young people to give up their seats in the front of the bus (or better, to not sit in them) for elderly and disabled people.  I described how I once used eye contact to get a young man to give up his courtesy seat on the bus for an elderly woman standing next to him.  I first made eye contact with him, then glanced to the woman standing next to him.  Then I looked again at the standing elderly woman and back to the young man.  He got it.  He got up and gave her his seat.
     Grinning with approval my fellow parishioner said that I'd shamed him and what a great motivator guilt is.  A lady also seated at the table tsk-tsked indignantly and said, "Oh, dear, please, not guilt."  We sort of changed the subject in our clumsy Anglican way because that is the way we deal with awkward disagreements in church (tee-hee!)  I still can't get it out of my head and, well, I do want to write something on my blog this evening.
     What is it about guilt?  It used to be a dirty word.  We simply were not allowed to feel guilty about anything.  This was during the Eighties of course when almost everyone seemed to be part of a therapy group or an empowerment group or a feel good and get over the guilt group.  Nobody wanted to feel guilt anymore, about anything.  It was all about self-esteem and self this and self everything.  We could eat whatever we wanted and not feel guilty (never mind the little boy getting whipped in the cocoa plantation on the Ivory Coast for not producing fast enough because he was hungry.  No reason to spoil that decadent chocolate mousse that's going straight to your hips, and guess where its principal decadent ingredient came from?  Remember?  We were like spoiled little rich kids rolling in it: eating, doing, saying, whatever the hell we wanted, screw the consequences (though we used a rather different word), we have the right to enjoy ourselves, feel good and revel in our instant gratification.
     Shame is another thing.  As a verb it has it's uses: such as motivating that obtuse boy on the bus to do the right thing or to get someone to not litter, or not beat their dog.  Shame that is internalized, especially over things we have no control over is toxic and can often only be removed with therapeutic interventions. Shame is corrosive, shame is crippling.  But it is not the same as the shame of "Shame on you.  You can do better and you know that you can be better, now you should be ashamed of yourself, and now you go and make restitution."  But that isn't shame.  It's guilt.
     Right now I am snacking on chocolate chips.  They are not Fair Trade and I have no idea about the working conditions of the people who harvested the cocoa.  I care and I used to buy Fair Trade then found it too expensive since it appeals largely to a niche market of well incomed people and I am not well incomed.  Would I switch back to Fair Trade products with a five dollar an hour raise (right now I earn a whopping twelve bucks an hour, no raise in sight)?  Yes, I think I would.  Doesn't it bother me that the chocolate might have been harvested by child and abused labour?  Yes, it does.  I am also aware that purchasing these, for me, affordable chocolate chips also helps pay their wages, but yes, there is a problem here.  But I also take refuge in the famous Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."  One day I might be able to make a difference.  Until I get that pay raise I will probably continue to enjoy the chocolate, but not guilt-free.
     Guilt is good.  It is our nagging pesky conscience telling us that we have done badly, that we know better and that we are able to do better, and the jagged edge of guilt is often just the goad that will cattle prod us into doing better.  In the eighties we were sold a bill of goods.  Let us revel in the restoration of the tender conscience, and rejoice in the good that will result as we obey the tender, nagging whisperings of guilt.