Shame, Empathy, and Liberty: Why They Are Connected

     Shame and empathy lead to individual liberty by dissuading aggression and helping to build communities. In this blog I will attempt to define and outline each idea separately and then show how they are linked. When one fails to conduct any form of moral inventory or purposely works to remove shame from their existence, they become more capable of cruelty and will often even look to cruelty as a virtue. 

     Shame is the internalization one feels when you know you have done something wrong. Wrong is subjective depending on the situation, but within the scope of individualism and liberty, it’s not as broad. If you have caused offense or harm, then you should feel shame. Shame is the internal mechanism that allows us to learn and grow. Seeking to remove shame from your life is the path to tyranny. As humans naturally collectivize, the desire to enforce ones will over others is a byproduct of an inability to learn and grow through shame preceded by empathy and is the calling card of every tyrannical despot that ever was.

     If you are unable to empathize with your fellow human then you will probably never feel shame. This is actually a hallmark of a sociopath. Sociopaths, even the highly functioning ones, operate by their own rules and often without a strong moral center, will often willingly or unknowingly infringe on others. The ability to understand how you have harmed others is missing and therefore escalation will result. Here is an example: 

     You buy your kids a new trampoline and you live in a windy area. You fail to properly anchor the trampoline. One night your trampoline gets blown into your neighbor’s property and smashes their henhouse. You wake up, see it, walk over onto their property without permission, move your trampoline back to your yard and make no attempt to make restitution. This shows not only a lack of empathy for the damage your irresponsibility has caused, but a lack of shame. If this person truly felt shame they would feel duty bound to make restitution. Restitution is how justice in a truly free society would be meted out. If one feels no shame, then there is no mechanism to deal with this other than aggression.

     This is not necessarily a violation of a person’s liberty, but it is an asshole move. Assholes make communities harder to live in. The irony is when a sociopath meets another asshole, they will generally complain that the asshole has infringed upon them without any thought as to the small aggressions they commit often and without remorse or how they affect those around them. Remorse is the natural result of empathy and shame. 

     Liberty is defined differently by many people, but within anarchist theory it is the ability to live autonomously without the initiation of aggression upon the individual. This is a standard applied universally whether in regards to the state or other individuals. When one fails to feel shame upon aggression, then there is no mechanism to ensure that individual does not continue to infringe. This will usually end up in an escalation which continues back and forth resulting in violence. This is of course avoidable with a modicum of self-governance, shame, and empathy. 

     One could argue politicians feel no shame in the role they play in making our lives more difficult every day. If they felt empathy or shame, they would quit, but alas they delude themselves into thinking they are helping from on high in their castle while really making their own lives better. With shame and empathy there would be no politicians. There would be no desire to mandate behavior and no need to lie to the populace as a whole. There would be no racism with empathy. The entire idea of looking at a melanin count and using it as an excuse to otherize a fellow human wouldn’t exist because you would not want that thinking addressed to you. I guarantee none of the guards at the concentration camps felt shame because they lacked the empathy to realize they were the bad guy. None of the politicians in the Australian government feel shame because they think they are doing the right thing. Were they to live with those they claim to rule over, they would feel the pain they inflict, but a lack of empathy ensures they have no shame. The double standard is the natural result of power and sociopathy. 

     The mechanism for self-governance is shame, and the mechanism for shame is empathy. They are inexorably linked. You cannot uncouple one from the other and expect freedom in any meaningful sense. Jocko Willink famously coined the phrase “discipline equals freedom” and this is a perfect summation of the idea of shame and empathy. A disciplined individual governs oneself, and expects others to allow them to continue to govern themselves. The natural result of this is empathy for the desire of others to govern themselves. 

     I will end with this quote from C.S. Lewis. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” One’s own conscience can be corrupted without the mechanisms of shame and empathy and any attempt to live a shame free life is an exercise in oppression of your fellow humans. 

In Liberty