αἰσχρὸν

The new Prez recently introduced, or reminded us of, a word that seems not to be much in current parlance: shame. The Greeks were all over this (see, among other places, Plato's Republic); the word we translate as "shame" is "αἰσχρὸν [aischron]." As usual, with a technical term in the Greek moral/philosophical vocabulary, it can't be readily translated by a single word.

Since this is a blog, not an article, I shall not even pretend to have done much worrying about what the facts are here, since—in both cases—I tend to just make shit up anyway.

Obama referred to the recent granting of bonuses (boni? bona?) on the part of Merrill-Lynch et al. (to the tune of $18b) as "shameful." I wonder if this will catch on? Some of us parents still use the cliché (and often rhetorical) "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

The basic idea seems to be that if S does some act x that is shameful, S should a) recognize it as shameful b) feel substantial regret without being forced to do so by others and c) make some sort of amends (financial, moral, political, religious, whatever).

So here S is some guy (yeah, we'll make it a guy) who receives, say, a $5 million year end bonus. (The apologists will say "but this bonus is like tips for a server: regarded as part of one's expected income!" The response is "wow! Cool job!") At the same time, S's bank was provided with some substantial funds to avoid bankruptcy and to increase liquidity, generating more economic activity and, ideally, helping people avoid foreclosure in their houses.

Now if someone is giving me a bunch of money, because I've been pissin' it away at the track, and then I take her money and go put it on a horse, that person may well be annoyed. Indeed, that person might well think either I'm a jerk, stupid, not paying attention, or irresponsible to the point of, well, shame.

But note that "shame" is an attitude that, theoretically, one must adopt oneself, not have it forced upon one by another. We may point it out, sort of as a moral hint, but if the person doesn't recognize the behavior as shameful . . . well, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him a moral agent or something. And one needs to recognize the problem before making amends for it.

There are a number of people in the last 30 years or so who have behaved abominably, from Nixon to Osama bin Laden to Kenneth Lay. (Add your own names, or just find a fourth for this bridge club.) It seems rare to see any of these feel ashamed. Jimmy Swaggart seemed pretty ashamed, but like so many others, he seemed mostly to regret having been caught. What is missing is the self's procedure of moral evaluation, and the recognition of moral failure sufficient enough for a person to recognize that he has acted, yes, shamefully.

I'm all for reintroducing this notion back into our ordinary moral/political vocabulary, by which I do not advocate a bunch of people standing outside some theatre showing a controversial movie shouting "For shame! For shame!" First of all, that sounds too much like Grandpa Simpson; second of all, at least in my case, I invariably go see movies that people tell me I shouldn't see, especially if they are picketing (and even more if, as is frequently the case, they haven't seen the movie).

Short of forcing everyone to read the Republic, do I hear a) any votes for reinvigorating a sense of shame among those who act shamefully and b) a method for doing so?