EUSEBIUS MCKAISER | The chokehold of shame and rage

• Published date: 21 December 2021
• Author: Eusebius McKaiser
• Publication title: SowetanLIVE (Johannesburg, South Africa)

Imagine just how differently our politics would have been if all politicians were capable of being shamed. Alas, way too many of them are shameless (quite literally) and the consequence is a dearth of ethical leadership

To feel shame is to be selfconscious, in a very awkward and even distressful way, of having done something wrong or evaluating yourself in a negative way or judging yourself as implicated in wrongdoing. You feel ethically stained — and responsible for being stained — and busted. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

If I bust you with your hand in the cookie jar that you should not be dipping into, then you damn well should be feeling ashamed.

This matters because your experience of shame at least signals to us that you have some recognition of what is right and wrong and can be embarrassed for falling short of the minimal standards of ethical decency. So, though shame does not always get a positive reputation, its place in our overall landscape of moral emotions is important to understand and to preserve.

Rage is the cumulative effect of one's life. But it is almost luck of the draw whether you channel your rage in productive ways or not.

If noone felt shame, society would crack.

What bothers me, however, are instances when shame does not serve us in productive ways but sets us on a path of selfdestruction or leading us to diminished lives.

In the first of this current series of three essays on unhealthy masculinities, I had teased out the wounding effects that the sins of our parents have on us deep into adulthood.

With the best of intentions, we set out to not repeat mom and dad's mistakes, and to rolemodel better ways of being healthy moms, dads, lovers, colleagues, friends. And yet, despite these noble intentions, we often end up repeating the best and the worst of what remains lodged deep inside our cellular memories.

Shame and rage, in particular, are emotions that can run rampant in us men in ways we might be unaware of, which does not stop the destructive effects on others around us. It is important to get a grip on the chokehold of shame and rage.

We shame boys — children — from a very early age into accepting unhealthy masculinities. I wrote previously about Will Smith recounting in his autobiography how, at the tender age of nine, he felt like a coward for witnessing his dad beating up his mother, and not protecting her from the body blows in that moment.

He kept that feeling of cowardice to himself for his entire life and only a couple of months ago told his mom about that memory and the accompanying selfjudgment he had been carrying in him all his life. His dad went to his grave not knowing what Will had felt since he was nine.

That is...