Abstract

Shame is a peculiar phenomenon. It can fracture our social ties in the very instance that it reveals them. John Rawls argues that shame threatens the mutual respect necessary for democratic deliberation by diminishing a person in the eyes of his audience or even in his own eyes, thus causing this person to withdraw from the discussion. Alternatively theorists of civility, such as Jean Elshtain, argue that shame can provide the necessary conditions for deliberation by excluding and thereby protecting the private lives of citizens from the gaze of the public. ;This thesis argues that Plato's analysis of shame in the Gorgias provides a deeper understanding of this emotion by articulating three different kinds of shame and shaming practices possible in democracies. In the case of "flattering" shame, both the speaker and the audience are oriented to maintaining the mythic unity of the public image of the just and rational citizen. This kind of politics of shame postulates a fixed and unitary standard of the democratic citizen that then works to implicitly shame any forms of engagement that contest this norm. ;In contrast to this, Socrates both argues for and engages in a politics of shame that is aimed at shaming others as part of a public critique of their images of the just citizen. A true democratic discussion for Socrates involves a painful shaming of one's fellow citizens as part of the on-going project of collective deliberation and reflection. ;Finally, Plato's own revisions to this Socratic politics of shame reflect the additional consideration that although a certain amount of pain and struggle is integral to the discovery of moral truth, a certain amount of pleasure and consensus is also integral to any act of intersubjective recognition. Plato's model of "respectful" shame ultimately finds a place for the struggle and pain of Socrates' elenctic encounters and for the pleasures and benefits that come from acknowledging the commonalities between one's self and one's fellow citizens even while showing them why and how you disagree with them.