For years I, like so many others, have thought that Eastern cultures (including Thai) were cultures of shame and that we Westerners belonged to a culture of guilt. I know better now.
Shame cultures and guilt cultures
In the literature, a fairly sharp distinction is usually made between these two cultures. Immigrants, and Easterners in general, would usually belong to a culture of shame. The group is central to this. They strive for harmonious relationships with their group members, conform to the norms and values of the group and avoid losing face. Being caught in violation leads to a sense of shame.
In Western guilt cultures, on the other hand, the emphasis would be more on individual freedom, personal ambitions, emotional independence and open communication. The literature also generally assumes that a culture of guilt is of a higher order than a culture of shame and is better able to prevent transgressions.
Shame and guilt
Shame has been defined as the bad feeling you get when you feel the disapproving gaze of others on you, while guilt is the bad feeling you get when you have acted against your own conceptions of right and wrong. In principle, you can feel guilty without shame, if no one knows about your guilt, and vice versa, you can feel ashamed, without feeling guilty.
Basically I say because psychological research shows that guilt and shame almost always go together, in all cultures. That you feel one emotion and not the other is a big exception and can perhaps be seen as a psychological abnormality. Think about how that feels about the missteps of your own past. I always feel both, albeit to varying degrees.
Where did this concept of guilt and shame cultures come from?
This view is drawn almost entirely from Ruth Benedict's book, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Patterns of Japanese Culture, 1944 (see note 1). Almost all conversations on this subject refer to this book. Perhaps we can learn a little more when we see how this book came about.
Benedict wrote it in 1944 for the US Office of War Information. She had never been to Japan and did not speak Japanese. Although that is not necessarily a reason to reject her ideas, it does invite caution. She based her opinions on an extensive literature study, which also included novels, drama and poetry. She had several informants.
The most important was Robert Hashima. He grew up in the US, was taken by his parents to Japan when he was thirteen (in 1932), where he learned Japanese and finished school. In 1941, just before the outbreak of war, he returned to the US where, like all other Japanese, he was imprisoned in a camp. Sometime after that he was recruited by the Office of War information where he came into contact with Benedict.
In the short time that Hashima stayed in Japan, he was only confronted with the prevailing Japanese doctrine at that time: one of conformity, authority and anti-democracy, so the question is whether he was able to paint a good picture of Japanese culture as a whole.
Ruth Benedict saw guilt as a higher and more important value than shame and better able to separate right from wrong. She blamed Japanese society's "culture of shame" for the aggressive Japanese attitude at the time. One of her pieces of advice in the book was: '..a victorious US government should not shirk from its task of using that amount of hardness, no more and no less, in order to break up old and dangerous (cultural) patterns..'
Thereafter, without much further investigation, this idea of a 'Japanese culture of shame' has been applied to all of Asia and the entire East, including the Islamic world.
I then searched for other articles that explored guilt and shame within a culture and across cultures. Without exception, all the articles I read concluded that in all cultures both, guilt and shame, play a role and that it was almost impossible to separate them or to say that one culture was more subject to shame than to debt or vice versa. There are always differences when you examine two units, but they were minor. So small that it is impossible to define a culture as a culture of guilt or shame. It would be better to continue this idea in the Museum of Scientific Dwalingen.
Two examples
To illustrate, I will give two examples of guilt and shame.
Some years ago, a journalist posed the following question to a Dutch bishop who was accused of covering up abuse of boys by priests: 'Don't you feel guilty about what happened and your role in it?' "Not at all," said the good man. "But don't you feel anything at all?" was the next question. "Oh yes, sure, I'm very ashamed of what happened!"
I am now reading a book by a man who was sentenced to death for drug trafficking. He was pardoned and is now serving the rest of his sentence in 'Bangkok Hilton', 12 years to go. (Dick wrote an article about it on Thailandblog). He had more on his conscience than just that crime, which no one else knows about, and then he writes: '...every day I carry with me the feeling that I have done wrong, it constantly gnaws at my heart ... my heart hurts like it could break any minute…. and I wonder if I am still a man and not a beast…why was I so cruel…I will always have to carry this stain on my soul.” Thai.
Conclusion
If a Thai is ashamed, it is not because he or she comes from a 'shame culture'. He is just ashamed and usually feels guilty as well. If a Westerner feels guilty, it's not because he or she comes from a guilt culture, no, he just feels guilty and probably ashamed too. We must be careful not to explain human emotions through cultural patterns.
We are then denying the emotion itself, perhaps even denying that the emotion is real. After all, it comes from the culture and not from the heart. That's a dead end. There are no defined guilt or shame cultures. All cultures have guilt and shame.
Note 1. The Chrysanthemum as a symbol refers to the Japanese way of gardening, which is said to be conformist, collectivist and harmonious. The Sword represents the aggressive side of Japanese society. Benedict's book is full of such contradictions, while Benedict ultimately defines Japanese culture very one-sidedly.
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About this blogger
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Born in 1944 in Delfzijl as the son of a simple shopkeeper. Studied in Groningen and Curacao. Worked as a doctor in Tanzania for three years, then as a general practitioner in Vlaardingen. A few years before my retirement I married a Thai lady, we had a son who speaks three languages well.
Lived in Thailand for almost 20 years, first in Chiang Kham (Phayao province) then in Chiang Mai where I liked to bother all kinds of Thai with all kinds of questions. Followed Thai extracurricular education after which a diploma of primary school and three years of secondary school. Did a lot of volunteer work. Interested in the Thai language, history and culture. Have been living in the Netherlands for 5 years now together with my son and often with his Thai girlfriend.
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If you want to know more about our hard-to-manage shame and guilt, this is a good book.
https://www.bol.com/nl/p/de-kracht-van-kwetsbaarheid/9200000010046942/
you can read the first 37 pages for free online or as a pdf http://beeld.boekboek.nl/BRLE/p/9789400502482/rea9789400502482.pdf
She describes the importance of vulnerability in relation to an inspired life and ultimately the big one: happiness. After 10 years of conducting qualitative research into the subject of 'shame', she finds out (both hard personally and in theory and data) how important it is for people to dare to be vulnerable. Whereby experiences of vulnerability, as described in the book, can take a different form for everyone: from expressing an unpopular opinion, to standing up for yourself, to asking for help, to writing something or making a work of art afraid of the opinion of others.
Couldn't guilt often be linked to cause-effect. Shame can be associated with that, but it doesn't have to.
While shame is brought in by an upbringing process, but can be done in the long run
change through our own further personal developments, insights and experiences.
Shame seems to me a more intimate affair. Someone is ashamed, while another
doesn't seem to mind at all.
Guilt and shame always go together but in different proportions. They also influence each other: shame leads to blame and blame to shame.
It all depends very much on the type of 'transgression', the situation in which it occurs and on your personality/age etc. There are people, in East and West, who feel ashamed and guilty about anything and everything and there are people who rarely if ever feeling ashamed or guilty. The first is very annoying and the second is a personality disorder.
My pants fell down once when I stood up on the plane (I had undone my belt....) and I was so embarrassed. Luckily everyone looked the other way 🙂 . In my experience as a general practitioner, I know that when a medical error occurs, doctors often feel more shame than guilt: they make every effort to hide it from the outside world.
This way you can create a rating for each event. My point was just to point out that the East is not just shame and the West only guilt as is often thought.
Tino,
In Japan, a high-ranking person will be forced by the prevailing culture of shame to admit guilt for something he may not be guilty of at all. He's responsible, after all, and he's expected to tearfully apologize and crawl through the dust. (he/she just doesn't have to commit Seppuku)
In Thailand, such a person, due to the Thai shame culture, will feel compelled, even if he is guilty, to keep denying. Even if he knows that it is clear to every Thai that he is guilty.
In Thailand, the boy in the story of the Emperor's clothes, who shouts that the Emperor is naked, would immediately receive a heavy "Defamation" charge.
My opinion is that the Japanese shame culture differs enormously from that of the Thai.
I think our view is somewhat in between. We have to laugh a bit at the crying Japanese, but we are surprised again about the (in our eyes) shamelessness of the Thai.