Shamelessness: a retrospective analysis

Abstract

This article deals with the possibility of shame-free states of persons, communities and cultures. Author examines “primordial” shamelessness -the state beyond any conception of shame, and the “secondary” shamelessness, that is practiced against the background of the ability to feel the shame. The investigations of S. Freud, L. Wurmser, H. Seidler, M. Hilgers, O. Rank, S. Tomkins, N. Elias and H. P. Duerr are described. The author demostrates that there are no states free of shame and never have been, except for pathologies. The shame of nudity was well known Both in the Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, as well as under non-European and archaic cultures. The thesis of universality of the phenomena of shame that is connected to typical for the human eccentric way of being, is confirmed. Shamelessness is a secondary phenomenon that is directly relevant to shame and it appears to be a defense mechanism from the strong manifestation of the latter. The things that can be described as “shameless behavior” are always nothing but feeling of shame and its conventional social bounds that are socially and culturally dependant.