Civil Rights - General, Civil Rights - Privacy, Social Sciences - General & Miscellaneous, Emotions - Psychology
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Overview
Shame, maintains Carl Schneider, is not just a sign of our timidity and bondage, something to be overcome, but a distinguishing mark of our humanity as "the creature that blushes." "Attention to the claims of shame leads to a heightened awareness that human beings are valuing animals and vulnerable creatures," argues Carl Schneider. In our vulnerability to violation, the sense of shame is an important resource in our journey toward maturity. Taking issue with the contemporary erosion of the private and embrace of the explicit, Schneider draws on such thinkers as Nietzsche, Freud, and Sartre to give a lucid defense of the human personality's need for a realm of the private and the indispensability of shame in protecting the self, that "half-open being." Integrating ideas from anthropology, history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and theology, he explores the role of shame in such human experiences as sex, eating, bodily elimination, death, and religion. Schneider also revisits Freud's treatment of Dora and reflects on the shameless tendencies in psychoanalysis. This is a book that readers will find personally relevant and intellectually stimulating. As Donald L. Nathanson writes in his foreword to this edition, "Shame, Exposure, and Privacy offers balance sorely needed in this noisy era of explosiveness and extremism.... Beautifully written, elegantly researched, and eminently useful, Schneider's work allows us to see the benefits of shame as clearly as that of other authors has shown us the pain it can bring."Book Details
Published
December 30, 1992
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Co.
Pages
200
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780393034554