The bond of shame

  • A long time ago I suddenly realized that the country one belongs to is not, as the usual rhetoric goes, the one you love but the one you are ashamed of. Shame can be a stronger bond than love. I repeatedly tested my discovery with friends from different countries: they all reacted the same way - with surprise immediately followed by full agreement, as if my suggestion was a self-evident truth. I am not claiming that the burden of shame is always the same; in fact, it varies immensely among countries. But the bond of shame - shame as a bond - invariably works, for a larger or smaller number of individuals. Aristotle listed "shame" ('aidos') among the passions, pointing out that "it is not a virtue" ('Nicomachaean Ethics' 1108 a 30-31). This definition still makes sense. Shame is definitely not a matter of choice: it falls upon us, invading us - our bodies, our feelings, our thoughts - as a sudden illness. It is a passion placed at the intersection between biology and history: the domain which Sigrid Weigel made so distinctively her own.

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Metadaten
Author:Carlo Ginzburg
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-443333
ISBN:978-3-7705-5006-7
Parent Title (German):Passionen : Objekte – Schauplätze – Denkstile / Corina Caduff ; Anne-Kathrin Reulecke ; Ulrike Vedder (Hrsg.)
Publisher:Wilhelm Fink
Place of publication:München
Editor:Corina Caduff, Anne-Kathrin Reulecke, Ulrike Vedder
Document Type:Part of a Book
Language:German
Date of Publication (online):2017/06/23
Year of first Publication:2010
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2017/06/23
GND Keyword:Scham; Kultur; Gefühl; Partizipation; Kulturelle Identität
Page Number:12
First Page:19
Last Page:26
HeBIS-PPN:405169337
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 30 Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie / 300 Sozialwissenschaften
8 Literatur / 80 Literatur, Rhetorik, Literaturwissenschaft / 800 Literatur und Rhetorik
Sammlungen:CompaRe | Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft
CompaRe | Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft / Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht