I was wondering the other day, “Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned shame?” Not the kind that makes a person feel worthless or defective, but the sort of shame that regulates one’s behavior.
One source says that “to ‘have shame’ means to maintain a sense of restraint against offending others, while to ‘have no shame’ is to behave without such restraint.”
We live in an age, a society, and among a generation of people, who seem to be losing all sense of shame. We see it in their choices of clothing, music lyrics, media antics, and in the messages sent through the cyber world.
Not only that, intemperance its emerging in how we settle disputes on the school yards, how we address authority figures or strangers, and in who ends up caring for children.
Anything and everything just doesn’t and shouldn’t go. There is a standard out there that humans should try to meet. It means that if certain rules are grossly violated, you should feel, well … ashamed of yourself for it.