Opinion Sur
After psychoanalysis and structuralism we cannot continue restricting ourselves to the conscious and the dictates of reason in the analysis of human, personal, and collective phenomena. There is a sub-conscious, pre-conscious universe, and unconscious (personal and collective), underlying our practices, which must be taken into account.
I want to stick to only two aspects that influence our behaviors: they are the legacies of the two major ancient cultures that underlie our collective unconscious and help us understand current events, such as the mind-boggling corruption through the Brazilian social body: Greek and Judeo-Christian cultures.
From Greek culture we inherited the feeling of shame. The correlated concept is hero. For the Greeks, to be ashamed were to become frustrated in what was undertaken, both in war and in social life. Losing a battle was a collective shame for a whole people. Losing a competition at the Olympics caused embarrassment. Winning and succeeding met the requirements of a hero.
This category is present today in our society. A hero is the player who scored the winning goal of the team of your choice. Collective shame is Brazil losing 7-1 in the World Cup against Germany. Achieving a company high growth and profitability indexes makes the entrepreneur a hero. Losing an election produces shame. Shame has to do with the image that we project socially. It must cause admiration and respect, otherwise it makes people embarrassed.
The other aspect is that of the Judeo – Christian tradition. The central category is guilt. Usually we blame others. If we fail in business, it is because of the economic crisis. If the marriage breaks, it is because of the other’s fault. If there is an ecological disgrace, it is the responsibility of the people who settled in risky areas. Sometimes we blame ourselves, for a traffic accident or errors produced by a ruinous administration.
Guilt reaches interiority and affects consciousness. The repercussion is not so much before the others who may not even know what we did wrong, but before the tribunal of consciousness. The latter brings us immediately before God, for between God and consciousness there is no mediation. We are directly and immediately before him.
Guilt causes us remorse and feelings of guilt, which can result in punishment.
The opposite of guilt is the feeling of being fair and righteous, two defining concepts of a “fair” person (holy) in the biblical sense.
Feeling shame and being aware of guilt are the bases of ethical consciousness. Not being embarrassed in front of others and not feeling guilty before conscience and God are signs of a righteous life and proper ethical attitude.
What is our problem regarding the scandalous passive and active corruption in Brazil? It is the complete lack of shame and absence of guilt of the corrupted and the corruptor for their actions.
Even when caught in the act of corruption, we always hear the same ritornello: “I’m not guilty of anything”, “it is unfair”, “I am completely innocent.” And they are clearly and demonstrably corrupt people. They have lost the whole notion of guilt and give no importance to public shame for their actions. They remain calm and attending the best restaurants.
Sometimes the ethical indignation is heard with cries of “corrupt, thief.” But the corrupt do not get upset and they continue with their enjoyment.
Already Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics established shame and face blush as an indication of the presence of an ethical conscience. Without such shame the person was really “unashamedly,” a person with bad temper, with no sense of values.
Such lack of shame and feeling of guilt among us in Brazil has become like second nature, i.e., turned into common practice. Therefore, most of the social fabric is contaminated by the virus of corruption, the corrupters and the corrupt.
But nowadays they have reached such scandalous levels that they can no longer be tolerated by society and citizens who are still waiting for an ethical conscience, what is right and proper, just and good.
Corruption as a personal and social practice, without being moralistic or utopian, must be prohibited and reduced to levels compatible with the decayed and corruptible human condition. We must rescue the feelings of shame and guilt, without which our efforts will be futile.
