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- The dictionary gives a characteristically prosaic definition of shame: “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety.” We can do better; we can extract a more scientific definition of shame from René Girard’s mimetic theory. This theory states that we all imitate the desires of our models, people whom we take to possess a state of being higher than our own. We all harbour a private conviction that we lack a fullness of being, and the only remedy we can come up with is to look at someone else and convince ourselves that they are living that fullness. The twist is that our desperation in trying to capture transcendence is surpassed only by our refusal to admit that we lack it. We are too proud. We would expose ourselves to the ridicule of others, who all act as though they don’t lack it.
Shame, in this scheme of things, can be defined thus: it is the emotion we experience when the personal lack of transcendence that we hide in ourselves is uncovered.