To read Frédéric Gros’s A Philosophy of Shame is to be reminded of how vulnerable we are to the emotion’s inhibitions and agonies. We shame, we are ashamed, and we expend significant energy imagining shameful situations so we might avoid them.
Shame makes us vulnerable to humiliation and ruin, and provides a method by which we can humiliate and ruin others. The cycle is often self-perpetuating: shame begets shaming.
