Balancing Shame and Contrary Forces: A Little Case

A brief case suggests that at least sometimes group members will endure such psychic pain as they may experience from behavior that they agree is

somewhat shameful, if the behavior has social benefits and acceptable social costs.

A young Swahili man told me that although he enjoyed the company of his male companions, they often caused him concern because of their drinking, smoking marijuana, and talk of sexual activities. He said that a "true Muslim" must lead others away from sin and he, although he saw himself as a true Muslim, did nothing to influence his companions to behave in more acceptable ways.

I take this to suggest that he felt some shame at his failure to do what he thought he ought to do. His views about what he should have done to influence his friends are in accord with what the Swahili say is true Muslim doctrine, and, although he never said so to me, I am sure he knew that. Still, he did nothing to correct his friends and continued to see them despite his misgivings. He never mentioned to them his disapproval of their actions but only, he told me, remained silent when they spoke of their activities and when they drank and smoked in his presence. However, he steadfastly refused to drink or do other things contrary to Islam despite the urging of his friends.

Insofar as my informant's account can be taken at face value (and the possibility that he sees me as a sanctioner vaguely aligned with men who are arbiters cannot be dismissed out of hand), his behavior appears to be more directed to gaining the benefits of associating with people who amuse him than with avoiding the feelings of aibu deriving from that association. It is to be noted that his associations had little or no social cost. The arbiters neither knew nor were likely to find out that he associated with the particular youths who were his friends, since their gatherings are in "cold houses" (cafés where cold soda and snacks are sold) where arbiters rarely or never went, and anyway, most or all of these youths were from good families and had done nothing sufficiently public and notorious to gain bad reputations. My informants knew of their aibu, but arbiters and others from sanctioner groupings likely to disapprove did not. From a personal perspective, he could—and did—console himself with his refusal to participate actively in his friends' sinful ways.

The youths themselves are, of course, sanctioners, and there can be no doubt they would have disapproved of any action by my informant aimed at "correcting" their behavior. Whether or not my informant and other group members would consider a negative judgment of this sort as a source of aibu (and I suspect they would not call it that), it would seem likely to be the functional equivalent in being a stimulant of feelings of being disapproved and losing prestige among the judges. At the same time, my informants did gain the social benefit of having usually amusing companions. The informant's aibu was, perhaps, not very great by his own standards, although he did feel he was behaving wrongly by not attempting to stop his friends from sinning or, at least, by continuing to associate with them when they did not stop.

Such emotional pain as this may have caused him, however, seems to have been outweighed by the social and personal gains of continued association and, perhaps, his personally virtuous behavior.

I do not mean to suggest that all cases result in feelings of aibu being overpowered by other considerations. My informant believed it was aibuproducing to drink alcohol, and he never did it despite teasing from his friends. I only mean to suggest that the existence of the feelings associated with aibu do not necessarily prevent the behavior that is identified as causing that aibu. Social considerations seem very weighty in determining aibu's effect on behavior, and many of these considerations involve an understanding by the actor that different "significant others" have different views of what is right and proper. Epstein (1984:40) says of the views of both experimental psychologists and psychoanalysts,

common to these diverse approaches is the way shame is held to be intimately linked to threat to the image or negative evaluation of the self. [On the negative side are] . . . feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness, and the like . . . elicited by the exposure of some act or quality . . . one perceives as reflecting discredit on the self. . . . More positively, shame may also be seen as providing, at the level of the individual, a major thrust towards the development of a sense of identity, serving at the same time, at the cultural level, to protect and maintain basic social values.

I agree with Epstein. I would add, however, that shame is not a monolithic process in Swahili society but that it "protects and maintains" not only "basic social values" (those represented by the arbiters for the most part) but also the cultural distribution that is as basic to the existence of the society as are the fundamental values. The individual is motivated to behave in accord with widely held values because of the shame he would experience and the social costs he would incur if he ignored the judgments of the arbiters and such sanctioners as might support these values as they applied to him. The individual, however, is also motivated to act in accord with values different from, even opposed to, the fundamental ones because of the shame he would experience and the social costs he would incur if he did not.