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“Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

harpers.org

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Re: “Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

#11

Post by warent »

motohagiography wrote: post #9

Does a humiliated person bear any responsibility for their feeling? I ask because while I sympathize with her examples, I can also think of many unsympathetic examples of humiliations, and the person's response to it, and I'd wonder whether humiliations are the result of power shifts. Many people I know are sympathetic to violent responses to humiliation, and even in the article, the interviews with convicted muderer…

Communication is a two-way road. We need to be tactful and mindful of how we're communicating and empathizing with people. Simultaneously we need to work on ourselves so that we don't spontaneously react when we're triggered. When conflict arises, often times more than one person is at fault.

Re: “Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

#13

Post by ajkjk »

I guess this is kinda judgmental on my part, but I feel like a lot of the personal anecdotes you hear about from.. older Americans.. seem totally anachronistic and bizarre. Like:

> On the other hand, I have a cousin, a doctor, who feels humiliated if he’s shortchanged in a grocery store. His wife, too: if another woman is wearing the same dress at a party, she feels humiliated.

Like -- who are these people? They just _suck_. They need to get over themselves. I'm sure there are new people like this still coming of age, but probably not at the rate they used to... These sound like very 'boomer' problems, and I think a larger part of millennial culture is collectively rolling our eyes at this brand of arrogance. All over the country younger people grew up with parents and grandparents who were more concerned about pettily defending their pride than being good parents or doing good in the world, and understandably their children grow up with nothing but contempt for it.

Re: “Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

#14

Post by leroy_masochist »

e40 wrote: post #3

Anyone else disappointed not to hear more about the Sheila interaction?

One consequence of this essay being published in a high-profile literary magazine such as Harper's, whether intentional or not, will be Sheila's sense of humiliation upon reading it.

I bet it's intentional.

Re: “Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

#15

Post by hairofadog »

ajkjk wrote: post #13

I guess this is kinda judgmental on my part, but I feel like a lot of the personal anecdotes you hear about from.. older Americans.. seem totally anachronistic and bizarre. Like: > On the other hand, I have a cousin, a doctor, who feels humiliated if he’s shortchanged in a grocery store. His wife, too: if another woman is wearing the same dress at a party, she feels humiliated. Like -- who are these people? They just…

Everyone grew up conditioned by a different context, and every generation has their idiosyncrasies. I'm sure millennials and gen-z folks have things that are humiliating to them which older folks would roll their eyes at (say, something that happens on Twitter or in a video game). I'm not meaning to criticize you; just saying it's good to remember that each person has their own story shaped by the environments they spent time in.

Re: “Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

#16

Post by bsanr »

>The problem is that the consciousness bestowed on us is just barely sufficient; if we are to achieve inner freedom, it is necessary that we become more (much more) conscious than we generally are. If men and women learn to occupy their own inspirited beings fully and freely, Fromm posited, they will gain self-knowledge and thus no longer be alone: they will have themselves for company. Once one has company one can feel benign toward oneself as well as others. Then, like a virus that had been stamped out, humiliating loneliness would surely begin to wane.

Oh, hey. Furries.

Re: “Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

#17

Post by legohead »

e40 wrote: post #3

Anyone else disappointed not to hear more about the Sheila interaction?

I asked myself how a 63 year old would recognize a childhood friend on the street. My assumption is Sheila found her on purpose, because she had lived her whole life with this burden of regret, and wanted to apologize. I have a similar burden, and occasionally try to look up an old friend, but his name is too common.

Re: “Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

#18

Post by elefanten »

ajkjk wrote: post #13

I guess this is kinda judgmental on my part, but I feel like a lot of the personal anecdotes you hear about from.. older Americans.. seem totally anachronistic and bizarre. Like: > On the other hand, I have a cousin, a doctor, who feels humiliated if he’s shortchanged in a grocery store. His wife, too: if another woman is wearing the same dress at a party, she feels humiliated. Like -- who are these people? They just…

I'm a millenial and as I read this, I got a strong visceral feeling like the one you're describing but about you. Not you personally, but the narrative you just posted.

Do you really feel confident that millenials don't have any culturally systematic pettiness and arrogance? The social media generation, the neurotic depressed generation, the generation that has originated no novel politics... they are categorically more serious and more humble than the previous couple generations?

The minute details you point to seem essentially irrelevant, exactly the kind of thing that varies generation to generation as culture changes -- anachronistic, as you say.

Re: “Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

#19

Post by sorokod »

motohagiography wrote: post #9

Does a humiliated person bear any responsibility for their feeling? I ask because while I sympathize with her examples, I can also think of many unsympathetic examples of humiliations, and the person's response to it, and I'd wonder whether humiliations are the result of power shifts. Many people I know are sympathetic to violent responses to humiliation, and even in the article, the interviews with convicted muderer…

I'd say about half of the responsibility.

Humiliation us about the percived damage inflicted on the self constructed self image. One is responsible for one's perceptions and constructs.

Re: “Put on the Diamonds”: Notes on Humiliation

#20

Post by allturtles »

e40 wrote: post #3

Anyone else disappointed not to hear more about the Sheila interaction?

I think she should have left it out. As anecdotes about humiliation go, it's not much. There's no mention that Sheila publicly shamed her (as the author, by the way, has now publicly shamed Sheila), she just didn't want to be friends anymore. And she's still holding a grudge against her erstwhile friend from when she was 13? People grow apart, especially around major life transitions like adolescence.
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