ABSTRACT
I have provided the sketch of a narrative about how we ought to react emotionally to our situation in a world of suffering, atrocity and genocide, how cinema and literature may facilitate and complicate that emotional reaction, and finally how we ought to respond morally to that emotion. The name I have given to this emotional reaction is “shame,” and when I first introduced it, I made some brief remarks about what shame is. But “shame” is a very complex and contested word, for several reasons, and in view of such complexity what I am recommending, as I have pointed out, may seem at least unclear and perhaps simply wrong. If shame is a spontaneous emotional response, how can we be persuaded to have it? If its selfcriticism is global and imprecise, how can it be directed at a specific failure? If it is a self-conscious emotion, how can one have it in behalf of all humankind? And if it derives from standards or ideals that others apply to us, of what moral relevance is it to our own self-understanding and our own self-respect? In order to address questions such as these, we need to consider further the complex character of shame.1
