ABSTRACT
An important idea about the relationship between the inner world and social life is the idea that the self poses a threat to social cohesion. The defeat of the self is viewed on an individual basis as a result of parental failure to assist in establishing “the child’s cohesive, grandiose, exhibitionist self”. The inability of the child to withstand defeat experience is assured by the asymmetrical nature of his or her relationship with the parent. The transmission of the experience of shame within and across generations constitutes a system of social interaction of a particular kind, one that makes shame, together with the hatred and violence associated with it, an objective reality rather than simply an interpersonal transaction. Modern social movements have been devoted to overthrowing pre-modern systems for the allocation of shame and establishing that no one can be assumed to have been born with a defective self.
