ABSTRACT
What a pain embarrassment is. I had an aunt by marriage whose maiden name was Barrass. Would you believe it - her parents christened her Mamie. So all through school she was M. Barrass.
With embarrassment goes blushing. Why do we blush? Blushing and embarrassment occur in social situations. This is discussed most cogently by Charles Darwin in his great book Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). Darwin thinks blushing is a public socialwarning signal that the person blushing has committed a crime, or has violated the rules or mores of the group in some way, and at least for the moment is not to be trusted. For Darwin, 'Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions'. It is involuntary, and attempts to control it if anything increase blushing by concentrating attention to it, as the blush is itself embarrassing. Darwin points out that young children do not blush for shame: that blushing does not start before the child has understanding of rules of behaviour and their social significance:
The mental powers of infants are not yet sufficiently developed to allow of their blushing. Hence, also, it is that idiots rarely blush.
