HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF SHAME? TWO KINDS OF SHAME

This is a question—a slight rephrasing of Joseph Welch’s famous query to Senator Joseph McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”—that you may have found yourself asking repeatedly over the course of the Trump presidency. This question would be triggered, not so much when Trump put forward one of his frequent falsehoods; we all know politicians bend the truth, even if Trump does so more frequently than most. The question would rather come when, confronted with irrefutable evidence that he had lied, Trump would not mumble a shame-faced admission of error, but rather “double down” on the falsehood, insisting even more vigorously on its truth. Does Donald Trump, many of us wondered, simply have no sense of shame? And how could so many of his followers be shameless enough to accept his lies, even in cases where they must have known he was making things up?

As I have been researching the second volume of The Progressive Worldview, I have been doing a lot of reading in evolutionary psychology, and this has convinced me that the best way to make sense of Trump’s apparent shamelessness is by recognizing that our early ancestors actually evolved two different varieties of shame. As progressives, we tend to get perplexed and infuriated by Trump’s refusal to show one type of shame when he is caught lying. But this very same behavior delights his followers, because by defying conventional standards of truth and falsity he is helping them combat another type of shame. 

To sort out these two types of shame, let us start by considering the variety with which progressives are most familiar—the type we have in mind when we ask, “Has Donald Trump no sense of shame?” Our earliest human ancestors likely spent millions of years living in small family troops not unlike what we observe among chimpanzees today. But then, over the past few hundred thousand years, multiple family troops began coming together to form larger tribes, at which point they had to confront a social challenge: Given that all living organisms are essentially self-interested, typically reserving any altruism they do feel for close family members, how can you get a large group of unrelated individuals to live together peacefully and cooperatively, as opposed to falling into constant conflict over such scarce resources as food and potential mates?

One way our tribal ancestors did this was by establishing certain social norms or rules. The earliest of these rules probably arose even before language had developed, so our ancestors did not sit down and rationally discuss what social rules they should adopt. Rather, they evolved a set of instinctive responses to various situations, with our emotions playing a stronger role than our reason in enacting and enforcing the resulting social rules. With evolution proceeding very slowly, the most fundamental of these rules still shape the human psyche today, even though most people began leaving the tribal environment some eleven thousand years ago.

Cognitive psychologist Joshua Greene has studied one of these rules extensively, which we could paraphrase as, “Don’t harm a tribemate without good reason!” As he describes in his book Moral Tribes, Greene set out to study the traces of this rule in contemporary test subjects by asking how they would respond if placed in a situation where they could save five innocent lives, but only by physically pushing another innocent person in front of a speeding trolly, surely killing them. Many subjects answered that, even knowing their failure to act would indirectly cause five deaths, they could never bring themselves to actively push a fellow human being to such a violent death. Greene even stuck some test subjects in fMRI machines as they were confronted with this dilemma; in many cases, those neural regions associated with emotionality lit us with electrical activity as subjects mulled what to do, thus confirming the strong visceral aversion most of us feel to inflicting unprovoked violence on others.

How do we explain the development of this powerful emotional mechanism? Presumably, random genetic luck meant the members of some early tribes developed a visceral aversion to unprovoked violence against tribemates, whereas the members of other tribes developed a fondness for intratribal violence. Before long, the members of violence-loving tribes would have would have killed one another off, thus leaving tribes whose members have an aversion to intratribal violence to survive and reproduce, passing both their genes and their dislike of unprovoked violence down to their ancestors, and ultimately all the way down to modern test subjects.

In this same way, many other rules promoting peaceful coexistence and active cooperation within the tribe would have slowly evolved, such as, “Share the meat evenly after a hunt,” or “Do not encroach on another person’s mate.” Still, this did not completely solve the social problem tribes faced for a simple reason: even with these rules being pounded into our psyches, we are still living creatures, and this means we are self-interested, which gives us a natural incentive to violate our tribe’s rules, or to cheat. If I accept the generosity of my tribemates when they have a successful day hunting, for instance, yet I hide away the meat I obtain when I enjoy similarly success, I will end up with more meat than anyone else in the tribe. Recognizing this ever-present threat to tribal cohesion, one of the strategies our ancestors developed to discourage cheating was to inflict harsh punishments on those who did, up to and including physical violence or even death. The natural aversion to violence against tribemates, after all, concerns unprovoked violence, whereas an attempt to cheat a tribemate or the entire tribe is a strong provocation, capable of inciting a violent, angry response.

If a mutual readiness to punish one another therefore encouraged everyone in the tribe to observe its basic rules, likely even more effective was when individuals developed a willingness to punish themselves for violations of the tribal rules. Of course, this was not something people consciously decided to do. Rather, by genetic chance, some people began to develop what we might call a conscience, or a sense of shame: When you violate some basic tribal rule, it hurts! It makes you feel bad! It makes you feel guilty or ashamed. This emotion is certainly unpleasant for the person experiencing it, yet its value to the group is twofold. First, it may have a deterrent effect, steering individuals away from violating tribal rules in the first place. Second, when a violation does occur, it may lead the offending individual to come clean before their tribemates—especially when they are charged with wrongdoing—expressing how badly they feel for the infraction and pledging never to do it again. If the rest of the group accepts this apology, they may not feel the need to inflict a violent punishment on the offender, which itself always carries a risk of triggering further retaliatory violence. Hence, the dynamic of shame, heartfelt apology, and forgiveness allows the group to heal the rift the original transgression opened up, going back its peaceful, cooperative ways rather than descending into a cycle of conflict and violence.

Unfortunately, this still does not completely solve the social problem, for the dynamic of shame, apology, and forgiveness still carries its own potential for cheating within it. If caught in a transgression, that is, it is possible that I will feel some vague annoyance at getting caught, but little else, and thus I may offer up a formulaic apology to avoid being punished without ever intending to change my behavior. My tribemates, however, are smart enough to recognize this possibility, so they will want to know if I am really sorry or just putting on an act. Thus it is, evolutionary psychologists believe, that early human evolved the physiological reaction of blushing. As most of us have learned, when we truly feel shame, blood rushes to our face, discoloring it, thus announcing to our tribemates: we really do feel bad about what we have done, and we are not just trying to play them, so we are worthy of forgiveness!

Getting back to our original topic of lying, once oral language began to develop, “Don’t lie to a tribemate,” presumably took hold as an instinctive rule, not only because lying defeats the purpose for which language developed—communicating useful information amongst a group—but because the only conceivable reason you would have for lying to a tribemate would be to cheat them: “I didn’t catch anything on the hunt today. (Burp.) Can I have some of you meat?” If this tribemate then points to the blood dribbling down your chin, clearly demonstrating you have lied about your hunting success, you suddenly find yourself in a very bad spot. At best, you may be denied future gifts of meat, not just from this individual but from the rest of this tribe, since this person is likely to gossip to the rest of the group about how untrustworthy you are. At worst, you may be beaten, ostracized from the tribe, or even killed. Accordingly, those one-time liars who are most likely to survive and pass down their instinctive reactions will be those who feel a genuine sense of shame at being caught in a lie, thus leading them to apologize and blush profusely, alerting their tribemates as to how badly they feel.

This, in any case, is the type of shame Donald Trump never publicly expresses, and to all appearances may never have felt. This phenomenon is bizarre and annoying for progressives, but not necessarily incomprehensible. In rare cases, an individual can be born without certain psychological traits, just as a person may be born missing a finger. Many outside psychological observers have suggested, moreover, that Trump suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, so his lack of shame may well be connected with this. Still, this does not explain why so many of his followers would not only look the other way when he tells an obvious falsehood, but cheer him on as he doubles down on the lie, rather than treating him as our ancestors would have treated a liar—by giving him a good thrashing. I think best explanation for this is that both Trump and his supporters are being guided by a sense of shame, yet a different type of shame having a different evolutionary origin.

This second variety of shame is illustrated nicely by study cognitive psychologists Dov Cohen and Richard Nisbett performed in 1996. In this study, Cohen and Nisbett set out to test whether University of Michigan students who had grown up in the American south would respond differently to a perceived insult than their counterparts who had grown up in the north. All the subjects were White males. To get to the assigned test location, subjects had to walk down narrow hallway, passing a confederate of the testers who pretended to be working at a filing cabinet. As the subject passed, the confederate gave the subject a rude bump and called him an “asshole.” Two other confederates of the testers were stationed in the hallway, apparently doing homework, to observe the subject’s response to the interaction. Upon reaching the assigned test room, the subject was presented with a variety of verbal scenarios designed to tease out how aggressive he was feeling at the time. His testosterone levels were also checked both before and after the insult to determine if there had been a change. The results Cohen and Nisbett found were unambiguous. Northern students were unlikely to be phased by the perceived insult, viewing it with amusement, if anything. Southern students were far more likely to feel aggression, as judged by their initial response to the insult, their reaction to the later verbal scenarios, and their elevated testosterone levels.

Why this geographic disparity? As the study notes, the American south is a prime example of an “honor culture,” with many of its original European settlers coming from such sparsely populated as the Scottish highlands, whereas northern colonists tended to come from more densely packed parts of England or northern Europe. As a general rule, when you live in a sparsely populated area, you cannot rely on the state authorities to protect you; they are rarely there when you need them. Thus being required to take your defense into your own hands, this is likely to trigger a psychological mechanism that may be even older than the sense of shame our ancestors developed in a tribal setting.

When our very earliest ancestors first broke off from the larger line of great apes, again, they likely lived in troops of extended family that organized themselves along the lines of what we observe among contemporary chimpanzees. Within a troop, male chimpanzees in particular will vigorously compete for status, with a series of confrontations establishing a hierarchy that features an alpha male on top, a beta male beneath him, so on down the line. The rank you manage to secure determines the access you will enjoy to various resources, possibly including food, but certainly including mating opportunities. Even among chimpanzees, moreover, rank has a ceremonial aspect, determining whether you are expected to show ritual deference to a male above you in the hierarchy or you can claim such deference from a subordinate. Accordingly, should a subordinate fail to treat you with the expected deference or even insult you move overtly, such as by moving in on your favorite mate, this is a challenge that demands a swift and decisive response, since if you allow the insult to pass, both the challenger and the rest of the troop will interpret this as a concession that you can no longer defend your rank. If you allow yourself to be shamed, in other words, you will essentially forfeit your established social status, and this will lead to a loss of access to important resources, including the possibility of passing down your genes through mating. Under such circumstances, a response driven by toxic masculinity makes good evolutionary sense.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he is a born alpha male. Any room he walks into, he instantly commands, drawing on whatever combination of charisma, narcissism, money, or sheer confidence he can muster to cow any would-be challengers into submitting. (The one exception would appear to be when Trump walks into a room with Vladimir Putin; how can you compete with a judo champion who rides horses with no shirt on?) Given Trump’s social status and the many privileges this confers—to include limitless mating opportunities, according to his own boasts—he is quick to respond aggressively when challenged in any way. Naturally enough, this will include when a lowly reporter tries to point out that he has said something false. Were Trump to respond by getting red in the face and admitting that, yes, he had lied, he would essentially conceding this reporter had beat him. Far better, then, to double down on the lie, demonstrating how much power he wields by the very fact that he does not have to tell the truth. Countless people will still believe every word he says, even when his words are not backed up by facts, thereby confirming just how socially dominant he is.

Fair enough, but why would so many of Trump’s supporters be willing to accept his lies, when many of them are clearly designed to benefit him personally more than his supporters? The study by Cohen and Nisbett may give us a clue. Many of Trump’s supporters are based in the south, which we have already seen to be an honor culture for historical reasons. His other geographic base is rural areas across the country, which again tend to support an honor culture because they are so sparsely populated. Trump’s base, moreover, is overwhelmingly White, while skewing sharply male, with the group that famously put him over the edge in the 2016 election being working class White men. This is a group that, in the 1950s, enjoyed a relatively high rank in the American social hierarchy. Granted, these blue collar workers did not stand at the top of the economic ladder. Still, with the postwar boom in manufacturing, they had climbed comfortably into the middle class, while even working class White men enjoyed an unquestioned social dominance over Blacks, women, and any of the country’s other marginalized communities, simply in virtue of their demographic identity. In the years since this time, however, progressive politicians and social activists have challenged this longstanding White male dominance, attempting to spread rights and opportunities around more equally and thereby depriving White men of their collective alpha status. Indeed, many working class White men have expressed that they feel liberal America—whether based on university campuses, in Hollywood, or in Washington DC—looks down own them, mocking them for working with their hands rather than getting advanced degrees.

Feeling the sting of these insults, many people across the south and the heartland reported in 2015 and 2016 that they were thrilled finally to have discovered politician brave and brash enough to “tell it like it is.” For those of us who are progressives, and especially progressives who live in such densely populated areas as the northeast, the West coast, or any of the country’s larger cities, “telling it like it is” would seem to mean reciting objective, verifiable facts in the interest of furthering our collective project of living and working together cooperatively—a project gravely threatened when people start telling lies. For the people who began attending Trump rallies, however, most of them inhabiting more of an honor culture, Trump’s “telling it like it is” meant that he had the courage to come out and saying what they had long been feeling, which is that the country had horribly gone wrong in depriving White men of their traditional dominant status. This was a challenge to which White men needed to respond by any means possible, to include cheering along when Trump preached their truth, no matter how far removed certain of his statements may have been from objective fact.

And thus, to come back to our original question, I would suggest that both Donald Trump and his supporters have well-developed a sense of shame, and indeed, an intense fear of shame. It is just not the same shame that we progressives are accustomed to worrying about.