Saving Face: America and the Politics of Shame (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a highly accessible, often provocative study, psychoanalyst Schneiderman compares Japan and the United States as examples of a "shame culture" and a "guilt culture," respectively. A shame culture emphasizes group cohesion; good behavior is encouraged through the individual's fear of censure. A guilt culture, by contrast, stresses individual self-expression; it attempts to control behavior by passing laws and punishing transgressions. Arguing that American society has combined elements of both cultures, Schneiderman applies the shame-versus-guilt dichotomy to an analysis of a range of issues: the sexual and cultural revolution of the 1960s and '70s, yuppie greed in the 1980s, race relations, child abuse, societal attitudes toward homosexuality, family breakdown, U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the Gulf war and the trauma of Holocaust survivors. His study is full of uncommon good sense and shrewd insights.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this work, author and psychoanalyst Schneiderman attempts to provide an answer to our current state of national moral decay using the combined techniques of cross-cultural and historical analysis. The beginning point of his work is Ruth Benedict's classic distinction (found in her 1946 study of Japanese culture, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword) between guilt and shame cultures. While accepting the basic validity of the distinction, the author disputes Benedict's assignment of the one to the West and the other to the East and finds elements of both types of culture in the American historical experience. Building on this idea, he then goes on to use the concept of shame as a basis for a reinvigoration of American political and moral values. Although there is much to be said for the author's argument and his documentation to support it is truly impressive, this is not a book for the casual reader. Intended primarily for a fairly sophisticated readership, this title is appropriate chiefly for larger public libraries.?Scott Wright, Univ. of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (January 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679409696
• ISBN-13: 978-0679409694
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,128,406 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely and Provocative, October 14, 1996

By A Customer

Saving Face is a look at American culture and identity through its early roots in shame (when you do not do something you are supposed to do) as opposed to the post-Vietnam guilt culture (when you do something that you are not supposed to do) that we have become. Schneiderman spends most of the book basing America's modern problems on the results of the War in Vietnam; not a rehash of an old subject, but a fresh insight into the modern American psyche. He hypothesizes that the country's loss of face in Vietnam was a clear result of a lack of leadership willing to face the shame and debacle of Vietnam. The vacuum of leadership willing to take responsibility for the results left the nation as scattered individuals, looking for a way to bury the past and restore self pride. Surprisingly, Schneiderman doesn't play politics and lays equal blame both on political leaders for failing to guide the country and on Americans for making poor choices in leadership. Only through self-evaluation and the bearing of shame and personal responsibility can the country as a whole preserve a national culture and move forward. This book is comparable to Philip Howard's Death of Common Sense in that both authors look for a return to personal responsibility, a culture built on respect for others, and decisionmakers who take responsibility for their decisions . Scheiderman prods the reader to "end our romance with telegenic candidates who lack the qualifications for office. We should seek leaders of unimpeachable character who command respect, not quasi-celebrities who lack a sense of shame.....Identifying the qualities we seek in those who would guide us places us in a far better position to know which qualities we should use to guide ourselves." Well put as we choose between leaders to guide the nation to the next millenium

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Collective Responsibility of Shame, April 9, 2004

By	Patricia B. Ross (Wellesley, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Every culture should have to face its own shame. Unfortunately, shame is a variable concept according to the times, and the ability of the culture to properly identify what is shameful, who can be shameful, and the events that constitute a shameful event. Prior to the 1960's and 1970's nearly everything was "shameful," in that women without gloves, and men without hats were considered shameful. Characterized much as the course of civil rights and the recognition of individual rights for humans, shame has always been a public evaluation, and measured by group politics so that propriety became the urge to resist, if not to rebel against. In a shameful culture, inhumane things were possible - lynchings, torture, animal sacrifices, etc. - even while upon the surface, propriety was worn like a badge of honor. The hypocrisy revealed in years hence, is that shame did not exist where it was private or unrevealed, adding to a culture where transparency became the idol rather than to embrace the boundaries of what constituted shame. Fortunately, America has moved beyond the narrowminded principles that so bound one to another that behavior and conduct, as well as dress, has been allowed a degree of freedom that embraces the ideas of difference so people need not examine each and every action, including speech, that brands them improper. While there are a few, generally job related, environments where rigid and shame-oriented cultures prevail, the concept of freedom has taken on greater significance recently as a privilege, if not a right, provided no laws are broken. This healthier environment that honors the individual works for all persons previously discriminated against, and offers breathing room for those who were not quite attuned to the proprieties of life who were interested in watching their every movement to be evaluated by the group or community. Neither healthy relationships nor flexibility in thinking were aided by former designs of acceptance, and many were condemned by society for that reason, many of whom were simply responding to their own unique social environment, or ethnic environment. While guilt still survives as an effort to restrain, it is fortunately much less likely to be the "blackball" it was years earlier, allowing everyone to breathe much easier. Coming through that period of gender bias, racial bias, ethnic bias, and even religious bias is not totally behind us, but great progress has been made to minimize the importance of those effects. We now are making inroads and efforts at behavior or conduct bias by everyone to overcome the tendency to typecast persons by superfluous events that are not considered within the mainstream but still cognizant of safety, and dignity in the things we do as humans, to each other, and the things we do to animals, or the environment, offering the new design of social freedom with responsibility but without social restraint, definite progress in the eyes of most people.