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        %DISINTEGRATIVE PUNISHMENT GUILT EVIL SHAME 880603

     The use of guilt and shame as punishment for  failure
to  conform leads to personal and communal disintegration.
This  is true whether the form of conformity is  generally
respected  or  not;  i.e.,  whether or not  those  who  do
conform are respected people.   The use of guilt and shame
to  alienate  those  who conform from  those  who  do  not
conform is evil because the essence of evil is alienation.

     The  use of guilt and shame as punishment is  not  an
effective  way  of promoting either personal  or  communal
integrity,   because they are forms of rejection in  which
the   essence  of  the  action  is  disintegration;    the
separation of rejection.   Disintegration does not lead to
coherent respectable behavior; even though it may motivate
deceptive  behavior  which is respected.   It is  evil  to
motivate  people  to  merely  appear  worthy  of  respect,
because  dishonesty  is fundamentally  alienative  in  its
consequences.  The essence of evil is alienation.

     The  essentially  evil act is the  rejection  of  the
person   who   is   regarded  as evil,    by   those   who
regard themselves  as  good enough to know who  is   evil.
Evil  resides in relationships among people,   not in  the
people  themselves.      It  is  not people who are  evil,
but  the disintegrative relationships  among people, which
are evil.

     The ideals, values, principles, attitudes, etc. which
lead people,  often lead them into relationships which are
disintegrative;    leading  them  as  persons  and   their
communities to disintegrate.  Personal relationships which
are   characterized  by  increasing  alienation  are  evil
relationships.    Guilt and shame are not effective  cures
for  such disintegrative relationships,  for  they  merely
expand the scope of rejection and alienation.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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