Shame's out; only celebrity matters

The Boston Herald

January 14, 2000

Beverly Beckham

What has happened to shame?

Isn't anyone ashamed anymore? I know embarrassed is still around (see our president). And humiliated (see Peter Blute). And sorry because people (even Jane Swift, finally) are generally sorry when they get caught doing not quite the right thing. (There is, of course, no really wrong thing these days.)

As for shame, it's a word so out of use that it will soon have "archaic" next to it in the dictionary. I can imagine a child a few years from now picking up an old book and reading, "He hung his head with shame" and thinking shame must have been some kind of heavy trinket people used to wear in the old days.

"While shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart." Edmund Burke wrote this 250 years ago. Of course he did. Who today would spend even 2 seconds worrying about shame or virtue?

Celebrity is what it's all about now. And the rule is the worse your character, the more outrageous your behavior, the more notorious your acts and the more obnoxious your reaction to any kind of criticism, the more celebrated you'll be - and the more money you'll make.

I think about poor Tom Eagleton, the senator from Missouri who was George McGovern's running mate for 18 days back in 1972. He was practically run off the ballot when the press reported that he had suffered depression and had electric shock treatments. He quit the race rather than hurt his party. Imagine that? Eagleton felt shame where none was necessary, then actually put the Democratic Party and the good of the nation above his personal agenda.

Now we have a president who has neither shame nor integrity. So how did we get from there to here? Where did our collective tolerance for the intolerable come from?

Sociologists love to blame the 1960s - the decade that has become the scapegoat for everything. But the '60s were the antithesis of today. Today is myopia, a mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-who's-the-fairest-of-them-all nonstop game played in a fun house, the images emerging twisted and distorted and upside down. Everything that used to count - honesty, loyalty, friendship, knowing the difference between right and wrong - doesn't count. And everything that does count - money, looks, stocks, power and possessions - is what the youth of the '60s disdained. Now these things are back, center stage, bigger and more important than ever, excess everywhere you look and all moral conscience gone.

How else to explain Linda Tripp and her plastic surgery, donated by people who obviously know the importance of image, to help this woman play better to a jury in her upcoming trial. Let's give her a new face and body. Let's make her easier on the eye. Never mind giving her a conscience. Never mind making her feel a little bit of shame for what she did to Monica Lewinsky, who God knows doesn't deserve pity, but she didn't deserve Linda Tripp's betrayal, either. Tripp pretended to be her friend. And that's shameful.

As for Lewinsky? This young woman was party to a scandal that brought shame to every American yet she continues to have no shame. A trimmed-down Monica, smiling vacuously for the camera, is now the spokesperson for Jenny Craig. Surely there had to have been more qualified, albeit less celebrated candidates for the job. Some Jenny Craig franchises are refusing to use the new ads, which feature her, and are sticking with last year's promotions. They apparently feel some of the shame that eludes Lewinsky.

David Crosby, Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher used their children for their personal gain, taking something private and sacred and turning it into a publicity stunt. They're all on the cover of Rolling Stone. Maybe it'll sell more CDs. Celebrity rules. Shame doesn't exist.

Woody Allen is proof of this.

"While shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart."

Shame has been retired, sent packing, and as for virtue? There is precious little left.