‘You’re better than this’ vs. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself’

‘You’re better than this’ vs. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself’ August 24, 2016

So you’re sitting there across from the kid who’s just done something dumb. Feel free to imagine your own specific example of what that dumb thing was — something careless and thoughtless, irresponsible and maybe crueler than the kid realized. If you’re like most of us, you can come up with an example to fit the bill there from something you yourself did when you were a kid, and because you were a kid. And if you can, then it’s probably good to remember that here.

But in this scenario, you’re not the kid. You’re the person sitting across from them, needing to talk to them about what they just did so that they understand why it was a Bad Thing and something that it would be better for them, and for everyone else, if they didn’t do again. Again, feel free to fill in the blanks — you might be a friend, or a parent, or a sibling, a teacher, guidance counselor, youth minister, deputy sheriff, lifeguard, janitor, or Tim Kaine (he just seems like somebody I’d want sitting there if I were this kid).

Your role here is scriptural — not in the sense that it’s according to the scriptures, but in the sense that you’re needing to say something that will be “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” You’re concerned, in other words, not just with what this kid did, but with what this kid is becoming — with the different kinds of person this kid could potentially become.

That’s why we’re going with a kid here in this scenario. It’s easier for us to think of younger people as still in that process of becoming — as not yet hardened into the character-forming habits and choices that can seem less likely to change when folks get a little older and more set in their ways. It’s harder for us to remember that even much older people are still in the middle of that process — still choosing and becoming, and still capable of changing, growing, improving. (It’s harder for them to remember that too, but in a sense we’re all still just kids.)

And but so, there you are, sitting across from this kid. And depending on the kid, and on the particular circumstances of what they did, the damage done, the harm incurred or narrowly avoided by sheer luck, you can take a couple of different approaches here. In Christian terms, we sometimes describe these broadly as either pastoral or prophetic. The pastoral approach is more nurturing, aspirational and inspirational. The prophetic approach tends to be a bit harsher — focused more on the reality of consequences, forcing someone to confront the fact of the consequences of their misdeeds for others as well as reminding them of the inevitable consequences they will reap themselves. (We sometimes mistakenly think of the prophets as threatening punishment, but their warnings never involve the idea that punishment will be introduced, only that such consequences will be the inevitable result of the choices being made. What the prophets are saying, in other words, is that if you don’t change where you’re headed, that’s where you’ll end up.)

YouTheMan
“You’re the man!” the prophet Nathan said to King David. But not in, like, the good way.

So you might look across at this kid and say something like, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” Or you might look at them and say, “You’re better than this.” And even though those two things seem, at first glance, to be contradictory assertions, they’re really saying the same thing. They’re two sides of the same coin. Both statements are based on an assessment of the facts at hand. One is focused on the implications of the kid’s recent poor choices and actions, which are, in fact, shameful and ought to therefore be a source of legitimate regret and remorse. The other is focused on the kid’s continuing capacity to choose — on their capacity to choose better. That’s the outcome that both statements hope to encourage and to produce — different, better choices.

The language of shame is prone to abuse. It can seem like a heavy burden hard to bear laid on the shoulders of others that we are unwilling to lift a finger to move. Or like there’s no way to say “You should be ashamed of yourself” without turning into that terrifying bell-ringing nun from Game of Thrones. But note that this statement in this situation is true — demonstrably true and descriptively accurate in a way that “You’re better than this” doesn’t appear to be. It is not a judgment, but a measurement. It fits and is fitting, and — depending on whether or not the kid sees this, or needs to be made to see this — it may be the truth that needs to be spoken as you’re sitting there across from them.

“You’re better than this” isn’t an attempt to describe, but to inspire. It’s not a measurement of the current situation, but a challenge to grow. It’s an aspirational statement, meaning something more along the lines of “You could be better than this,” with a heaping implication as well of “You ought to be better than this.” That implicit “ought” shows us that it’s not all that different, ultimately, from that apparently opposite language of “You should be ashamed of yourself.” That statement, too, is aspirational — pointing toward and encouraging the possibility of change. “You should be ashamed” is not the assignment of guilt, but the acknowledgement of that guilt so that it can be gotten rid of. That’s what guilt and shame are for, after all. They’re not something we’re supposed to keep or wear or cling to or dwell on, but something we’re supposed to turn away from as fast as possible. That’s the whole point of why they make us feel so awful.

In the moment, of course, we often find some other way of talking to this kid. We have other options besides a pastoral pep-talk or a prophetic finger-wagging. Or we look for ways to encompass both without having to choose one over the other. Personally, I tend to get dryly litotical, saying something like, “Well, this wasn’t exactly your proudest moment, was it?” which kind of splits the difference between the two not actually all that different approaches above.

All these apparently divergent approaches will eventually converge because they’re all pointing in the same direction. You want this kid to do better — to become someone who won’t do this sort of thing again.

And that will mean not just better and different choices going forward, it will also mean going back in order to — as much as possible — make right what they’ve made wrong. It will mean repairing the damage or undoing the harm. So you’ll need to say something about that, too. Some kids sometimes will recognize that on their own, others will have to be encouraged or admonished to face it, but it’s a necessary, unavoidable part of becoming “better than this.” If the kid is allowed or taught to think of themselves as existing in a vacuum, as though their actions and choices only matter to the extent that they affect themselves, then being better than this will never be a possibility. If they never come to understand the importance of the consequences for others, then they’ll never make better choices, only more self-serving and self-centered ones. And that won’t help them to become a better person, it will turn them into a narcissist who imagines they’re a saint.

Anyway, my point here isn’t really about some hypothetical kid. It’s really about Republicans. It’s about our Republican friends and neighbors, relatives and co-workers, and about how we are going to talk to them over the next two and a half months, and over many months after that.

Because we very much need to have that talk.

So, then, for now I’m just going to click publish and let this abstract discussion stand on its own. But we’ll come back to this with a bit more specificity and urgency.


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