CRIME, SHAME , AND COMMUNITY:
MEDIATION AGAINST VIOLENCEWELLNESS FOUNDATION
DISTINGUISHED LECTUREThomas J. Scheff
Professor Emeritus of Sociology
University of California, Santa Barbara.Part 5:
PATHS TO SYMBOLIC REPARATION: REFRAMING INDIGNATION AND ELICITING PAINFUL EMOTIONSWELLNESS LECTURE SERIES VOLUME VI
October 1996.
PATHS TO SYMBOLIC REPARATION:
REFRAMING INDIGNATION AND ELICITING PAINFUL EMOTIONSIn order for the offender to clearly express genuine shame and remorse, the trigger for symbolic reparation, he needs to be in a state of"perfect defenselessness." At the critical moment, the offender needs to place himself completely at the mercy of the victim, uncovering his repressed emotions. The victim also has a role to play, being aware of the offender’s feelings. Since, in modern societies, states of perfect defenselessness and keen awareness are unusual even in private, much less in a public gathering, this is a task of some magnitude. How can the offender and victim be encouraged to overcome the effects of repression in the presence of the participants, whose own emotions are highly repressed?
The principal paths seem to be:
1. reframing displays of aggressive emotions such as anger and moral indignation against the offender, and/or
2. eliciting a vivid expression of the painful emotions caused by the crime from at least one of the participants, usually a victim or a supporter of the victim.These two paths to symbolic reparation are related; as described below, reframing aggressive emotions can lead to vivid expressions of painful ones.
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