The shaming of America.

Embarrassment is contagious

I give in; I'm succumbing to scandal analysis. And this after my boast that I was the only writer in America who never wrote a word about O.J. Not watching TV news provides protective insulation.

But I am an omnivorous reader, and especially faithful to the New York Times. Thus my defenses against the Monica-gate mudslide were breached. Without informed consent, I was treated to the Starr report with all its soap opera-cum-farce details. Wincing and flinching, I reluctantly skimmed my way in and out of it.

But skipping here and there means you miss a lot. What were all these sly jokes about cigars, I wondered? Coming upon the explanation in a magazine article, I was instantly sorry to find out. Oh no, arrgh, I felt stricken with shame and covered my eyes as though I could blot out the knowledge.

It turns out you can feel shame for others, even for people who don't know enough to feel ashamed of themselves. Shame makes you want to sink into the ground and hide. Even when the deficiencies and lapses exposed are not yours, you can feel ashamed to be a by-stander. Embarrassment can be social and collective.

Guilt, on the other hand, is felt by an individual who actively commits a sin or engages in wrongdoing. Guilty persons can act to make reparation, but shame cannot be so easily corrected. While the guilty may atone, the ashamed often strike out to save face. In properly socialized persons, both shame and guilt arise from a violation of internalized standards of worth that transcend the self. Being sorry because you have been caught and painfully punished is not the same as feeling truly ashamed or truly guilty.

Many morally tone-deaf folks have flunked "Morality and Civilization 101," that crucial course in life. Monica Lewinsky may never have had a chance, coming from California and her Valley Girl world. But Bill Clinton has at least encountered religious teaching, family loyalty, and basic moral concepts of honorable behavior. He has had upright friends and contemporaries who came out of his Arkansas milieu. Are they feeling ashamed for him now?

Shameless behavior infects observers. I'll never forget walking through the red-light district in Amsterdam and seeing a scantily clad prostitute standing up for sale in her window. My sense of shame over her degradation could not be assuaged by thinking that since this is Holland, she could be a licensed "sex worker," get regular health care, and be in line for a pension. But maybe not. She was dark-skinned and, like many other prostitutes who are immigrants, she might be vulnerable to the abuses that produce so much post-traumatic stress disorder among prostitutes.

Suffering indignity and shame may be a form of trauma. The vile system of chattel slavery included the cruel exposure and public sale of human beings. All such abuses of power are morally shameful. In particular, powerful males who sexually exploit less powerful females are despicable.

Yet in Clinton's case there may be more going on than immoral abuse of power. His reckless and self-destructively obsessive behavior has all the earmarks of a sexual addiction. Most addictions emerge after repeated choices that are voluntary; slowly a habit becomes ingrained, and it becomes compulsive.

An addicted person loses much of his or her freedom, but moral resistance is always possible. When the compulsive behavior is admitted to be harmful, there is always the moral option to seek help. Washington insiders tell tales of Clinton's crude pursuit of women in public, which were clear signs of a problem. If nothing else, such risky and predatory behavior is incompatible with Clinton's high intelligence and ambition.

One of the most disturbing details in the Starr report is the account of Clinton eating, talking on the phone, and being sexually stimulated, all at the same time. This fragmented, unfocused behavior seems to be that of a person who, to put it mildly, is not operating as an integrated, self-controlled unit. Functioning parts of the self appear to be going off in different directions, with no "there there." It's a very bad sign when sexual activity gets isolated from a person's family, and from professional and religious commitments. Words and deeds become dangerously separated from one another.

If one part of Bill is not in touch with the other parts of Bill, it makes it easier to lie. The most skillful manipulators are those who, at the moment they utter falsehoods, can self-deceptively be convinced of their own story. Private sexual behavior may not always affect public professional functioning, but when a person's behavior points to inner contradictions and a lack of self-control, trouble lies ahead.

So what's to be done? Impeachment for high crimes doesn't seem to exactly fit the case. And unlike a judge sentencing a drunken driver to attend AA's twelve-step program, the House and Senate cannot enforce therapy. Ad hoc spiritual counsel for this kind of deep-seated habitual disordered behavior can hardly be effective. (Just ask those who have dealt with clerical pedophiles.) Could Humpty Dumpty be put together again with prayer and good intentions?

For the next two years we are probably condemned to limp along with a leader who would be promptly fired if he were a school superintendant. Clinton's shamelessness has already ensnared us in months and months of embarrassed shame. I don't think the country actually condones his behavior, but most people are willing to let him get away with it, if they can be spared prolonged entrapment in the shameful stink. Air pollution and moral smog are suffocating us. We're gasping for fresh air, but we're probably not going to get relief any time soon.