THIS dearth of shame that hangs in the air is worrying. Look around us, there is so much of glee in committing crimes.
Even in court, the smiles of those who should feel the mortification put Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile to shame. Instead, it appears that such indignity is being turned into a cause célèbre. What a commemoration of notoriety! Perhaps it is the times we live in.
Sadly, it is not just a Malaysian thing. It happens elsewhere, too.
Remember the Christchurch massacre, where 50 people were gunned down in mosques? The criminal had the audacity to live-stream the shooting. No shame here.
Remember, too, the suicide bombings in churches in Sri Lanka where more than 250 lost their lives? Those who were responsible for the carnage shamelessly took to the media. There were no wars here. Even if there were, the lives lost and limbs maimed were of civilians.
Not soldiers. What moral perversion, what a dearth of shame!
Psychologists tell us about the importance of having a sense of shame. Shame is necessary because we share a moral code with the rest of humanity.
When we breach it, we upset a cart of virtues. One such violation is the contravention of what is right and what is wrong.
This is why those who have done wrong display a blushing face and walk slumped with head down. These are external signals of remorse of those who still have a sense of shame.
But in this day and age, the accused are turning their court appearances into events. A political one at that. Granted the accused are innocent until proven guilty, but why then those who are sentenced don’t show any remorse?
Is it power which does this to men and women? Does power obliterate such sense of shame that we are endowed with? It must be. Look at how they enthuse in the office they held before even when the very authority has taken leave.
Look at those who have come to celebrate their emperor who has no clothes. Or perhaps, the emperor has “new clothes” now.
It is Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, all over again. There, we had a vain king who was preoccupied with his appearance and wardrobe.
Swindlers worked on this flaw by pretending to weave the finest cloth, which were invisible to those who were stupid. The king, not wanting to appear stupid himself, pretended to be able to “see” the new clothes, as did all of his courtiers.
He paraded the “new clothes” through the streets and the onlookers, also not wanting to be stupid, all admired them. A small child, who had no sense of pretence in him, shouted: “But he has no clothes!”. With the pretence burst, the onlookers repeated what the child had said: “The king has no clothes!”
The king, meanwhile, continued the parade with no sense of shame.
We must all be that small child in Andersen’s tale, every now and then, so that we can end this dearth of shame.