so, as an nf, what does shaming mean to you? when is the truth necessary even when it hurts someone? how do you assess whether someone is shaming (ie manipulating) or simply being authentic to what is true for them?
What shaming ‘means’ to me is any action (or lack of action) that expresses to another person you either do not approve of them or do not like them. There’s blatant ‘shaming’ like the use of sharp words or pejoratives to express disapproval; but I even consider subtle gestures- like getting up from a table every time someone specific sits down, ignoring someone, leaving a conversation every time someone specific shows up to join in, etc- to also be a form of ‘shaming’ (because they do also cause shame, whether it's intended or not).
And whether or not I believe it’s warranted revolves around this Naranjo statement: “The superimposition of past on present is linked to persons and desires from the past which are not conscious for the subject and that give his or her conduct an irrational seal- the affect does not seem appropriate either in quality or quantity to the real, actual situation.â€
I think that people will often ‘shame’ others and- even though it’s coming from an ‘authentic’ place (in the sense that it’s based on what they’re truly feeling/thinking about the situation)- really they’re superimposing something about their own past into how they are interpreting that situation….and so the ‘shaming’ is inappropriate/unwarranted even though they
are being authentic to what is true for them.
And so, in regard to “when is the truth necessary even when it hurts someone?â€: I prefer the word ‘helpful’ or ‘useful’ over ‘necessary’, and I think it’s most helpful/useful when someone is not superimposing their own past on the present situation.
[eta:] And really, I guess, if it's void enough of issues on the other person's end to be useful/helpful- that's probably when I'd call it 'feedback' more than 'shaming'. I suppose 'shaming' has the negative connotation of making someone feel bad and ideally problematics can be pointed out in such a way that no one has to feel bad. But that line between 'feedback' and 'shaming' is weird. Lots of times, someone will claim they are offering'feedback' when really they're just trying to purge their own feelings of inferiority into someone else- and I'd call that 'shaming'.
how do you separate when your insensitivities are resulting in your experience of shame and when someone is deliberately shaming you?
For me, it has almost everything to do with my experience of a person. If my experience of them is that they feel the need to purge their own feelings of worthlessness into others (iow: they demonstrated a distinct tendency to shame others in a way that seems irrational- regardless of how real it seems to them “the affect does not seem appropriate either in quality or quantity to the real, actual situationâ€) then I tend to build a rather thick skin to it and for the most part disregard it. I won’t necessarily see it as a ‘deliberate’ shaming on their part, but I won’t let it make me feel bad either. Or even if it somehow has an “irrational sealâ€, I am able to not take it personally and won’t give it much weight.
On the other hand- when a person is close to me or I have developed a certain respect for their judgment- I tend to have an inordinately difficult time recognizing when someone is being unfair to me in this regard, and it will work and make me feel bad. (Though if it's repeatedly the case that someone makes me feel bad because of their own issues and I eventually catch on, I will start giving their opinion less weight.)
whose responsibility is it to notice and let go of sensitive meanings (indices for comparison) that are likely to shame another?
I think it depends on how important a particular person is to me and/or how available it is to avoid them. If it’s my priority to keep them around, then I feel like the onus is on me to let go of the sensitivity (although really, if I have a priority to keep someone around, then it’s probably because they aren’t doing anything to trigger unwarranted shame in the first place).
[eta:]Though I do realize that avoiding people is taking part in 'shaming' myself, to some extent, because people are not islands and it's not like I can choose for them not to feel negative affect as a result simply because I don't like dealing with them or being around them. I suppose I usually assume, if I'm avoiding someone because they come off as too oafish or to difficult for me to understand, then they probably don't value my attention either so it *probably* isn't making them feel any 'shame'.