Alleviating love’s rage: Hegel on shame and sexual recognition

ABSTRACT

The paper reconstructs Hegel’s account of shame as a fundamental (‘existential’) affect. Qua spiritual, the human individual strives for self-determination; hence she is ashamed of the fact that, qua bodily or natural, she is weak, vulnerable, and needy – namely, externally determined. Hegel approves of two typical responses to shame: (1) Reduction – the individual struggles for honour in civil society by disciplining her activity, including hiding potentially shameful features from others. Here, shame is reduced but remains a psychological burden. (2) Within marriage, however, shame is alleviated – the individual reveals shameful features to her lover and is recognized as a bodily, needy and vulnerable creature. I discuss two modes in which such recognition is manifested. First, since love is an ‘immediate unity’ – rather than governed by a rigid normative code – the spouses are implicated in each other’s failures, and, moreover, can creatively modify the significance of features, expressing their ‘infinite uniqueness’ by conferring positive value on what counts (in civil society) as shameful. The second mode is sexual intimacy: lovers affirm each other’s bodies by bodily, habituated – and therefore trustworthy – means.