From Vikings to valentines, crimes to dinner invitations, Miller
(Law/University of Michigan) here explores the mercurial history of
the emotions, attitudes, values, and behaviors associated with
honor - its defense, loss, survival, and display - drawing on
evidence from the Greek epics and Icelandic sagas to contemporary
horror movies. Miller (a self-described "social constructionist")
traces the sources of such uncomfortable emotions as shame and
humiliation to ancient and subtle codes of honor that still survive
today. Contemporary exchanges, however banal, he says, involve the
same issues of prestige, self-esteem, reciprocity, and violence as
did those in primitive societies, although modern manifestations
are often internalized and psychological. Miller finds reciprocity
to be a central concept in humiliation, involving not only the
appropriate responses to gifts and hospitality, however unwanted,
but also - on the dark side - retribution, paying back, maintaining
face, and shaming. The author offers useful and precise
distinctions between shame and humiliation, as well as between the
various strategies used to avoid them - assuming the mantle of
humility or indifference, for instance, or embracing and enduring
humiliation like Dosteyevsky's Underground Man. Miller's larger
purpose seems to be to dispute the universality of emotional
expression: Some emotions, he claims, produce "predictable somatic
displays" that can lead to a belief in a universal vocabulary of
emotional expression - but, in fact, these expressions should be
interpreted according to the different periods and cultures in
which they arise. Translating emotions over time and across
cultures is Miller's major methodological challenge - and he meets
it with ranging and learned references, a wry and unpretentious
style, and a genuine respect for the power of those ancient,
forgotten sources on which modern social exchange depends. (Kirkus
Reviews)
How do we feel when our friend turns up with a holiday present
and we have nothing ready to give in exchange? What lies behind our
small social panics and the maneuvers we use, to avoid losing face?
Recognizing how much we care about how others see us, this wise and
witty book tackles the complex subject of humiliation and the
emotions that keep us going as self-respecting social actors.
William Ian Miller writes astutely about a host of homely and
seemingly banal social occasions and shows us what is buried behind
them. In his view, our lives are permeated with sometimes merely
uncomfortable, sometimes hair-raising rituals of shame and
humiliation. Take the unwanted dinner invitation, the exchange of
valentines in grade school, or the "diabolically ingenious
invention of the bridal registry." Readers will have no trouble
recognizing the social situations he finds indicative of our often
perilous dealings with each other.
Educated as a literary critic and philologist, by profession a
historian of medieval Iceland, by employment a law professor,
Miller ranges comfortably beyond his areas of formal expertise to
talk about emotions across time and culture. His scenarios are
based on incidents from his own college town and from the Iceland
of the sagas. He also makes incursions into the emotional worlds
represented in the Middle English poem, Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, and in some of the works of Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, and
others. Indeed, one theme that gradually becomes specific is how
meaning travels from one culture to another. Ancient codes of
honor, he insists, still function in contemporary American
life.
Some of Miller's narratives are unsettling, and he acknowledges
that a certain ironical misanthropy may run through his
discussions. But he succeeds in cutting through a mountain of
pretensions to entertain and enlighten us.
General
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