Nussbaum's perceptive account of the origins and psychodynamics of shame (esp. pages 168-174) nicely complements John Bradshaw's discussion of toxic shame versus healthy shame in his 1988 self-help book HEALING THE SHAME THAT BINDS YOU (expanded and updated edition 2005).
Nussbaum's perceptive account of the origins and psychodynamics of shame leads her to use the term "anthropodenial," which she defines as "the refusal to accept one's limited animal condition" as a human animal -- "anthropo" here means human (page 173). She then characterizes anthropodenial as based on the expectations of the infant: "To expect to be complete (or continually completed) is to expect to be above the human lot. Infants cannot imagine a human sort of interdependency, since they are not aware that human life is a life of need and reciprocity and that, through reciprocity, needs will be regularly met. Their helplessness produces intense anxiety that is not mitigated by trust in the world or its people" (page 173).
But Nussbaum sees trust in the world and its people as the basic erotic thrust upon which she establishes her argument for love as necessary for social and political cohesiveness. She sees the infant's "love of light, and, more generally, that generous outward-seeing movement of the mind, finding the world fascinating and curious, that is both intelligent and emotional" as providing the basis for wonder and love (page 174).
COMIC SPECTATORSHIP AND TRAGIC SPECTATORSHIP
For understandable reasons, Nussbaum did not have the foresight to anticipate the shutdown of the federal government. Nevertheless, she does recommend the comic perspective as the antidote for countering pomposity (esp. pages 272-275).
Her overall discussion of the tragic spectatorship and the comic spectatorship (pages 257-275) is brilliant. She sounds as though she herself had lived in ancient
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