Nussbaum Theory Of Education Essay

3. Describe Nussbaum’s account of the development of children in relationship to primitive shame. How can shame be mishandled/how do children experience underdevelopment in relation to shame? Nussbaum explains firstly how shame is an emotion experienced as a sense of failure in reaching an ideal state. Those who are shameful feel inadequate as a whole person, lacking, unable to reach a type of wholeness or perfection. She then goes on to explain how shame arises early on in childhood. Infants begin in a place of omnipotence. In the comfort of the womb, the infant is part of an environment in which the world is fully arranged around the fulfillment of his needs. After birth, the infant is thrust into world of objects in which he must depend on external sources and people for survival. Though the infant is removed from the original ideal state, he is not aware of the distinctions between himself and outside
The infant notices how dependent he is on the resources provided by external objects and of his own weakness in self-fulfillment. The infantile need for omnipotence and comfort are immediately connected to an awareness of mortality and helplessness, a dependence on others for the fulfillment of personal needs and a realization of inadequacy. An expectation of worth and perfection is sustained by the infantile omnipotence, how all objects revolve around the needs of the baby, but collapse when one is aware of the distinction between one’s own being from sources of comfort and sustenance. This primary narcissism in infants, as Nussbaum states, “gives rise to a particularly primitive and pervasive type of shame, as the infant encounters inevitable narcissistic defeats” (Nussbaum 184). Primitive shame is this experience, the first understanding by the infant of their own dependence on others and their inherent lack of