The Shame We Stand On – The Deeper Thinking Podcast

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8d ago 17:40

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The Shame We Stand On – The Deeper Thinking Podcast

The Deeper Thinking Podcast

A recursive meditation on shame as epistemic ground, identity as performance, and healing as ontological disobedience.

What if shame wasn’t a feeling to overcome—but a structure we unknowingly stand on? In this episode, we explore the idea of ontological shame: a form of selfhood shaped not by momentary embarrassment but by systemic, inherited frameworks of erasure and expectation. Drawing from Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, Louis Althusser’s interpellation, and Michel Foucault’s theories of discipline, we consider how institutions, families, and cultural norms silently instruct us to disappear—and how healing begins when we refuse to obey.

This is not therapy-speak or pop-psychology. It is inquiry into how we come to mistake performance for personality, obedience for belonging, and perfection for safety. We follow shame not as symptom, but as infrastructure—asking what it means to unlearn the ground beneath our feet without losing the self we built upon it.

Reflections

Here are some reflections that surfaced along the way:

Shame isn’t carried. It’s stood on.
Ontology shapes identity before cognition can intervene.
The most dangerous scripts are the ones that feel like personality.
To heal is to betray the choreography shame taught you to perform.
Self-worth isn’t proven. It’s unlearned from conditions that never served it.
Stillness isn’t laziness. It’s refusal to audition for belonging.

Why Listen?

Engage with shame as epistemology, not just affect
Explore how identity is shaped by recursive social scripts
Learn what performative healing obscures—and how to move beyond it
Reflect on the cost of survival strategies mistaken for character

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Bibliography

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge, 1990.
Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Monthly Review Press, 1971.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. Pantheon Books, 1977.
Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters. University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Bibliography Relevance

Judith Butler: Frames identity as performative and shaped by normative constraints
Louis Althusser: Explains how ideology interpellates individuals as subjects
Michel Foucault: Explores how institutions discipline through normative shame
Avery Gordon: Offers a lens on haunting and the spectral residues of internalised structures

Shame doesn’t just shape what we feel—it decides who we think we are allowed to become.

#OntologicalShame #JudithButler #Interpellation #Foucault #TheDeeperThinkingPodcast #Selfhood #Performativity #StructuralHealing #CulturalScripts #EmotionalPhilosophy

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