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Date Posted: 06:00:15 04/13/05 Wed
Author: Chris
Subject: Shame-based vs. guilt-based culture

We sometimes discussed Korean Confucianism as one of the major reasons, why UBF leaders can’t admit their problems and repent. Repentance and confession means “losing face” for the Koreans, something they try to avoid at all costs. Having “face” is more important for them than being integer and truthful.

Actually we can go one step further and abstract from Confucianism, by using a sociological term for it, distinguishing between “shame-based cultures” and “guilt-based cultures.”

Far eastern and Islamic countries have a “shame-based culture”, while the traditionally Christian occidental and countries and the Jews have a “guilt-based culture.” Shame based cultures are all about the concepts of shame, honor, “having face” etc. while in guilt based cultures there exists a concept of the reality and severity of guilt, that needs to be confessed and for which you need to ask for forgiveness. This idea is of course derived from Christianity and Judaism.

Of course, both cultures coexist in all countries and mix with each other, but it is obvious that in eastern oriented countries, the shame-based culture prevails, while in the western oriented countries, the guilt-based culture prevails.

Currently I can see this difference very well. In Germany, aside from the problem of neo Nazis, most people acknowledge the guilt from the time of the Hitler regime and freely admit that Germany was evil. Everything is admitted and explained in our school books, there are many TV documentations where this time and its crimes are remembered over and over again. Recently, our foreign minister refused to concede the usual honoring mentioning of retired diplomats if they had been in the Nazi party in their youth, even if they were not really Nazi criminals. Sometimes we even go too far in our self-incrimination.

However, have a look at Japan. Do they admit or talk about the atrocities against Korea or China and their crimes during WWII? I think they never do, because they are (just as Korea and other far eastern countries) a typical example of a shame-based culture. The premier minister Yunichiro Koizumi visits the Yasukuni shrine every year. Buried there are also war criminals from WWII. This is no problem for him. No Japanese politician would think about kneeling in front of the memorials of their former victims as a symbol for asking for forgiveness, as our former German chancellor Brandt did in the former ghetto of Warsaw (see here) (of course, there were some old Germans who opposed this gesture, but the vast majority deeply agreed with Brandt in their hearts and it is still considered one of the greatest deeds of German politicians). The Japanese people (even leftists and liberals) would consider it as extremely untactful to speak too much about the crimes they had committed in the past.

Another example for a shame-based culture is Turkey. Recently there was a big scandal with Turkish diplomats complaining the mentioning of Turkish crimes against the Armenians (the genocide in 1915) in our history school books. The Turks do not want that these things are even mentioned (see here).

In a shame-based culture, history is particularly glorified, and negative elements are covered up and forgotten. The western concept of a historic science that tries to document the past events as exactly, unbiased and truthful as possible is alien to any shame-based culture. If a historian is saying anything negative about the country, he is viewed as “fouling his own nest.”

You can observe the same pattern in the shame-based culture of UBF Koreans. The “UBF history” is always glorified, and all negative are being suppressed and denied. Just read one of Samuel Lee’s circulars or newsletters. Sarah Barry is highly infected with the shame-based mindset as well.

The problem is that the UBF Koreans don’t see that they are tainted and saturated with a shame-based mindset that is incompatible with Biblical views. It is already too natural for them and deeply engraved in their minds. They even believe that a Confucianst version of Chrisitianity is a better version of Christianity, they don’t see that it is a spoiled version of Christianity in reality.

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