Humiliation appears when dignity is hurt.
Humiliation , from the Latin humiliatio , is the action and effect of humiliating or humiliating oneself (hurting self-esteem or dignity , bringing down pride ). When a person is humiliated, they feel shame . For example: “I am not going to accept another humiliation from my boss” , “I have never felt such humiliation as when my mother slapped me in front of all my colleagues” , “The humiliation was completed with the visiting team's sixth goal” .
Since dignity is something difficult to define or limit, humiliation is a concept without precise meaning. Some issues that may be humiliating for some people may not be so for others.
Humiliation linked to work
In the professional field there is a great diversity of jobs and these are located in a supposed hierarchy that groups them according to their importance to society; For example, being a lawyer and working for a well-known firm is usually a source of pride, while having a job as a cleaner usually has the opposite effect.
Given these cruel divisions that human beings strive to draw, if someone with a university education is forced to perform a task considered menial, they are likely to feel deep humiliation and try to hide it.
Denigration and torture
Acts that publicly denigrate an individual's beliefs are also considered humiliation. Religion is often one of the most common targets of ridicule and contempt, especially when its practice includes the use of particular accessories and clothing.
Humiliation can be considered a form of torture since it seeks to undermine the dignity of the human being. In fact, when a regime applies physical torture, it usually accompanies it with humiliation to morally destroy the person.
It is important to note that humiliation takes place in the daily lives of millions of people with seemingly normal lives, and that many of them are not even aware of suffering it. In general, for humiliation to occur there must be a very close bond between the person who practices it and the person who receives it, or a very intense hatred justified by ideological differences.
Humiliation can make a person feel ashamed.
humiliation in childhood
Children often receive humiliation from their elders or from people of the same age who feel a deep fear of their way of being or thinking; Unfortunately, stories are common of parents who psychologically torture their children because they consider that their efforts to satisfy them are never enough, and of students who physically and psychologically attack those who do not show a very defined sexuality , to cite two of the many possible examples. .
Childhood is precisely the moment in which we are most vulnerable to this type of attacks, and many are unable to overcome their wounds , so they remain in that state of susceptibility to humiliation for the rest of their lives. For a child, every day is a discovery: new concepts that confuse him, demands of all kinds that test his patience and understanding, rules that, for reasons that are often absent, he must follow.
The first years of our lives are difficult enough to go through, even when we are loved and respected; If we add a variable to this enigmatic equation that constantly nullifies our efforts to find the solution, it is likely that darkness will invade us and, over time, prevent us from seeing beyond the humiliation.
From time to time, during childhood, we all need encouraging words from our elders to nourish our self-confidence, as well as indications to improve and correct our mistakes; Constant balance is impossible to achieve, but with a spontaneous dose of approval and healthy reprimands , we can aspire to good emotional development. Humiliation, however, is not a reprimand, but an attempt to block the other person, to shame him to the point of eliminating his strength and his desire to exist.
a paraphilia
It should be noted that humiliation appears in certain paraphilias that associate this issue with sexual pleasure .
In these cases, the person can promote humiliation or receive it, depending on what generates excitement.