Maunderings on Brodhead, Delbanco, Schultz, Shame, and Mississippi

I have been thinking about shame a lot in this new century.  In 2002 Richard H. Brodhead, Andrew Delbanco, and Elizabeth Schultz all shamelessly lied about me in print, Brodhead in the New York TIMES, saying I had merely surmised the existence of two lost books which Melville finished. One, the 1860 POEMS, had been known to everyone since 1922. They apparently felt no shame in lying about me, but I found myself shamed every time I heard a mention of the New York TIMES, especially. You internalize shame when people defame you with lies, or at least I did, until I began speaking out in 2007. Since then I have continued to think about shame and have decided that somewhere around the mid 20^th century parents stopped teaching their children to be ashamed of bad behavior.  Instead, parents and teachers began trying to instill self-esteem in children whatever their behavior. Shame lingered on in some areas of the country especially in some religious groups up until, oh, what—Nixon’s Southern Strategy? If I knew back entrances to a nursing home because my mother had been kept there and I showed a Tea Party photographer just how to get into the building to take pictures of a woman whose mind was gone, then I can imagine killing myself for shame, especially if I grew up in Mississippi. The defeated candidate, however, seems to be of the generation that learned well the lessons of self-esteem.