Humiliation

For most people, humiliation is much easier to witness than it is to endure. In his latest book, Humiliation, essayist and poet Wayne Koestenbaum sets out to reveal the internalized "whimpering beast" that fears humiliation—yet is compulsively drawn to ogle and revel in it when it happens to somebody else. In this spryly intelligent and sensitive book, Koestenbaum analyzes the mechanics of humiliation while delineating its participants: the victim, the abuser, and the witness. With the psychological roles of victim and abuser in little need of explication, Koestenbaum finds his best material when he focuses instead on the slippery moral position of the witness who, whether through inaction, relief at not being the target, or pure schadenfreude, assists in the public "desubjectification" of the victim. Throughout the book, Koestenbaum bravely shares some of his own experiences with humiliation—as victim, abuser, and witness—but takes pains to avoid turning it into an extended therapy session or a mere roll call of history's sacrificial lambs. Positing that humiliation is situated a priori in the existence of the human body—its flaws, its occasionally embarrassing functions, its inevitable failure, Koestenbaum half-convincingly argues for a kind of compassion built from this universal culpability. But a self-help book this is not. The lasting value of Humiliation lies in the opportunity it offers to spend time with the curious, compassionate mind of an original thinker.