Guilty Pleasures & Misplaced Shame

Guilty pleasures. We all have them. They are those bands or albums we love listening to, but aren't quick to admit to other people are part of our music psyche.

The idea of the guilty pleasure is rooted in shame, namely in the shame we think we should feel for being fans of something that either isn't a normal part of our personality, or more likely isn't 'cool' enough for the people whose esteem we want to be held in. We fear being ostracized for our tastes, ridiculed for not following the consensus opinion, and so we hide certain pieces of ourselves away from others. To know someone completely is more than most friendships are capable of, because we have rather crude terminology to draw distinctions between those we are truly closest to, and those who are acquaintances we see too often to completely keep at arm's length.

I am fascinated by the concept of shame. There are some people who live their lives seemingly without the idea ever having been explained to them. We see it in politics, where people of all stripes will do or say anything to reach their goals, even when they know they will eventually be exposed for the scam they are running. These are the people who will lie to your face, and then lie about the lie when they get caught. The word 'apology' is read as 'apostasy' in their minds, and the rest of us have to suffer their lack of conscience regulating their behavior.

It extends beyond that, of course. People without shame are the neighbors who never close the curtains when they are doing things no one wants to see, the people you pass on the street practically screaming their proclivities into their phones for the whole world to hear, the people who were never taught the ego-centric model of the universe was disproved by science centuries again.

I have known at least one person of this kind, and witnessing the absence of shame is one of the more remarkable things I can say I have seen. I can tell stories about this person involving turning pants inside-out after sitting on a banana (as if that would help), claiming to have used an elevator as a urinal, begging for help picking out fetish porn, and (saddest of all) asking me rather than Google how to tell if they were circumcised.

Shame is an essential part of life, because it is a tool to guide us away from behaviors that are risky and inappropriate. We feel shame when we have violated the norms of society, if not our own sense of right and wrong. Shame is a powerful ability for us to admit and accept that we can be wrong, we can learn, and we have humility. Or we should.

What shame is not is important in the musical sense of things. Whether or not we like a certain band, album, or style of music is utterly irrelevant to the kind of people we are. Good people listen to music we think is terrible, and terrible people listen to music we think is good. If the people in our lives are going to think that much less of us for our musical choices, it begs the question; are we more ashamed of the music, or being friends with those people?

I don't generally have much use for the term 'guilty pleasure' when it comes to music. Perhaps because I have actually spent time thinking about these things, I know what shame should be reserved for, and music isn't one of them. So when I tell you that I not only own a Backstreet Boys greatest hits CD, but I still play it more than once a year, I am not ashamed of that. I understand it makes me uncool, and will lead to ridicule, but thinking a well-written song is a well-written song isn't a source of shame.

Musical shame feels trifling and silly when compared to the shame we can feel for consequential parts of our lives. This is something I have too much experience with, having never felt what it's like to have the tide recede enough to uncover pride. There are many traits in myself I feel shame about, several haunting memories, and countless things I have done and said. Shame is always there, always reminding me of the ways I have fallen short of being the person I want to be. Even when that is out of my hands, as I have realized much of it is, the shame remains.

So I ask the question; how many of us are in a position where the music we listen to is important enough to feel shame about?

I'm guessing the number is too small to measure, and yet we find ourselves ashamed of the wrong things all too often.

We should be as ashamed of that as I am for that groaner of a pun.