The Spiral of Deviance — When Reactions Create More Exclusion

On Shame, Vulnerability, and the Difficult Work of Living On

The spiral of deviance does not always begin with a great event. It often begins with something small. A look. A laugh. A comment. A correction. A teacher who says a word in front of the class. A child who does not understand why the others are laughing. A body that reacts before language arrives. A small shift in the room: You do not quite belong here.

Then it happens again.

And again.

What first was an event gradually becomes a pattern. What first was a reaction from others gradually becomes an expectation within the child. What first came from the outside moves inside. The child begins to expect the laughter before it comes. He begins to hold back before anyone has corrected him. He begins to feel shame before anyone has said anything. He begins to see himself with the gaze that once wounded him.

In this way, the spiral of deviance becomes not only a social process. It becomes an inner process. A room within the human being where the judgement of others remains long after the others have moved on.

A child wearing a dunce cap does not only learn that he has done something wrong. He learns that he can be made into something wrong. He learns that his body can betray him. He learns that laughter can be dangerous. He learns that what happens inside him is not understood from the outside. He learns that his own way of being in the world can provoke reactions he cannot bear.

Shame comes early.

It does not necessarily come as a clear thought. The child does not say to himself: Now I am struck by shame. The child does not have such words. Shame comes as heat in the face. As unrest in the stomach. As a wish to disappear. As laughter when the body actually wants to flee. As silence when something should have been said. As secrecy. As a locked room inside the child.

Perhaps this is when shame becomes most dangerous. Not when it is shouted out, but when it is locked away.

The child does not tell anyone at home what is happening. Not because he has no parents. Not because there are no people who could have listened. But because shame has already given him its explanation: I am stupid. There is something wrong with me. If I tell it, it will only become more true.

Shame closes the mouth.

That is why shame is not only a feeling. It is also a social force. It separates the human being from the community. It makes it difficult to ask for help. It makes it difficult to protest. It makes it difficult to say: This hurt. It makes it difficult to say: I did not understand. It makes it difficult to say: I needed help, not laughter.

Shame says: Hide yourself.

And when the human being hides, the surroundings often see even less. They do not see the wound. They only see that the child is difficult, silent, strange, restless, closed, artificial, exaggerated, demanding, or distant. The reactions continue. The child hides more. The exclusion grows.

This is the spiral of deviance.

Not only that society labels a human being. Not only that a child develops a negative self-image. But that the reactions to the deviance can create more of what the surroundings already fear. The child withdraws because the community hurts. The withdrawal is interpreted as a social deficit. The child is invited in less. He gets less practice, less safety, less experience of belonging. Then it becomes even more difficult to participate.

In this way, exclusion confirms itself.

A young person who was once laughed at may choose the mask of the clown. It may look like freedom. He makes the others laugh. He becomes funny. He becomes visible in a new way. Perhaps he is accepted. Perhaps he even becomes popular. But beneath this mask lies old knowledge: If they are going to laugh anyway, I must direct the laughter myself.

It is a wise strategy. And a painful one.

The clown is not only funny. The clown is a young person who has understood that laughter can be turned. The laughter that once came as an attack can be transformed into a performance. They are no longer laughing at the little boy with the dunce cap. They are laughing at the clown. It is safer. Not safe, but safer.

But this too can become a spiral. For the better the clown works, the more others expect him to be the clown. The role that first saved him can gradually trap him. The others want him funny. They want him light. They want him as they know him. If he becomes silent, something is wrong. If he is serious, it does not fit. If he shows vulnerability, he breaks the contract.

So the mask must sit a little tighter.

The shame is still there, but it has changed form. Now it is not only the shame of being laughed at. It is also the shame of not being what others expect. The shame of not being able to bear the role. The shame of having made others believe that one was freer, happier, and lighter than one really was. The shame of needing a mask in order to be with people one actually wants to be close to.

In this way, shame can follow a human being from childhood into youth, from youth into adult life.

The adult carries other masks. The parent mask. The work mask. The competent mask. The responsible mask. The one who shows up. The one who keeps appointments. The one who earns a living. The one who takes responsibility. The one who tries to be a spouse, a father, a colleague, a leader, a helper, a teacher, a friend. The one who functions.

From the outside, it can look like mastery.

But mastery too can be part of the spiral.

For when a human being has learned that he must not show too much of his vulnerability, he can become skilled at hiding it. He can work harder than others. Prepare more. Control more. Take responsibility before anyone asks. Be funny when needed. Be competent when expected. Be calm when the body is restless. Be available when he actually needs silence.

He can become a good person in a way that wears him out.

Shame can also dress itself as responsibility. It says: You must manage this. You must not burden others. You must not show weakness. You must not be exposed. You must not be difficult. You must not be the one who ruins the room.

Then a human being may harm himself in the attempt not to harm others.

But the opposite can also happen. A human being living under strong inner pressure may hurt others precisely because he himself is under pressure. Not because vulnerability makes a person innocent. Not because diagnoses remove responsibility. But because what is not understood often comes out in crooked ways. As irritation. Silence. Sharp words. Withdrawal. Control. Restlessness. A need for order that others experience as demands. A need for silence that others experience as rejection. A need for predictability that others experience as rigidity.

In this way, the spiral of deviance can move into the family.

The child who was wounded becomes an adult and may wound. The one who was not understood may himself misunderstand. The one who carried shame alone may become hard to reach. The one who longed for gentleness may become harsh in moments of pressure. The one who needed calm may make others uneasy. The one who learned to survive through control may give too little room to those closest to him.

This is perhaps one of the most difficult things to acknowledge.

For there is comfort in understanding why one became as one became. But there is also pain in seeing what it cost others. Spouse. Children. Family. Friends. People who stood close. People who needed something one was not always able to give. People one loved, and yet could hurt.

Shame then acquires a new depth.

It is no longer only about what was done to oneself. It is also about what one did, or failed to do. It is about words that were spoken. Words that were not spoken. Silence that lasted too long. Closeness that became too difficult. Absence in rooms where one was physically present. Control where there should have been trust. Tiredness where there should have been warmth. Self-protection where others needed to be seen.

This is a shame that is difficult to live with.

Especially in the last phase of life. For then it is no longer only the future that makes demands. The past also comes. It does not come as an ordered book. It comes in images. A child’s face. A spouse’s exhaustion. A situation one did not understand until many years later. A sentence one regrets. A possibility for reconciliation that passed by. A silence one did not break. A look one did not see.

The older man may have understood much. He may have received diagnoses. He may have written about shame. He may have worked with shame as an academic subject. He may have helped others understand dignity, violation, humiliation, and exclusion. He may have written articles, taught students, worked with people who carried some of life’s heaviest experiences. He may have gained a language.

But language does not necessarily remove shame.

Sometimes language makes shame clearer.

For when one understands more, one also sees more. One sees the child one was. One sees the young person who put on the clown mask. One sees the adult who tried to function. One sees the patient who had to change course. One sees the older man who received the ASC diagnosis and could read life anew. But one also sees the people around. Those who lived with the masks. Those who had to interpret a man who himself struggled to interpret himself. Those who perhaps did not receive enough of what they needed.

This is where shame and guilt must be distinguished, but not torn apart.

Shame says: I am wrong.
Guilt says: I did something wrong.

Shame can destroy a human being because it attacks the self. Guilt can become morally fruitful if it leads to responsibility, recognition, and reconciliation. But in real lives they are often mixed together. The one who is ashamed may find it difficult to take guilt in a good way. He drowns in self-accusation and cannot act. The one who cannot bear guilt may push everything into shame or defense. Then it becomes either self-hatred or excuse.

Neither gives peace.

A third way is needed. A way where the human being can say: I was wounded, and I wounded. I was misunderstood, and I did not always understand others. I wore masks in order to survive, but the masks also made it difficult for others to come close. I had a vulnerability for which I had no language, but that vulnerability does not cancel the pain of others.

This is a hard sentence to live with.

But it is truer than both self-condemnation and self-defense.

Practical philosophy is not only about understanding concepts. It is about living with truths that cannot be made simple. How can a human being carry responsibility without being destroyed by shame? How can one acknowledge having hurt others without reducing the whole of life to guilt? How can one see one’s own vulnerability without using it as an excuse for everything? How can one ask for forgiveness when the past cannot be undone? How can one forgive oneself without minimizing what happened?

These are not questions for the textbook alone. They are questions for old age. For the night. For silence. For the human being who looks back and knows that life cannot be rewritten, but perhaps can be understood more truthfully.

The spiral of deviance is therefore not only a theory about how society creates exclusion. It is also a theory about how exclusion can be passed on within a person’s relationships. Reactions create shame. Shame creates masks. Masks create distance. Distance creates misunderstandings. Misunderstandings create new reactions. The new reactions confirm the old judgement: There is something wrong with me.

And sometimes, when the person himself has wounded others, an even darker judgement appears: It was not only that something was wrong with me. I also did wrong.

Then the spiral can become almost unbearable.

For the child only wanted to belong. The young person only wanted to be accepted. The adult only wanted to make life function. The parent perhaps wanted to love, but did not always know how love should be shown when the body was stressed, the mind overloaded, and language insufficient. The spouse wanted to be close, but perhaps withdrew when the world became too demanding. The professional wanted to help others, but could be blind to something at home.

Human life is full of such fractures.

That is why we need gentleness. Not sentimental gentleness. Not a gentleness that says everything was all right. Not a gentleness that erases responsibility. But a serious gentleness that dares to see the whole picture. The child. The masks. The diagnoses. The shame. The wounds. Those who were wounded. The responsibility. The limitations. The love that was there, but did not always find its form.

Without gentleness, truth becomes too hard. Without truth, gentleness becomes too cheap.

Perhaps this is what the work on shame teaches us. Shame does not tolerate light well if the light is harsh and judgemental. Then it hides. But shame does not tolerate darkness either. Then it grows. It needs another kind of light. A light truthful enough to see, and gentle enough that the human being does not have to disappear.

To write about shame can be to search for such a light.

When one has worked academically with shame, one may know that shame is not only about individual feelings. It is about the gaze. About recognition. About violation. About dignity. About being seen in a way that makes one lose oneself. Shame often arises where the human being does not merely fail, but feels exposed as worth less.

But when one has lived with shame oneself, one knows something more. One knows how shame settles in the body. How it can return after fifty or sixty years. How it can be awakened by an image, a sound, a word, a situation. How it can make the old classroom come alive again. How it can make an older man feel like the little boy with the cap on his head.

Academic knowledge and lived experience do not always meet easily. Sometimes they help each other. At other times they make each other more painful. The one who understands shame academically may also understand how deeply it has worked in his own life. The one who has taught about dignity may feel the pain of the times when he did not give enough dignity to others. The one who has written about violation may see his own violations more clearly.

This can become a new shame.

But perhaps it can also become the beginning of another form of responsibility.

Not responsibility as self-punishment. Not responsibility as endless judgement. But responsibility as truth-work. To see what happened. To say it more accurately. Not to hide behind the diagnosis, but neither to judge oneself without understanding the diagnosis. To acknowledge that a human being can be both wounded and responsible. Both vulnerable and guilty. Both misunderstood and sometimes uncomprehending. Both dignified and fallible.

This is not easy. But it is human.

The older man who looks back cannot enter childhood and remove the dunce cap. He cannot go back to youth and tell the clown that he does not have to be funny all the time. He cannot go back into all the rooms of family life and answer differently. He cannot retrieve all the moments when closeness became too difficult. He cannot remake life.

But he can do something else.

He can tell it more truthfully.

He can say to the child: You carried shame that was not yours.

He can say to the young person: You found a mask because you needed protection.

He can say to the adult: You carried too much stress for too long.

He can say to those closest to him, if that is possible: I see more now. I understand more now. I am sorry for what I did not understand then.

And he can say to himself: What you did wrong must not be made into the whole truth about you. But neither must it be forgotten.

This is a difficult balance. Perhaps there is no final balance. Perhaps there is only a daily practice of not letting shame destroy the responsibility it itself demands. For when shame becomes too great, it paralyzes the human being. It says: You are unworthy. You cannot repair anything. You cannot meet anyone. You cannot love rightly. You are only wrong.

Then shame wins again.

Responsibility must therefore be rescued from shame. It must become possible to say: Yes, I have wounded. Yes, I carry sorrow over it. Yes, I wish I had understood more. But I will not spend the rest of my life hating the human being who was also trying to survive. I would rather use the time that remains to be more truthful, more gentle, more open, more responsible.

It is not certain that this brings peace. Perhaps it only gives a little more room. But a little more room can be much.

The spiral of deviance is broken not only when others stop labeling. It is also broken when the human being himself begins to answer the label differently. When he no longer says: I am only wrong. When he says instead: I was shaped by reactions, but I am not only their result. I carried shame, but shame is not the whole truth. I wore masks, but the masks were not all of me. I have wounded, but I can still seek reconciliation. I cannot make everything right, but I can refuse to make shame my final identity.

The last point is important.

Shame wants the final word.

It says: You are the worst thing you have done. You are what others said about you. You are what you did not manage. You are the one who failed. You are the child with the cap. You are the clown. You are the patient. You are the diagnosis. You are the damage.

But a human being is more than this.

Not less responsible. More.

More than the shame. More than the label. More than the mask. More than the diagnosis. More than the mistakes that still hurt to remember. More than the rooms in which he could not be the person he wanted to be.

This does not mean that everything ends well. Some wounds do not fully disappear. Some memories continue to burn. Some relationships cannot be repaired in the way one wishes. Some apologies come late. Some forgiveness does not come. Sometimes one must live with not having said everything, not having done everything, not having understood in time.

But perhaps dignity can be found there too.

Not dignity as purity. Not dignity as innocence. Not dignity as a life without failure. But dignity as the ability to see truthfully, carry responsibility, seek gentleness, and still remain human.

Perhaps this is the deepest resistance to the spiral of deviance. Not pretending that it did not exist. Not saying that the shame was in every way unfounded. Not fleeing from guilt. But refusing to let the label, the shame, and the guilt close the human being in forever.

For the spiral of deviance lives on closed rooms. It lives on silence. It lives on the child not telling. The young person becoming his role. The adult hiding the price. The patient losing his voice. The older man judging himself alone in the dark.

Therefore the room must be opened.

Through language. Through conversation. Through recognition. Through prayer, perhaps. Through writing. Through a careful approach to those one has wounded. Through the will to be more truthful now than one was then. Through seeing that shame must not only be carried, but understood. And that guilt must not only be felt, but, where possible, turned into responsibility.

It is not certain that one becomes free. But one may be able to breathe.

And perhaps that is enough as a beginning.

A child sits at the back of the classroom with a dunce cap on his head. He does not know that this moment will follow him through life. He does not know that one day he will write about shame. He does not know that one day he will understand the spiral of deviance. He does not know that one day he will see that the reactions did not merely describe him, but helped form him.

He only knows that they are laughing.

Many years later, an older man sits and writes. He knows more now. He knows that the child was treated unjustly. He knows that the young person found a mask. He knows that the adult carried too much. He knows that the diagnoses gave language. He knows that the shame was not only his fault. But he also knows that he himself has wounded others. That others too carried some of the price. That his life is not only a story of being misunderstood, but also a story of having to ask for gentleness for what he himself did not understand.

This is not easy to write.

But perhaps it is necessary.

For the spiral of deviance is not broken by everything becoming beautiful. It is broken when truth is allowed to emerge without the human being being destroyed by it.

The child must no longer sit alone with shame.

The young person must no longer have to be the clown in order to belong.

The adult must no longer have to pretend that everything is fine.

The older man must no longer be only the judge of his own life.

He can become a witness.

A witness to what shame does. What labeling does. What masks cost. What diagnoses can explain. What responsibility requires. What gentleness can open.

And perhaps also this:

That a human being can carry shame all the way into the final phase of life, and still seek a language that does not make shame the final word.

The final word must not be shame.

It can be responsibility.

It can be sorrow.

It can be a prayer for forgiveness.

It can be gentleness.

It can be dignity.