Shame, guilt and fear:

a comparative analysis of emotions from the political point of view

Abstract

Fear, guilt, and shame are considered by contemporary Western discourse as negative emotions since they are understood as an almost instinctive reaction inherent to the human condition. However, authors such as Sara Ahmed and Pedro Moscoso-Flores propose to rethink and put in tension the everyday conceptions that are constituted around these emotions. In this way of problematization, emotions are read to explain the forms of human organization, seen as classification devices whose purpose is to think about political subjectivation through the resignification of social phenomena that are associated with fear, guilt, and shame, understanding these as an articulating node of contemporary subjectivity around modes of political organization. The objective of this article is to propose a comparative theoretical-critical discussion that contributes to the theoretical dialogue that exists about the positioning of emotions in the processes of subjectivation in the socio-political and governance context of contemporary global societies from the perspective of these two authors. This comparative study will allow to account for a discursive dimension of the passions that usually move — consciously and unconsciously — from subjective positions politically determined by the State to position the subject and thus perpetuate their active participation in political and social processes.