Why Humiliation Is Worse Than Death

By Neel Burton | August 28, 2014

The Psychology and Philosophy of Humiliation

Teddybear hanging out of a trouser pocket

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Essay substantially revised on 31 August 2026.

Nemo congressu, nemo aditu, nemo suffragio, nemo civitate, nemo luce dignum putet.

Let no one deem him worthy of company, of admittance, of support, of citizenship, of the light of day.

— Cicero, In Vatinium

Embarrassment, shame, guilt, and humiliation all imply the existence of value systems. Shame and guilt arise primarily from self-appraisal, whereas embarrassment and humiliation arise from the perceived appraisal of others, even if those others exist only in imagination. The distinction between embarrassment and humiliation is that embarrassment often results from our own social missteps, whereas humiliation is imposed upon us through the degrading actions of others.

Jamie tells his teacher that he forgot to do his homework. He feels embarrassment. The teacher reveals this to the whole class. Now he feels even greater embarrassment. The teacher makes him sit in a corner facing the wall, and the whole class laughs at him. This time, he feels humiliation. Had the teacher discreetly given Jamie a failing grade, he would have felt not humiliated but offended. Offence arises primarily from the perception that we have been wronged, insulted, or treated contrary to our values or expectations. Humiliation, on the other hand, arises from the perception that we have been debased, degraded, or stripped of dignity in the eyes of others. Compared to embarrassment, humiliation tends to be more socially exposing and more threatening to one’s sense of status or self-worth.

The mediaeval motif of Aristotle and Phyllis depicts the great philosopher on all fours, bridled and ridden like a horse. Yet, according to the story, Aristotle consented to the arrangement out of lust for Phyllis. Consent can transform the meaning of an otherwise degrading act—which is why the philosopher Gilles Deleuze argued that a true masochist could never fulfil the fantasies of a true sadist.

The Latin root of ‘humiliation’ is humus, which means ‘earth’ or ‘dirt’. Humiliation involves abasement of honour and dignity and, with that, loss of status and standing. We all make certain status claims, however modest they may be, for example, ‘I am a competent doctor’, ‘I am a happily married mother’, or even, ‘I am a human being’. When we are merely embarrassed, our status claims are not seriously undermined—or if they are, they are easily recovered. But when we are humiliated, our status claims cannot so readily be recovered because, in this case, it is our very authority to make status claims that has been called into question. Usually, a person in the run of being humiliated is left stunned and speechless, and, more than that, voiceless. When criticising people, especially people with poor self-esteem, we must find the line between disputing their claims and denying their standing to make those claims.

In short, humiliation is the public failure (or severe undermining) of one’s status claims. It is the experience of having one’s dignity, status, or standing publicly diminished, especially in a way that invites contempt, ridicule, or loss of respect. Private failures may lead to shame, grief, or painful self-realisation, but they are humiliating only insofar as one sees them through the eyes of others.

Notice that humiliation need not be accompanied by shame. Jesus may have been crucified and humiliated, but he surely did not feel any shame. Secure people with the courage of their convictions rarely feel shame at their humiliation—which is, in essence, an attempt to discredit them and their claims.

The Uses of Humiliation

Still today, humiliation is a common form of punishment, abuse, and oppression. Conversely, the fear of humiliation is ordinarily thought to deter crime, and history has devised many forms of humiliating mob punishments. Pillories and stocks restrained victims in a degrading position while people gathered to taunt and torment them. The last recorded use in England of the pillory dates back to 1830, and of the stocks to 1872. Tarring and feathering, which emerged in feudal Europe, involved covering victims with scalding pine tar and feathers before parading them on a cart or wooden rail. In Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister is stripped and sheared and forced to walk through the streets of King’s Landing to jeers and cries of ‘Shame!’ The ordeal is aimed not merely at punishing her, but at destroying her status claims as a queen and, ultimately, as a person.

In traditional societies and American universities, ritual humiliation can serve to enforce a particular social order, or to reinforce that the group takes precedence over its individual members. Many tribal societies feature complex initiation rites designed to defuse the threat posed by fit, fertile, and often arrogant young men to the male gerontocracy. These rites sometimes include a painful circumcision, which is symbolic of castration.

In more complex, hierarchical societies, the elites go to great lengths to display and defend their social standing, while the lower orders submit to prescribed degrees of abasement. As a society becomes more egalitarian, such rituals are increasingly resented and resisted, which can give rise to violent outbursts and outright revolution. Thus Meghan Markle, who came from a more egalitarian society, famously mocked the practice of curtseying to Queen Elizabeth II, while her husband the duke squirmed by her side.

Because elites live by their pride, and because they embody their people and culture, their humiliation can be especially poignant and emblematic. In 260 CE, the Roman emperor Valerian, after losing the Battle of Edessa, arranged a meeting with Shapur I, the Shahanshah (King of Kings) of the Sassanid Empire. Shapur betrayed the truce and seized Valerian, holding him captive for the rest of his life. According to some accounts, Shapur used Valerian as a footstool when mounting his horse. After Valerian offered Shapur a huge ransom for his release, he was flayed alive or, by another account, made to swallow molten gold. His skin was then stuffed with straw and displayed as a trophy. Even if these accounts of humiliation are invented, or grossly exaggerated, they were invented for a reason.

Humiliation and Human Dignity

Humiliation need not involve aggression or coercion. People can readily be humiliated through more passive means such as being ignored or overlooked, taken for granted, or denied a right or privilege. They can also be humiliated by being rejected, abandoned, abused, betrayed, or used as a means to an end.

Immanuel Kant (d. 1804) argued that, by virtue of their reason and free will, human beings are not means to an end but ends in themselves, with a moral dimension that invests them with dignity and the right to ethical treatment. Therefore, to humiliate people, that is, to treat them as something less than ends-in-themselves, is to deny them their very humanity. Kant sought to ground human dignity in metaphysics; but even if this project must fail, civilisation requires us to behave as if it were a brute fact of nature.

Humiliation can befall anyone at any time—and this is all the more true in the age of social media. As British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne was a credible contender for the leadership of the Liberal Democrat Party. But in February 2012, he was charged with perverting the course of justice over a 2003 speeding ticket. His ex-wife claimed that he had coerced her into accepting the penalty points on his behalf. Huhne resigned from the Cabinet while denying the charge. When the trial opened in February 2013, he changed his plea to ‘guilty’, resigned as a Member of Parliament, and left the Privy Council. By the end of this sorry saga, he had traded a seat in Cabinet for a mattress in a prison cell. Every twist and turn of his downfall had been chronicled in the media, which went so far as to publish highly personal text messages between him and his then 18-year-old son that laid bare their fractious relationship. In a video statement for the 2007 Liberal Democrat Party leadership election campaign, Huhne had stated: ‘Relationships, including particularly family relationships, are actually the most important things in making people happy and fulfilled.’ Although his misdemeanours had been mundane—Huhne was hardly Jack the Ripper—his humiliation could not have been more complete.

Why Humiliation Is Worse Than Death

When we are humiliated, we can almost feel our heart shrivelling. For many months, sometimes years, we may be preoccupied or obsessed by our humiliation and its real or imagined perpetrators. We may respond with anger, fantasies of revenge, sadism, delinquency, or terrorism, among others. We may also internalise the trauma, leading to emotional disturbances such as fear and anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, sleeplessness, paranoia, social isolation, apathy, depression, and suicidal ideation.

Severe humiliation is, arguably, a fate worse than death itself, insofar as death merely destroys our life, whereas humiliation destroys our standing as well as our life—and leaves us standing, ghostlike, to survey the ruins. For this reason, prison inmates who have suffered severe humiliation are routinely placed on suicide watch.

It is in the nature of humiliation that it undermines the ability of victims to defend themselves against their aggressors. In any case, anger, violence, and revenge are ineffectual responses to humiliation because they do little to reverse or repair the damage done. Victims of humiliation have to find the strength and self-esteem to come to terms with their humiliation—or, if that proves too difficult, abandon the lives that they had made in the hope of starting in another.

I notice that, throughout this essay, I have subconsciously chosen to refer to the subjects of humiliation as ‘victims’, and to the perpetrators as ‘aggressors’. This suggests, along with Kant, that humiliation is rarely if ever a measured or justified response.

Continue Exploring

If this essay spoke to you, you might look into Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions.

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The Psychology and Philosophy of Envy

By Neel Burton | August 21, 2014

Why Envy Is the Most Shameful of All Emotions

The Monomaniac of Envy, by Théodore Géricault (c. 1822)—envy written upon the face.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Essay substantially revised on 8 September 2026.

Joseph Epstein quipped that, of the deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all. ‘Envy’ and the older term ‘invidiousness’ derive from the Latin invidia, ‘to look against’, with reference, originally, to casting an evil eye on someone. In Dante’s Purgatorio, the envious have their eyelids sewn shut with leaden wire—suggesting that envy arises from, or leads to, a form of blindness.

To experience envy, three conditions must be met. First, we must be confronted with a person (or persons) with something—a possession, quality, or achievement—that has eluded us. Second, we must desire that something for ourself. And third, we must be personally pained by the associated emotions—‘personally pained’ because it is this personal dimension that distinguishes envy from more detached, normative feelings such as outrage or injustice. In sum, envy is the personal pain caused by the desire for the advantages of others. In Old Money (1988), Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. describes the pain of envy as, ‘the almost frantic sense of emptiness inside oneself, as if the pump of one’s heart were sucking on air.’ Envy is mean and miserly, and arguably the most shameful of the deadly sins. Our envy is hardly ever admitted, often, not even to ourself.

Envy vs Jealousy: What’s the Difference?

Many people say ‘jealous’ when what they mean is ‘envious’. Envy and jealousy are subtly different constructs. If envy is the personal pain caused by the desire for the advantages of others, jealousy is the personal pain caused by the fear of losing one’s advantages to others, or sharing one’s advantages with others. In short, envy is covetous, jealousy is possessive. Jealousy is not circumscribed to the romantic sphere, but can also involve one’s friends, reputation, expertise, and so on. Compared to envy, jealousy is easier (or less hard) to admit to, suggesting that it might be the lesser of the two evils.

Why We Envy

Envy is deeply ingrained in the human psyche and common to all times and people. Our ancestors lived in fear of arousing the envy of the gods, whom they placated with elaborate rituals and offerings. In Greek mythology, it is Hera’s envy for Aphrodite that set off the Trojan War. In the Bible, it is from envy that Cain murdered Abel, and ‘through the devil’s envy that death entered the world’ (Solomon 2:24). And in the Mahabharata, it is from ‘burning envy’ that Duryodhana waged epic war against his cousins the Pandavas.

Envy is usually directed towards those with whom we compare ourselves, those with whom we feel we are in competition. As Bertrand Russell wrote: ‘Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.’ Envy has never been more prevalent than it is today. Our egalitarian age encourages us to compare ourself to one and all, and social media make this all too easy, fanning the flames of our envy. By emphasizing the material and tangible over the spiritual and invisible, the twin pillars of consumerism and empiricism have undermined the one countervailing force capable of containing the blaze.

The pain of envy arises not from the desire for the advantages of others so much as the feeling of inferiority occasioned by their lack in ourself. Ironically, the energy expended in envy, and in not arousing it in others, holds us back from realising our full potential. Envy also costs us friends and allies, and restrains and undermines even our most intimate relationships. In some cases, it can lead to acts of sabotage, as with the child who breaks the toy that it knows it cannot have. Over time, our anguish and resentment may give rise or contribute to mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and insomnia; and physical health problems such as infections, heart disease, and cancer. We are, quite literally, consumed by our envy.

How Envy Hides Itself

It is an unusual person who can be genuinely, unreservedly happy for someone else’s success, although this becomes easier if the success is trivial, or if it is a kind of failure, or if it is part of a bigger picture of failure. In some people, envy can give rise to defensive operations such as apathy, irony, scorn, snobbery, and narcissism, which have in common the use of contempt to minimize the existential threat posed by the advantages of others. Another common defence against envy is to incite it in those whom we would envy, reasoning that, if they envy us, we have no reason to envy them.

Bottled up envy can also morph into ressentiment, which is the reassignment of the pain that accompanies our sense of failure or inferiority onto a ready bogeyman, such as immigrants, gays, or the European Union. I discuss scapegoating at much greater length in Hide and Seek.

People take great care to disguise their envy. They sometimes betray it through indirect expressions such as Schadenfreude [German, lit. ‘harm-joy’], which is joy or pleasure derived from the misfortune of another. Schadenfreude helps to sell the news, which is riddled with stories of fallen celebrities, disgraced politicians, and disgruntled all-sorts. Although the term is modern—first attested, in German, in the 1740s—the emotion it denotes is much older. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle refers to it as epikhairekakia, which has the rare demerit of being even harder to pronounce.

But whatever we want to call it, the Book of Proverbs explicitly warns against it:

Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.

As its etymology suggests, envy is a way of looking against another—and, in doing so, blinding ourselves to the bigger picture. When in its grips, we are as the captain of a ship who navigates not by the stars in the firmament but by the distorted lens of an inverted telescope. The vessel veers hither and thither, and is soon wrecked by rock, reef, or storm. By thwarting us, envy makes us even more envious, opening up a vicious circle of envy, short-sightedness, and pettiness.

It could be argued that envy, usually under the guise of outrage or compassion, is a force for social change that promotes democracy and equality. Left unchecked, the politics of envy ends in communism, which aims at creating a society that is free from envy. But in practice, those who live, and die, under the hammer and sickle become not less but more envious, grassing on their neighbours for the slightest of perceived advantages. Just as envy drives communism, so greed drives capitalism. Greed too can be fuelled by envy, but at least seeks to level up rather than level down, to build rather than destroy.

How to Overcome Envy

So, how to keep a lid on envy? When we envy a friend for her luxury car, we ignore or heavily discount all the efforts and sacrifices that have gone into affording and maintaining it, to say nothing of the risks and inconveniences of owning such a car. In the words of Charles Bukowski (d. 1994), ‘Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell.’ In life, we are rich not only by what we have, but also and above all by what we do not. It’s easy to overlook that the investment banker or hedge fund manager has traded his soul for his ‘success’, and, as a result, lacks the vitality to enjoy whatever advantages he may have acquired. Such a hollowed-out husk is not to be envied but pitied. To keep a lid on envy, we have to keep on reframing, and reframing requires the perspective that envy denies.

What about those lucky few who have inherited wealth without any effort or sacrifice? In the Indian traditions, ‘lucky’ people are merely enjoying the fruits of their past karmic actions, including the past karmic actions of their parents, who nurtured and educated them, and of their grandparents, who nurtured and educated their parents, and so on. Occasionally, as with lottery winners, luck is entirely undeserved, making our envy all the more virulent. But inherent in the nature of luck is that it evens out over time, so that there is no point in everyone taking turns to envy everyone else. In the long run, we tend to get more or less what we deserve—and then, whoever we are, our luck runs out.

Nature compensates for its shortcomings: if we do not have one thing, we surely have some other, even if it is not the sort of thing that is plastered on billboards. But while we envy, we focus on what we lack rather than what we have and could otherwise be enjoying. Cultivating traits such as humility and gratitude can help us to gain and maintain proper perspective and protect against envy.

From Envy to Emulation

In the end, envy is a question of attitude. When we come across someone who is better or more successful than we are, we can react with joy, admiration, indifference, envy, or emulation. If envy is the pain that we feel because others have good things that we lack, emulation is the pain that we feel because we lack the good things that others have. This is a subtle but critical difference. By reacting with envy, we prevent ourselves from learning from those who know or understand more than we do, and thereby condemn ourselves to stagnation. But by reacting with emulation, we can humbly ask to be taught and, with our new-found insight, improve our lot.

Unlike envy, which is self-defeating, emulation enables us to grow and acquire the advantages that would otherwise have incited our envy. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle says that emulation is felt most of all by those who believe themselves to deserve certain good things that they do not yet have, and most keenly by those with an honourable or noble disposition. In other words, whether we react with envy or emulation is a function of our self-esteem.

Envy, my friend, is beneath you.