Испанский стыд и производство нормы: К аффективной теории социального порядка

Логос. 2026. Т. 36. № 3. С. 1–16.

Khestanov R.

The article proposes an affective theory of social order, taking as its starting point the phenomenon of "Spanish shame" (ispanski styd) – the vicarious embarrassment experienced by a bystander witnessing another person's social failure. Tracing three competing etymological accounts of the expression, the author argues that the uncertainty of its origin is not a defect but an analytical resource: each version illuminates a distinct dimension of the phenomenon. Neurobiological evidence (Krach, Müller-Pinzler, Paulus) establishes that vicarious embarrassment activates the same neural structures as physical pain, and that its intensity correlates with social closeness to the norm-violator. Phenomenological analysis drawing on Gumbrecht's concept of "presence" identifies a fundamental temporal asymmetry: the bystander's bodily reaction precedes any articulation of the violated norm. From this emerges the article's central thesis: the norm does not precede the affect as its condition but arises as its retroactive rationalisation. Bringing together Lacan's theory of the gaze, Goffman's "expressive order", Elias's account of shame in the civilising process, Kotsko's sociology of awkwardness, and Sloterdijk's typology of Zynismus and Kynismus, the author constructs a comparative typology of strategies for managing norms through affect. Dostoevsky is read as a theorist of "preventive immunity" – a collective agreement of mutual non-observation that neutralises the normative shame mechanism before it fires. The analysis concludes with a diagnosis of post-truth as the collapse of a shared capacity for vicarious embarrassment – an affective, not merely epistemological, crisis. The name "Spanish shame" is interpreted as a cultural symptom: the appropriation of affect through its alienation.

Keywords: Достоевский, Гофман, аффект, социальная норма, стыд, shame, affect, Гумбрехт, post-truth, постправда, неловкость, awkwardness, Lacan, Dostoevsky, Goffman, H.-U. Gumbrecht, Лакан, Spanish shame, social norm, Sloterdijk, affective theory, испанский стыд, Слотердайк, аффективная теория

Publication based on the results of: Human in the Digital Environment: Inclusive and Adaptive Strategies of Culture, Biopolitics and Biosemiotics (2025)