I am reading the Iliad right now. The intro discusses the difference between an honor/shame culture and a guilt culture.

The standard Greek culture was an honor/shame paradigm. Honor is gained by acting rightly according to the accepted standard, and shame from not living up to that. Failing to do so meant dishonor. For the warriors, honor meant killing an enemy and taking his armor. If done enough, he would, in a sense, defeat even death itself by receiving undying fame. 

In this paradigm, honor and shame come from the way others perceive you. It is external.

By contrast, our own culture has been molded by Christianity, and is a guilt culture. Guilt occurs when you don’t follow the laws of God, and you internally feel remorse. I won’t go into much more than this right now only because it isn’t germane to the particular distinction I’d like to make.

We are dealing with a lawsuit against a former partner where I work. This person provided little value as far as the type of work, and was involved in endless self-promoting. The firm’s bank account was used as a personal slush fund, and eventually, this person split the firm and tried to take all the most profitable attorneys with her as well as our biggest clients. She comes from an honor culture.

My boss has described her as amoral rather than immoral, and I think the difference in culture largely explains it. Where I would feel internal remorse and guilt over such actions, she seemed to feel nothing of the sort. Likely because as long as she appears good in front of others, as long as she appears to be moving up, then her ‘honor’ remains intact. There were no internal feelings of guilt about her actions. The important aspect is whether or not one gains honor in the sight of others. However, if exposed and humiliated, knocked down, and if all goes well in the lawsuit in this case, disbarred…. then shame would be inflicted.

That appears to be the only remedy in this case since this person has shown no remorse over taking hundreds of thousands of dollars and trying to personally ruin the lives of those that didn’t come with her. As long as she remained in a high position (and her relentless self-promotion and charm has achieved that, at least so far), then there was nothing to feel guilty about. She was simply grabbing all that she could. It didn’t matter to her that others might have suffered, they should have watched out more for themselves. The only thing that mattered was putting on a good face to the outside world.

But of course our culture here is built on a different version of right/wrong and thankfully, she will be tried according to those rules.  

The start of the Iliad has Agamemnon grousing that his prize, a woman, wasn’t as good as Achilles’ prize. His honor demanded that as king, he should have the best of everything, so he insists on taking Achilles woman. Achilles submits to this, but it doesn’t sit well with him. As the Greek forces go to war against Troy, Achilles, the Greeks strongest warrior, refuses to fight since he has been slighted. The Trojan forces gain the upper hand and Agamemnon promises Achilles he will undo all he did, and even bring seven-fold reward beyond restoring the original status. This should, in Agamemnon’s mind, remedy the damaged honor of Achilles and bring him back on board.  

Achilles, however, refuses and tears down the entire honor culture mindset that stirred Agamemnon to wage war in the first place. He says that there is no reward in these endless revenges and seeking of honor, and that he is content in himself because of his own actions. This internal contentment, as opposed to external validation, is the primary difference between shame culture and guilt culture. It’s interesting to have a front row seat to see how it plays out even today.