SECOND OPINION: Olive Travers on the virtues, power and abuse of humility
As the Christian world prepares to celebrate the birth of a God who humbled himself to be born in a stable, talk of a different level of humiliation has dominated our airwaves. The fact that the word "humble" comes immediately after "human rights" in the dictionary adds a note of irony given the protagonists who have given rise to the current focus on humiliation.
However, while the goings-on between Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams illustrate the futility of one party seeking to humiliate another as part of a peace process, other manifestations of humiliation are all around us.
In the dictionary, humiliation is defined as "to make someone feel worthless or robbed of their dignity and self respect".
This is not something we would imagine we might queue up to experience. Yet in order to obtain the five minutes of fame that being on television bestows, some people do precisely that. Contestants on the all too ubiquitous reality television shows, and particularly the has-beens on shows like I'm a celebrity - get me out of here, consider the humiliation of being voted off as a worthwhile price to pay for the transient media exposure.
The quiz programme, The Weakest Link, has best refined the concept of humiliation as entertainment. Here contestants subject themselves to Anne Robinson's disparaging personal insults before doing "the walk of shame". Robinson's cultivation of a dominatrix persona appeals to those who indulge in S&M and bondage fetishes.
The success of programmes based on the idea of humiliating participants is dependant on our need to indulge our own feelings of superiority.
Humiliation is used to assert power. This can be subtly done due to our tolerance of how those we consider either inferior to or a threat to us are treated. We require the unemployed, refugees and those on social welfare to suffer the indignity of queuing to survive without complaint. Those begging on our streets or stepped over in the doors of our cities are an extension of this humiliation.
Poverty and humiliation have always been bedfellows. In this, the 21st century, we are a short journey from the days of the hiring fairs and the lines of Irish labourers, known as "horses", waiting to be picked for a day's work on England's building sites.
Humiliation has regularly been used as a punishment for those who don't conform to community norms - the "stocks" of old have been replaced by the manacled walk of shame for those accused of crime, even before being found guilty. If found guilty, they may have to endure the humiliation of having to "slop out" as an additional part of the sentence.
Our fear of being humiliated is exploited in the current shrill campaign to frighten us into paying our TV licence. Failure to do so will, apparently, lead to the intimate details of our sexual proclivities being shouted aloud in a courtroom!
If we don't make our tax returns, we risk being named and shamed in the newspapers.
These humiliations will, of course, only work if we have been socialised into accepting the norms of our particular society.
It can be seen, therefore, that the act of humiliating another person gives the humiliator power. People who experience themselves as powerless may opportunistically seek to attain power through the bullying and humiliation of the vulnerable.
Children have traditionally been at the receiving end of this abuse of power, as evidenced by the treatment of children in institutions. Indeed, the image of a child standing in a corner wearing a dunce's hat, and much of what was considered normal punishment of children in the recent past, we would now view as ritualised humiliation.
Some of the deepest humiliations, however, can be inflicted behind closed doors in the perpetual power struggles which define intimate adult relationships.
Only those who know each other intimately can push with deadly accuracy the buttons which inflict maximum humiliation. How quickly love turns to hate when this weapon is used.
Humility, "the quality or state of being humble", should be regarded as a virtue and is personified in the likes of Mother Teresa.
The church has always championed humility and the cross of ashes still worn on the forehead on Ash Wednesday is what remains of the tradition of wearing sack cloth and ashes to demonstrate genuine repentance for one's sins - a tradition curiously still obviously favoured by Dr Paisley.
Humility must be a choice and there is nothing harder to digest than force-fed humble pie. Being humble involves "showing deference" and being "modest and unpretentious". It is surely incompatible with being a politician. The song, Oh Lord it's so hard to be humble, is one which we all need to take note, not just Dr Paisley and Mr Adams.
• Olive Travers is a clinical psychologist working in the north west.