Commentary: Till We Have Faces—On Humiliation

My commentary takes up two points raised by Drs. Torres and Bergner: first, the social context in which humiliation takes place and the way such behavior is normalized; and second, the question of face, and in this context, the loss of face and its impact on identity. For me, the key concern in relation to humiliation is not so much loss of entitlement status, but a loss of identity. Humiliation is a fundamental attack on narrative identity, but I will make the (perhaps uncomfortable) suggestion that not everyone is humiliate-able and that, to some extent, one may be able to choose the extent of one's injuries through loss of face.