The Deep Forces of Dignity and Humiliation

We often assume that history is shaped by power, money, and ideology. But behind those visible forces lies something quieter and more primal: the experience of recognition and dignity or, more precisely, its opposites: indignity and humiliation.

Across time and culture, human beings have sought recognition—not just survival. From early forager bands to sprawling empires, a consistent theme emerges: people want to matter. They want to be seen, heard, and valued. And when that fundamental recognition is stripped away or denied, something volatile is unleashed.

History shows us what happens when dignity is denied—systematically or symbolically. Unfortunately, humiliation is the catalyst we often miss or minimize until it affects us ourselves. Revolutions, civil wars, and societal breakdowns often appear driven by economic or political forces. But zoom in ethnographically, and you’ll find humiliation as a potent accelerant.

Here are three very different examples with deep, long-lasting repercussions:

• The Treaty of Versailles sowed the seeds for WWII not only because of its punitive terms, but because of the deep humiliation it inflicted on Germany.
• Colonial regimes maintained power not only through force but by denying entire populations the dignity of self-rule, language, and cultural pride—leading to anti-colonial struggles rooted in the restoration of collective esteem.
• Everyday workplace conflicts, too, often escalate not over policy, but over a sense that one’s dignity has been violated—dismissed in a meeting, excluded from a decision, undermined without recourse.

Humiliation is not a soft emotion—it is a hard force.

Humiliation or dignity shape behavior, identity, even geopolitics. Anthropology teaches us that status, recognition, and belonging are not cultural luxuries; they are evolutionary imperatives.

From a neurological perspective, dignity isn’t just a moral ideal—it’s a biological need. Social neuroscience shows that the brain registers social pain—like exclusion, shame, or status loss—in the same neural circuitry as physical pain (Eisenberger et al., 2003). Humiliation isn’t metaphorically painful; it is literally painful.

The prefrontal cortex (where we regulate emotions and navigate social norms) interacts closely with the amygdala, which processes threats. When dignity is violated—especially in public or high-stakes environments—the brain interprets it as an existential social threat, triggering defensive or aggressive responses. They may look irrational or overblown from the outside. But from the inside, they’re deeply coherent: the brain is fighting to restore coherence to the self.

This helps explain why individuals, groups, and even nations react so strongly to perceived slights—real or symbolic. Let’s look at several current, high-stakes examples where humiliation, not just strategy, has shaped social and political behavior:

1. The MAGA Movement in the U.S.

Many supporters of the "Make America Great Again" movement express a sense of cultural and economic displacement—what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls a "deep story" of waiting in line for the American Dream while others are perceived to cut ahead. Beneath the rhetoric lies a powerful emotional current: felt humiliation, both economic and symbolic.

MAGA, at its core, is about restoring perceived lost dignity. This helps explain the emotional intensity and resistance to critique: it’s not about facts; it’s about status, belonging, recognition, and retribution.

2. Ukraine and Russia

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has many strategic dimensions, but it also reflects a geopolitical psychology of humiliation. The fall of the Soviet Union—perceived by many in Russia not as liberation, but as global diminishment—left a long-standing wound in national identity.

President Putin has often framed Western alliances and NATO expansion as acts of disrespect toward Russia’s stature. The war, in this light, becomes partly an effort to restore national dignity, however costly.

Meanwhile, Ukrainians resist not just for sovereignty but to assert their own identity and dignity, long denied or co-opted. Both sides are animated by powerful identity narratives rooted in collective memory and humiliation.

3. Israel and Gaza

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often explained in terms of land, security, and religion. But at a deeper level, it is also a story of intergenerational humiliation.

• For many Israelis, especially those shaped by the trauma of the Holocaust and centuries of antisemitism, any existential threat reactivates the collective memory of past degradation.
• For Palestinians, decades of occupation, displacement, and restricted mobility register not only as political constraints, but as a systematic denial of dignity—the right to live freely, safely, and with recognized nationhood.

This does not mean that humiliation is the only driver of these conflicts, only that it is an often overlooked and severely minimized component. In each of the situations above, neither side responds only to tactical conditions or concerns. Rather, they are shaped by historical wounds, deeply embedded in group identity, memory, and emotion.

Dignity Matters!

Dignity refers to the inherent worth or value of a person that entitles them to be treated with respect. It encompasses self-respect, the respect of others, and the belief that every individual possesses an intrinsic value regardless of status, ability, or circumstance.

Dignity is both foundational and fragile. It anchors moral claims to equality and justice while remaining vulnerable to the way we treat one another in everyday life. It lives at the intersection of identity, respect, and recognition—a concept that remains essential for ethical leadership, healing, and humane systems.

While the underlying psychological and emotional experience may be universal, the idea of dignity is differently anchored across different philosophical traditions. Below is a brief sketch that traces the idea of dignity in European philosophical tradition:

• Stoic philosophers like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius believed in natural law and the idea that all human beings, through their capacity for reason, share a common moral worth. This early form of universal human dignity emphasized inner virtue over external status.
• The Latin word dignitas originally referred to honor or prestige attached to a person’s social status or achievements. It was hierarchical, not egalitarian.
• The Hebrew Bible’s idea that humans are created in the image of God (imago Dei) profoundly shaped the Western moral imagination, suggesting every person possesses sacred worth.
• Christian thinkers like Thomas Aquinas later elaborated that human dignity arises from our rational soul and free will, thus grounding moral equality in divine creation.
• Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that dignity derives from our capacity for rational moral autonomy. Humans should always be treated as ends in themselves, never as means to an end—a foundational idea for modern ethics and human rights.
• The concepts of “unalienable rights” and “liberty, equality, fraternity” were infused with notions of human dignity, setting the stage for democratic and constitutional developments, particularly through the French and American revolutions.
• After WWII and the Holocaust, dignity became central to global moral and legal frameworks. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) recognizes dignity as universal, inalienable, and equal—an ethical bedrock for modern human rights discourse.

In non-Western traditions, the idea is anchored somewhat differently:

• Confucian dignity (highly influential in China, Korea, and Japan) is not about intrinsic equality but about behaving ethically according to one’s role and showing respect through ritual and duty. The concepts of Lǐ (ritual propriety), Rén (humaneness), and Miànzi (face) are relevant to the idea of dignity. In a sense, “face” represents one’s dignity, status, and moral standing in society. It’s highly relational and fragile—dependent on how others perceive the actions and conduct of others.
• In Ubuntu philosophy of sub-Saharan Africa, dignity is inherently communal. A person becomes a full human being through relationships of care, reciprocity, and respect (“I am because we are.”). Dignity here is co-created: it lives in the mutual acknowledgment of personhood. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu often invoked Ubuntu in framing post-apartheid justice as relational and restorative.
• The concepts of Karamah al-insan (human dignity), Izzah (honor), and Hurmah (sanctity) are core to Islamic thought and traditions. The Qur’an teaches that God has bestowed dignity on all of Adam’s children (Qur’an 17:70), indicating a universal form of dignity grounded in divine creation. Dignity is both divinely conferred and socially expressed. In practice, dignity is also bound up in family, gender, honor, and public comportment.
• The concepts of Atman (soul), Ahimsa (non-violence), Karuna (compassion) play an important part in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. In Hinduism, human dignity is linked to the presence of the divine (atman) in every being.
• In Buddhism, the emphasis is less on dignity as a fixed moral worth and more on compassionate presence and minimizing suffering for all sentient beings. Dignity here is connected to compassion, interdependence, and spiritual liberation.
• In Indigenous and First Nations traditions, dignity is often tied to sacred relations—with the land, the ancestors, and the community. In many Native American traditions, for example, worth comes from living in balance and humility, not from asserting individual rights or autonomy. Violations of dignity often occur when people are removed from their ecological or cultural roots. Dignity is ecological and spiritual, rooted in right relationship with all beings.

This brief review cautions us against applying a universalistic notion of dignity in our attempts to build more inclusive and just societies, communities and organizations. This is not a philosophical challenge, but a highly practical one, as the following examples illustrate.

All three are examples of dignity violations and of how unprepared we can be to put dignity into practice across difference.

• In the refugee camp case, the NGO operationalized dignity as individual, private, and protective, missing the dominant perception among the refugee community that perceives it as communal and relational. Both were unable and unprepared to “see” and attune to the other. This was essentially the same in the promotion in the multinational organization and the agribusiness.
• In the promotion case, the leadership and international HR practices were based on universalistic assumptions. They did not “see” their colleagues in a context where tenure and seniority mattered, and where discretion and relational deference matter more than transparency and individual public recognition.
• In the global heritage week case, Peter and the leadership of the agribusiness were blind to historical trauma, further aggravating the situation. They ignored that “land” was often acquired through violence, dispossession, forced labor or genocide. Furthermore, their narrative excluded Indigenous and Black agricultural knowledge, instead privileging a settler-colonial framing of productivity. And, the company’s celebration ignored the moral and emotional reality of employees whose families were marginalized or brutalized by the very “legacy” being praised.

Dignity is not about blindly following policies, standard operating procedures (SOPs), or values statements—it’s about interpreting values contextually. What feels like a dignity boost in one culture may feel like a dignity violation in another. The goal isn’t to abandon core principles, but to express them in ways that honor diverse moral logics.

• In the refugee camp case, the NGO needed to be prepared to invite the elders’ council to handle the matter, allow a public reconciliation ceremony in which Ali apologized to the community and the NGO acknowledged the cultural oversight, and create a new protocol that integrates local restorative practices with the NGO’s trauma-informed approach.
• In the promotion case, the global organization needed to hold private meetings with senior team members to acknowledge their contributions and concerns. A parallel recognition process was initiated to publicly honor their mentorship and long-standing service. And Minseo was offered executive coaching to help her navigate hierarchical dynamics and build allyship.
• In the global heritage week case, the Agrobusiness implemented Listening Circles—voluntary sessions for staff to share personal and family stories related to land, work, and identity. They also reframed Heritage Week. Future events require co-creation with diverse employee voices, and center multiple histories—including resistance, survival, and indigenous contributions. In addition, a company-wide communication acknowledges the harm caused, affirms the dignity of all employees, and commits to inclusive storytelling. Staff are also offered training on South Africa’s land history, apartheid’s economic legacy, and the role of corporate responsibility in post-colonial contexts.

How This Matters for the Future

Dignity matters in a world of crises, where humiliation threatens to escalate. Think about the growing refugee crisis due to war and climate change, the stagnation or reversal of social mobility in many societies that experience socio-economic polarisation, the fragmentation of social systems, the displacement through AI, the erosive role of social media, and the growth of loneliness to name just a few trends that threaten to exacerbate the cycles of humiliation.

If humiliation is a predictable neuro-social response to the loss of status, autonomy, or identity, then dignity is a form of preventive medicine—not just ethically, but strategically. We need to create systems and practices that support dignity by design!

Whether in global affairs, organizational culture, or community development, restoring and preserving dignity can:

• Defuse cycles of escalation before they spiral
• Increase psychological safety in teams and communities
• Create conditions for real dialogue, not performative exchange

Dignity is not uniform. What feels dignified in one cultural system may feel patronizing or inappropriate in another. But the desire for dignity is universal. This is where adaptive leadership and intercultural intelligence intersect.

For leaders and change-makers, some guiding questions include:

• In this system, who has voice and who is invisible?
• What behaviors or symbols carry dignity—or humiliation—across different groups?
• Are we creating environments where people feel recognized, respected, and real?
• How do we consistently expect, reinforce and reward dignity and dignifying practices?

Parting Thoughts

We cannot eliminate humiliation from human life. But we can recognize its power—and refuse to ignore it when shaping the future.

As designers and leaders, our work is not just to solve problems but to humanize the systems we build. As colleagues, co-workers and participants/members in systems, we are guardians, catalysts and stewards of human dignity.

This, I believe, is the true calling of Inclusive Leadership.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn as "Dignity and humiliation are deep drivers of behavior" in July 2025.

About the Author

Joerg Schmitz is a business anthropologist passionate about exploring human behavior through the lens of anthropology and organizational culture. He is the founder and Managing Director of The Inclusive Leadership Institute (@TheInclusiveLeadershipInstitute). After 35 years living in the US and working with organizations and institutions globally, he currently resides in Bremen, Germany. Connect with him at [email protected] to continue the conversation.