The Absence of Shame: When Dignity Protects Despite the Harm

There is a difference between ontological dignity — the inherent worth of a person by the simple fact of existing, which depends neither on position nor salary — and existential dignity — the concrete conditions that allow one to continue existing as a dignified subject. This second dignity is not limited to housing or material resources: it equally includes the way one is treated in relation to others — contempt, insult, lack of consideration are attacks on existential dignity just as much as material precariousness. The first dignity, meanwhile, can be neither granted nor taken away by anyone.

When existential dignity is attacked — loss of income, precariousness, contempt — ontological dignity can function as an existential cushioning: the certainty of one's own worth, independent of any outside validation, allows one to go through the blow without collapsing. This is not ignoring the real difficulty. It is refusing to let it become the sole verdict on one's worth.

There is no particular pride in being poor, any more than there would be in becoming rich — becoming rich would produce more relief at no longer having to fight than any kind of pride. What remains, in both cases, is the absence of shame: the refusal to let one's economic situation become a definition of self. This refusal is not, however, a comfort acquired once and for all — it is lived as a constant struggle between a sincere indifference to others' judgment and the need to regulate that indifference in public, so as not to be read as someone "who lacks self-awareness."

This mechanism connects directly to the principle of existential sovereignty: the capacity to assess the legitimacy of an external norm before letting it dictate one's behavior, and to refuse to submit to it when that legitimacy is lacking. This distance implies no moral hierarchy toward those who live the same situation without achieving the same distance — it remains a capacity developed under particular circumstances, never proof of superior worth over others.