Shame builds character. I truly believe this. And not just because I was raised Catholic, back in the days when shame was a primary component of the church's belief system. At least at my parish.
  
   The nuns who taught me to read and write also taught me to feel shame over - to my admittedly hazy recollection - just about everything. Or at least about everything I really liked.
  
   I felt shame when I cheated on an algebra test. I still cheated, but I DID feel shame. I felt shame when I lied to my parents. This in no way prevented me from sometimes lying like a Republican at a homeless shelter, but again, I DID feel shame about it (unlike the Republican).
  
   And sex; don't even talk to me about sex. Sister Elizabeth made darn sure every boy in my seventh-grade class knew - KNEW, mind you - that we were going to fry in Hell if we so much as THOUGHT of Mary Beth McNamarah as anything other than a holy vessel of future Catholic motherhood.
  
   Now, telling a seventh-grade boy not to think about sex is like telling a skydiver not to pull the ripcord on his parachute.
  
   Of course, what we boys actually knew about sex could easily have been printed (in very large type) on one side of a playing card. But that didn't stop us from THINKING about it pretty much all the time.
  
   There were no hell fires hot enough - or nuns strict enough - to keep us from speculating on what Mary Beth would look like in her knickers. This speculation was especially problematic when I was a boy, owing in large part to the fact that our only experience with girls in knickers came from purloined copies of our fathers' "Playboy" magazines. Back then, all the "good parts" were airbrushed out. It was maddening, not to mention more than a little confusing.
  
   Add to this bewildering mix a heaping helping of red-hot shame and it's a wonder any of us ever managed to develop anything resembling a successful relationship with a member of the opposite sex.
  
   But shame, for all its faults, did give us some sort of perspective on life. It gave us a sense of right and wrong, of civic responsibility, of good and evil. If you felt ashamed, chances are you were doing something naughty. Of course, SOMETIMES you were just a victim of your programming, but MOST times, you actually WERE doing something bad. Shame helped us identify those moments.
  
   These days shame has gotten a bad rap. Kids today are encouraged to feel good about themselves, to have a "positive self-image," no matter how rotten they may actually be. And so we're cranking out a generation of amoral dictators who imagine they can do no wrong.
  
   Thank you Doctor Spock.
  
   Sister Elizabeth may not have been a child psychologist, but she knew enough about kids to know they are not angels by nature. Kids are not born moral. That stuff is learned behavior. Or, as is too often the case these days, NOT learned.
  
    Of course, it's easy for me to play ethicist from the vantage point of a 51-year-old adult. (I know, I know...I don't look a day over 24, but there you go.) I'm happily married, have a stable income, a good dog ... there's not much left in life to tempt me in ways which would encourage me to misbehave.
  
   Even so I still feel shame from time to time. I feel shame when I flip some guy half a peace sign in busy traffic, even if he obviously has it coming. I feel shame when I leave a lousy tip at a restaurant, even when the service stinks. I feel shame when I collect a paycheck after spending half a day writing a lame-o column about shame (I'll get over that, I guess).
  
   Sure, all that's just small-time shame stuff. I'm sure if I did anything really rotten I'd feel BIG-time shame. And that, in turn, prevents me - usually - from doing anything really rotten.
  
   So all in all, shame's a good thing, I think. Turns out Sister Elizabeth was right all along. It kinda makes me feel ashamed of all the stuff I said about her back in seventh grade.
  
   But I refuse to feel guilty about thinking impure thoughts about Mary Beth McNamarah. Sometimes, you just gotta pull that rip cord and deal with the shame later.
  
   To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or Mary Beth McNamarah's current address, e-mail mtaylor@midmich.net or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Want more? Archived "Reality Check" columns as well as photos, links and previously unpublished "mini-columns" may be found online at http://mtrealitycheck.typepad.com.