Behind the beautiful facade of the sovereign individual lies the social anxiety of societal degradation and inferiority. A sociological investigation of shame, that everyday emotion with which people react to the social exposure of their own failings or weaknesses, is primarily connected to the question of how social inequality is reproduced daily in our society. The central thesis is that shame plays as important a role in the processing of social inequality as, conversely, strategies of shaming do in the everyday exercise of power by dominant groups. The contemporary diagnostic value of this investigation lies in demonstrating the significance of feelings of shame and inferiority in a society characterized by individualization and new forms of social competition.