philosophy
The Strange Persistence of Guilt in Modern Life
Moral Philosophy, UNC Chapel Hill
Intellectual Historian
0
0
Genesis
Response
Penultimate
Finale
November 20th, 2019
Dear Professor McClay,
In your essay, “The Strange Persistence of Guilt,” you say that there is a rising tide of guilt in our society that is stifling the guilt-bearers and wreaking havoc on our social relations. No doubt there is something to what you say. It clearly struck a chord with David Brooks, who wrote a justly admiring column about your essay. And just the other day, a colleague of mine at a top-tier private university said that he thought that his white, middle-class students feel guilty just to be alive. But, if this aptly describes a phenomenon taking place in one segment of our society, we should set it next to some other observations to put it into context.
First, I have to report that when I read the papers every morning, I am constantly struck by the truly horrible things people seem to be doing all the time — political leaders, businessmen, priests, not to mention the occasional celebrity, and all these people’s enablers. I find myself asking, “How do these people sleep at night?” If they are experiencing a rising tide of guilt, it is not obvious from the papers. Even if there is a rising tide of guilt for some, I wonder whether there is also a rising tide of amoralism and callousness in others. And if so, which is the bigger problem?
Second, we should acknowledge that, for many people in our society, there has always been plenty of guilt. Women have always been highly susceptible to guilt. Trained as they have been to think that their proper function is to serve others, they (or, read: me) feel guilty at the drop of a burnt pot roast, a late arrival at a daughter’s soccer game, a thoughtless comment to a student. And it is well-known that children are prone to feel guilty — to think it is their fault if their parents divorce, or one parent dies, or even if a parent abuses them. So the guilt that is rising now is perhaps just more salient because it is felt by people who did not tend to feel it so easily in the past.
Still, I grant that the phenomenon you are talking about is a real and recognizable one, and, as you spell it out, a regrettable one, too. For you are not talking about people feeling guilty for having lied, cheated, stolen, raped, murdered, much less burnt the pot roast. (Such guilt can be appropriate, and lead to restitution and reform, and the anticipation of such guilt can motivate us to avoid the behavior that would induce it.)
The guilt you are talking about includes such guilt as one feels out of recognition that there is always more one can do to make the world a better, or a less bad, place — one can feed a starving child on the other side of the world if one foregoes the concert or restaurant and gives the money to Oxfam instead, one can reduce one’s carbon footprint if one takes the bus to work, and refuses to fly anywhere for vacation, and so on.
Included, too, is the guilt one may feel in connection with the acknowledgement that we belong to a race, a community, a nation (pick a nation, any nation, more or less) that has committed atrocities, spoiled the planet, exploited others, both within our borders and without. But is the problem here a problem with guilt as such?
I am inclined to think these are cases of misplaced guilt, or at least excessive or disproportional guilt. The guilt is perhaps a symptom of a different large-scale social problem (or two): First, that we don’t know how far our responsibilities extend, or know how to determine an answer we can believe in. And second, that we tend to think too crudely about morality, seeing our responsibilities in overly simplistic terms — either we are guilty of failing in our moral duties or innocent and so absolved of any need to think or do anything more. We need more feelings and judgements in our repertoire in order to deal with the sorts of issues you mention. And we need more public discussion and reflection on such subjects to help us determine what we owe to ourselves and each other.
This overly simple thinking is connected, too, with your discussion of people who identify as victims. You suggest that one response to guilt — one way people cope with guilt — is by identifying themselves as or with victims, for identifying as a victim gives one the status of an innocent. Further, victimhood allows or encourages one to project one’s guilt onto one’s victimizer. And so, as guilt rises, so do the number and volume of accusations, leading to the all too recognizable state of polarization and incivility.
Here, too, I want to say, is the problem with victimhood as such? There are victims, after all. It can’t be wrong to notice it and name it. But just as guilt can be proportional or disproportional guilt, so can a person’s sense of injury, of victimhood. And in any case, being a victim of one wrong or injustice does not absolve one of responsibility for what is within one’s control.
I am not sure we disagree about any of this: As you say, the first step is to understand a problem, and only then can we think about how to alleviate it. Perhaps these thoughts are aimed at a little of both.
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