Forum Discussion: Feeling Guilty
Wednesday July 23, 2008
Guilt is a curious human emotion. Or is it more of an attitude than an emotion? It's not even easy to say exactly what it is, but it does seem to serve an important role in the evolution of morality. Social animals without an ability to feel guilt would probably be less likely to follow the rules when not being monitored and/or when the chances of being caught are low. Guilt is thus the operation of the internalization of social rules, but knowing this doesn't tell us when feeling guilty is appropriate and when not.
The topic of guilt came up on (and derailed) Another Thread, and I started wondering whether I have kept up with the things I am supposed to feel guilty about.
Life used to be pretty simple. Before I was born, there were three things to feel guilty about.
1. Sex.
2. Blasphemy.
3. Not standing your ground in a futile gesture of defiance as 5000 cannonballs and 18,042 ferocious, shrieking, heavily armed, Ookabalaponga warriors rushed towards you.
Aside from those, you were pretty much O.K. And you knew where you stood. (Or didn't, in case 3.) (Or not for long, if you did.)
But times changed, and the old certainties were lost. The old guilts melted away, and a plethora of new ones replaced them. They have multiplied and mutated so much in the last sixty years that now I am really not sure what I should feel guilty about . I can think of these:
1. Not flossing my teeth.
2. Doubting that human-produced CO2 is causing potentially distastrous Global Warming.
3. Doubting any number of other official stories. (Also known as "being a conspiracy theorist".)
4. Eating that unhealthy stuff.
5. Derailing threads.
6. Feeling guilty about sex.
7. Not caring that there are only 24 speakers of the Ookabalaponga language left because the young people prefer to speak Spanish and go to the city to study dentistry.
8. Not even watching the two-hour documentary about there being only 24 speakers of the Ookabalaponga language left because the young people prefer to speak Spanish and go to the city to study dentistry.*
9. Being an old-fashioned Socialist.
10. Not being, or even saying, "postmodern".
11. Saying or even thinking anything which could just possibly be interpreted as racist or propagating any sort of negative stereotype**.
12. Smoking.
13. Pedantry, especially in repect of grammar and spelling.
14 Ogling women.
Please help an old man out here. Bring me up to speed with the modern postmodern world. Which ones should I strike of the list as outdated? What should I add?
*High School Ninja Vixens was on Channel 7 at the same time. See 6 and 14.
** Except where Arabs and Muslims are concerned.
What sorts of things do you feel guilty about? Does anything make you guilty which, in retrospect, you think shouldn't? Add your thoughts to the comments here or join the ongoing discussion in the forum.
Comments
There is so much that I’m “supposed” to feel guilty for, but little, if anything that I actually do feel guilty for. Not having religion takes so much of the guilt out of hedonism. The only thing I ever feel guilty about is if I do something hedonistic at the expense of someone else, but that’s rare, because I try to think about that aspect of it before I start.
I feel guilty when I (repeatedly) don’t accomplish a goal I’ve set for myself.
I also feel guilty if I am moody and hurt someone feelings.
So basically, I feel guilty when I break my own rules. Be damned about everyone’s else’s rules.
(Use this as fodder for those atheist-types that have no ethics, but make sure to forget to mention that I would never put anyone (or even their feelings) in harm’s way.)
What time did you say “High School Ninja Vixens” was going to be on?
I feel guilty for complaining about my circumstances when others have no food or medical care or a safe warm place to sleep.
I think you’re supposed to feel guilty if you spell it “post-modern” instead of “postmodern”. Should I feel guilty that I even know this? I remember Sunday school where they would try to convince me to feel guilty about almost everything: having a body, using the bathroom, thinking about girls, wanting to have a future, but especially about not feeling guilty about being what I was supposedly made to be.
Once, during my Christian days, I found myself guilt-free for a couple seconds. I then felt guilty for not feeling guilty.
I remember when I was under the brainwashed influence of a certain denomination of christianity (though this was when I was very young). I’d feel guilty about the silliest things, things that you can’t help but do/thing. Nowadays I only feel guilty if I unintentionally harm someone in someway, don’t live up to promises I’ve made, or don’t reach goals I’ve set for myself. Despite being godless, the third option is by far the most common.