524
QUESTIONS OF GUILT
And I think there's a kind of external, or objective, logic or condition,
given the evidence, in terms of what is being done in our name in Viet–
nam, for all of us feeling guilt)' in a very a uthentic way. Now, there
are many things one can do with that guilt. But I would venture to
say that most of us in this room can think of certain moments where
a certain exquisite conjunction of shared and very special private guilt
came together. And since we are part of the American project, you
know, I would see that as not inauthentic.
SYLVANa ARlETI: I totally agree with the speakers about the limi–
tation of the Freudian concept of guilt. The main characteristic of col–
lective guilt is not doing evil, but the non-prevention of evil. The whole
borough of Queens is, in a certain way, collectively guilty for the mur–
der of Kitty Genovese. Also, and here I 'm borrowing from the concept
of a Finnish psychiatrist, Siirala, in the concept of collective guilt we
also have to include the guilt of the crimes committed by previous gen–
erations - for instance against the Indians or the Negroes - not for
having committed them, but for not having remedied them. Of course,
this feeling of collective guilt actually is not new.
It
hZls existed since
ancient times. Take the Oedipus complex in
Oedipus the King
by
Sophocles. Freud focused on only one aspect. The whole city was pun–
ished because it had committed a crime, but the crime \\'as that the
murder of Laius had not been avenged. It was not that Oedipus had
slept w.ith his mother. The collective guilt is the one that Freud
neglected.
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: Bob, do you feel guilty, or do you think you
are guilty, about the treatment of the Indians in this country before you
were born?
LIFTON: Well, I \\'ould put that at the borderline of guilt and re–
sponsibility. Dr. Arieti put it rather strongly, but I wouldn't dismiss
what he said. In other words, the fact that Indians h a\'e been mas–
sacred or that blacks ha\'e been ill-treated, and I am an American en–
joying the fruits of American life, gives me a sense that I have some
responsibility toward reparation. It isn't extreme guilt, but it's some–
thing that touches upon guilt in the broad sense that I'm using it. It's
on the borderline between guilt and responsibility.
PHILLIPS: But you're saying both things. You both
are
guilty and
feel
guilty.
FARBER: I want to go back a few steps. A reference was made
to the place of aggression in guilt. Of course, it does have a place if
one defines guilt as some injury to the human order. But I wanted
to add that aggression can cause guilt, of course, real guilt, but also
guilt feelings can cause aggression. Someone has remarked: be careful
of a man who is guilty; he can strike.
If
it is true, and I think it is,
that people with inauthentic or authentic guilt feelings can now become
aggressive about scapegoating others, we now have the occasion of a
kind of compounding of guilt.
GARY SPERO: The problem is not that people are going to devel–
op guilt feelings, whether it be universal guilt or inauthentic or
authentic guilt, but that people who continue without the guilt feel–
ings are the people who perpetuate bad policies. And that's where the
