Why is guilt such a large part of western culture?

[XDurionX]

Learn the difference between guilt and responsibility.

[Veknazel]

Learn the difference between guilt and responsibility.

Responsibility is taking care of something you caused personally.
Guilt culture is being told to feel guilt for something that some other guy did 100 years ago.

Correct?

[Gestopft]

Guilt is the only way you can stop little boys from touching themselves. Or is that shame?

"Son, stop touching yourself or you'll go blind!"

"Dad, I'm over here."

[TEHPALLYTANK]

It's all about eroding pride and nationalism and turning people into mindless sheep. Nowadays being a patriot will get you shunned.

What is there to be proud of? You didn't do a bloody thing to determine where you were born.

[PC2]

This is something that always struck me as a bit off but why does guilt seem to play such a large role in the history of the west? From Canada with its Indian schools to Americans with slavery, and Europe with the holocaust.

Why is it that these issues seem to press so heavily on the mind of so many especially when the grand majority of people alive had nothing to do with them? Looking around the world this sort of culture seems to really only exist in the west what makes it stick around so long?

The West is the first civilization to achieve economic prosperity. Meaning we can sit around and be self-reflective in our free time, instead of worrying about starvation and survival. It's just a part of societal progress, moving up from basic needs to worrying about more luxurious topics like social justice.

[Zython]

This is something that always struck me as a bit off but why does guilt seem to play such a large role in the history of the west? From Canada with its Indian schools to Americans with slavery, and Europe with the holocaust.

Why is it that these issues seem to press so heavily on the mind of so many especially when the grand majority of people alive had nothing to do with them? Looking around the world this sort of culture seems to really only exist in the west what makes it stick around so long?

If you had nothing to do with them, why are you defending them?

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Responsibility is taking care of something you caused personally.
Guilt culture is being told to feel guilt for something that some other guy did 100 years ago.

Correct?

This is implying that this shit ever stopped in any meaningful way. It hasn't. It's just changed form.

[PC2]

The worst part about this entire post is the generalization that people in other countries don't engage in self-reflexion.

Actually that's true that they aren't reflective for the most part, most places don't have the luxury to be obsessed with self-criticism.

[kyoloco]

have you traveled to other countries

i feel like you havent

[igualitarist]

Because thats a source of political capital for many politicians.

[Veknazel]

This is implying that this shit ever stopped in any meaningful way. It hasn't. It's just changed form.

Where can I buy some slaves or holocaust some people?
Or should I just stop asking questions and hate myself?

[Byleth]

To forget your history is to doom yourself to repeat it.

[UnluckyAmateur]

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I thought it was telling them the palm of their hand will grow hair if they do so.

Basically this, which would be more fear than guilt or shame. We are good at making the public fearful.

[plato13]

What is there to be proud of? You didn't do a bloody thing to determine where you were born.

Thats exactly why it is so hypocritical. You arent allowed to be proud of the good things your ancestors did, yet you are suposed to feel guild for the bad things they did. Let bygones be bygones.

To forget your history is to doom yourself to repeat it.

This quote gets missused to justify so much bad propaganda. There is a huge difference between remembering and living in guilt. Its okay to have like a slavery or holocaust memorial day. Its not okay to expect people to feel bad for it every day of their lifes.

[Irian]

It's not. The idea that it is is a false narrative spun by people who want excuses to be shitty.

[Kraenen]

Because cultures that are molded by Abrahamic religions are often running on guilt-innocence type of social control.

There's an armchair hypothesis going around that actually the people pushing these notions of tribal/cultural/civilizational guilt are actually just descendants of puritans in the North East United States.

[Sunseeker]

Translation: I wasn't involved in any of these things so why should I care that they happened to people I don't give a fuck about?

[Kraenen]

This is implying that this shit ever stopped in any meaningful way. It hasn't. It's just changed form.

Actually it hasn't changed form at all. It's merely more represented in non-western countries, since the west has advanced socially and morally. But I guess the mind needs things to be "just as bad as they always were" in some strange equilibrium, so people pretend that wage slavery is just as bad as slavery, or that lynchings are a real threat, or that police violence is a real threat. Those are significant concerns, in other cultures. The things underlying this proposed guilt culture still haven't been eradicated outside the west.

[plato13]

NO ONE is living in guilt, it's an exaggeration to say so.

No one in a healthy mind is. Yet there are people who want you to to still feel bad for what the vikings did. Some mentaly sick people actualy live in guilt or even go as far as suicide to stop living in the guilt of the holocaust. You would be suprised about what kind of people you meet when working in a mental hospital.

[Byleth]

This quote gets missused to justify so much bad propaganda. There is a huge difference between remembering and living in guilt. Its okay to have like a slavery or holocaust memorial day. Its not okay to expect people to feel bad for it every day of their lifes.

I don't personally feel any guilt for either of the examples you gave, but I sure as hell am not going to forget them, and I will definitely make sure my children understand what happened and why so that they can use that information to make critical decisions in the future.

[Kraenen]

NO ONE is living in guilt, it's an exaggeration to say so.

I mean I've literally had conversations with people on this board who think Germans needs to be suppressed because of what Nazi Germany did. If that's not trying to impose a life of guilt based on one's tribe, guilt would have lost its meaning. Generally political activists (just using this as a referent since we should all know what this means) believe in some sense of responsibility for mending the ills of the past (institutionalized racism), and that this responsibility is heavier due to the person's race (a white person has more responsibility for making life better for black people), and that the race of the person in fact determines how responsible they are, given racial privilege means power and therefore responsibility. There's also plenty of emotionality involved in this school of thought - the shaming and condescending tone of which should be very obvious. Again, if this isn't some sense of racial guilt, the general definitions of guilt should be re-written.