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Anne Porter Guilt
Jesus may not have verbalised "I'll take the punishment for you" but it's what He did. I think I'm too simple minded to follow Josephine's reasoning,all I know is that a simple leap of faith got rid of my guilt and shame forever. Maybe that's why all the Christian scholars on the programme seem to have missed the point, they're making it too complicated. "Except you become as a little child you can't see the Kingdom of God".
Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley Better regulation
"Guilt delivered through a variety of means has always been and is still used to shape the way women think"..Only because "its what we normally do". Change will come as people learn to question and voice their concerns about the means and ways other people use to regulate our thoughts and behaviour.For example, I'm concerned (as a Christian) to question the idea (see Anne's blog below) that ".. perfect love says “I will take the punishment for you”."This kind of burdensome sentiment causes all kinds of muddled thinking,in my view, including "shame and guilt" which in turn might lead to all kinds of bad practices eg honour crimes.Anne might need to reflect further on what Jesus actually said and did, according to the Gospels. He never said "I'll take the punishment for you".
Neil Foxlee - Guilt
Unfortunately, I missed the programme and will have to catch up with it. I was surprised, however, that your reading list omitted any reference to Nietzsche's 'Of Guilt, "Bad Conscience" and the Like', the second essay of On The Genealogy of Morals. Perhaps this was referred to in the programme, but even so it is an obvious reference-point, even if one does not accept Nietzsche's argument.
Elizabeth Smith
Guilt delivered through a variety of means has always been and is still used to shape the way women think.
léo burton....guilt
As a child,at the appropriate time in mass, I would thump my chest and say 'mea maxima culpa"; I knew vaguely the meaning of the words but i did not know what I was guilty of. Apparently I had to share the guilt of the original sin, but this did not dicomfit me. I could recite the commandments, but I had not broken any.It did not occur to me at the time that if the germans invaded, and I had heroically killed an invader, I would not be guilty, yet it is only recently that I have understood that "thou shalt not kill," means thou shalt not kill one of your own people. Similarly it is acceptable to have sex with a person other that your own spouse, as long as that person is not a member of your own group. Guilt is breaking the rules of your own group, which probably entails accepting an authority figure, and has obvious survival value, for guilt is punishable.Shame seems to be related to the unspoken rules of the group, i.e. the taboos. Sexual desire for a close member of the family is an obvious example. Shame, like guilt, may result from the acceptance of an authority figure, but as taboos are unspoken, and may occur with any overt action. shame is not punishable. If an old man wets himself, he may well feel ashamed, yet it would be usually considered unfair to punish him.Nowadays many if not most of us do not belong to any specific group, and there is no univeral authority figure, and no univeral taboo. How to behave is very difficult for us to learn.
Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley "pre-emptive policy" an
We take pre-emptive action in order to prevent our fear of becoming "ashamed" or “shown up” eg we "cover up" or "hide" one way or another. If this action doesn't work or doesn't work properly we feel "exposed" and blush or blanche or whatever and then as a result of "retrospective notional accountability" we may or may not experience a sense of being burdened (guilt). If we choose to bundle our pre-emptive assertions together with retrospective notional accounts of whatever it is we fear and crave unnecessarily or inappropriately things go from bad to risky.To turn round such a vicious cycle, in my opinion, one needs to "fear and crave" the right thing.I find it useful to think of fear and craving as being a bit like "smoking".. Smokers fear "not having a smoke". They will not put themselves through the torture of “craving". They are never without their fags and arrange their life accordingly.If, on the other hand, people could "fear and crave" the right thing eg hopefully some "free" and "healthy" goal like God/ Allah/ Jehovah ( I am that I am) or nothing/ everything ( depending on ones view) or such other scientific perfection viewed objectively, subjectively, absolutely, relatively or "works both or even all ways"- the world would be a much safer and happier place, so long as we remember not to force our own "fear and craving" or its dependant "shame and guilt" upon others without their properly informed consent.What do you think?
Michael Coldbeck: Guilt/Shame Societies
You didn’t refer to Ruth Benedict’s famous characterisation of Japan as a shame society contrasted with America as a guilt society but I wonder in this case whether the distinction isn’t so much about the degree of internalisation of a moral code as about the perceived scope of moral responsibility. Confucius saw society as a network of human relationships: if each person cultivates the relationships in which they are personally involved, principally with family, close friends etc., then the whole network, and hence society as a whole, will be strong. Critics, such as Mo Tzu, pointed out the danger that such a social philosophy could easily slide into nepotism and corruption and that for mass society to operate efficiently one should feel a sense of equal responsibility towards all. It does seem to be true that in societies strongly influenced by the Confucian tradition people can feel an overwhelming, even irresistible, sense of responsibility to those within their own circle while displaying a surprisingly weak sense of responsibility to those outside their immediate circle. Universal religions, by contrast, try to inculcate an absolute, universal sense of moral responsibility (somewhat a la Mo Tzu!). I would have been interested to hear the panellists’ views on any connection between the guilt/shame nature of societies and perceptions of the limits of moral responsibility.
Anne Porter: Guilt & Shame
I love this programme, and the variety of subjects and opinions aired, but find it incredible that the fundamental Christian message very rarely comes across, even when there are Christian scholars on the programme. Yesterday’s “Guilt and Shame” topic was a classic. As a Christian, my understanding is this, that since the fall of Adam and Eve (whether you choose to believe this literally or figuratively) the emotions of guilt and shame are human “defaults”. The Fall came about because man chose to reject God’s instructions (i.e. “don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”) and decided for himself what was good. Since then he has tended to choose personal benefit above general good, subsequently experiencing feelings of guilt, and also shame if he is found out. We hide our “real” selves from God and our fellow man. Religion has cashed in on this by imposing laws and rigorous disciplines, using the guilt ensuing from inevitable failures (plus the threat of exposure and resulting shame) to control, dominate, and intimidate mankind.The Christian Gospel differs from all religions because it offers a way out of the guilt and shame trap. Jesus Christ did not come just to be a good example. Perfect justice demands punishment for wrong, perfect love says “I will take the punishment for you”. Jesus came to die as a sin offering for humanity, God Himself stepping into the world to pay the price no-one could ever pay. The Christian is someone who has identified with His sacrifice, acknowledged personal sin (defined as choosing our own way over God’s) and helplessness to change, and surrendered autonomy to God as revealed in Jesus Christ. When we sincerely say to Him “not my will but thine” He moves in by His Spirit and legally we regain the lost “innocence” of the Garden of Eden – free from the power of guilt and shame because we resign the right to decide what is right and wrong and let God lead and guide us by His Spirit. In other words we are “born from above” as it says in the gospel of John, or “under new management”. The result of this experience, in my life and that of many others I know, is a complete paradigm shift. We go on making choices the rest of our lives, but now our heartfelt desire is to choose God’s way. We do this through prayer, submitting to New Testament scripture, wise Christian counsel, and our inner “voice”. None of this is to chalk up a good religious performance, but flows from that changed inner set of priorities. Doing this sincerely and diligently frees us from the power of guilt and shame, even when we make a mistake (no human being is infallible) and thus from the power of misled and/or unscrupulous leaders, religious and otherwise. Free indeed.
Peter Bolt :Guilt
Not that I expected her to be mentioned but does not Charlotte Bronte deal wonderfully well with guilt in her novel `Jane Eyre` ?
Oedipus' guilt
Oedipus is guilty not by fate but through what the Greeks called hamartia, the making of a mistake. The mistake he made is what one disputes about. I think it was his hubris and obsessive curiousity. Why did he continue to track down this problem even though all around him told him to drop it.Problem with going back, I believe, is that we suddenly start reading their ideas and beliefs literally even though we often don't treat our own ideas like that. I believe that they themselves knew much of their beliefs were metaphoric. It is not beyond belief that in many areas they were less naive than we are.
David in Brussels: Guilt and Conscience
Conscience was a most unusual topic, but bravo to the Bragg team for dealing with it as it is of growing importance for global politics. Consider the attitude of a Hitler who said that ‘Conscience is a Jewish invention: like circumcision it is a mutilation of man.’ That is a logical impossibility. We saw were that his self-deceit led. Israelite tradition links conscience always with moral education based on the Bible. The 12 tribes came out of polytheistic Egypt, where as in most heathen traditions, religion had little or no connection with conscience or even shame. New Testament writers also confirm the link of conscience and moral education. They use a Greek word for it, joint understanding, in quite a different sense from that used by pagan Greeks. Conscience needs proper training, as do muscles. The Bible is the gymnasium. Judeo-Christian use is equivalent to our modern understanding but where such education is lacking, conscience is unbalanced. The Hebrews used the term of a ‘heart’. One of the most common words, it signifies meditation or thought before decision or action. It has to be tender, that is, sensitive, to the divine duty of thought and action towards man and God. In that sense, Judeo-Christian conscience encourages humility towards both God and man, quite a distinction with either pagan tradition, Nietsche or Herr Hitler.
F. Frances re: Guilt
How can you hope to discuss Guilt in 2007 without including a psychoanalyst on the panel?
tony woodd.......guilt
guilt. what is it good for? mental illness......thought born out of one's own decisions that have offended one's own moral code as the result of a conflict, of drives or interests, in one's own mind. a narsistic obsession with one's own and others opinion of oneself..regret, learn and move on...moral codes seem to be used as damage limitation mechanisms in the absence of altruism/love and guilt seems to be a tool that is used to encourage compliance to such codes.
Jim Scadding re: GUILT
In the classical world, if shame meant taking responsibility for wrongdoing, whether one's deeds were the result of conscious choice or ignorance (as with Oedipus) then perhaps this view might inform our current attitudes to criminal responsibilty where the perpetrator pleads a disfunctional background as mitigation.
David Barnett, Ph.D.: Guilt
In Hyam Maccoby's historical drama, "The Disputation", Nachmanides says it is a pity Christians learned a sense of guilt from the Jews because they don't know what to do with it. I wince whenever I hear the phrase "judeo-christian morality" because Jewish ethics differ from the Christian in crucial ways: no original sin, no gratuitous forgiveness, no dichotomy between body and spirit, sex for pleasure as well as reproduction is encouraged etc. This topic could be a fruitful future program.
Guilt/ psychoanalysis
The commentator Bogodan Wolf unwittingly shows how Freudian psychoanalysis, and its Heath-Robinson-style solutions to problems relating to the human condition, is (dangerous!) unsubstantiated bunk and should be bluntly dismissed as such. There is, or need be, nothing about a sense of guilt that is entails sexual fantasy. Would he not recognise that animals - particularly domesticated ones - exhibit signs of guilt, and for very uncomplicated reasons?
Marowyn - Guilt and Shame
I found your program illuminating. Thank you and your panel for providing a comprehensive view of the distinction between shame and guilt.
Tom Milner-Gulland - Guilt (and meta-conscience)
The phenomenon of the psychopath has long caused problems for the moral philosopher. From what I can gather from my own informal (social) inquiry, it is apparently perfectly possible for a psychopath actually to feel rather disturbed by the fact that he/she is *not* disturbed, in the way that most people are, by the consequences upon other people of some of their actions. This surely renders the notion of conscience very complex, and should lead us to entertain the idea of a meta-conscience, as a realm of thinking that transcends the physiological responses that characterise immediate emotional reactions.
Bogdan Wolf - Guilt and Shame
While it was perhaps a bit surprising to hear a contribution of psychoanalysis to today‘s interesting discussion about guilt and shame to be outweighed by philosophical arguments, may I be allowed, as a past student of philosophy and a practising psychoana-lyst to add a few remarks on guilt in particular from the perspective of psychoanalysis as developed both by Freud and Lacan.Briefly, and in addition to what was said about Freud, he ascribed guilt to the unconscious sense or feeling of guilt. This formulation is quite important in so far as he thus distinguished guilt from remorse or regret. While remorse is a reaction to committing an act one judges to be wrong and unjust, guilt has nothing to do with any particular act whether of criminal consequences or simply transgressive. Guilt is rather a response to the Other, some significant figure whether mother or father or their substitutes, and to the impossibility of repairing and bridging the distance that separates me from the Other. It is therefore precisely when we think about some form of unity with an other, someone close to me -- hence the symbolic values of incest -- that guilt emerges as a consequence. Thus guilt remains related to the desire I have of the Other in so far as this de-sire includes, whether I am aware of it or not, whether I like it or not, a sexual element at play in the unconscious fantasy the subject may be constructing of such a relation. This would explain the aroused feeling of guilt following a death of a loved person. Although I have nothing to do with the death of the loved one, my sense of guilt is voiced out as a result of a sudden severance of any emotional tie with that per-son. Hence the trauma of loss has an indispensable ingredient of guilt attached to it, not in the form of having committed a wrong deed but as an impossibility of ac-counting for the loss other than through the work of mourning, that is to say in speech but also in writing. In psychoanalysis one would call this a symbolic debt.In a sense, guilt and desire are closest neighbours in two ways. Firstly, there is no guilt without desire, and it is only with regard to the desire for a particular other (who bears however invisible and undetectable traces of this primordial mater-nal/paternal Other) that guilt as a lingering sense of guilt may emerge. Secondly, and in a converse order, guilt is only an effect of giving up on one’s desire. This is a for-mulation of Jacques Lacan, a psychoanalyst and a most formidable follower of Freud, who arrived at such a definition in his commentary on the Sophocles’ Antigone. Anti-gone defied the King Creon’s new law prohibiting to bury the enemy’s bodies, and carried out the burial rites for her dead brother to prevent his body from being ravaged by birds and animals, and out of respect for a more ancient rite of the gods. Following her actions she was condemned to death.At the level of the subjective structure, Lacan says that it is only to the extent that Antigone were to give up on giving her brother a proper burial, that she would experience an overwhelming guilt. Her desire, in so far as it concerns a beloved one, is thus enacted upon to the extent that this act accomplishes her desire for death, for what is the limit of the subject and of the Other. I am not speaking about the biological death here but about what Lacan called the ‘second death’, namely the death of the subject who by following his desire to the limit must meet with death.That’s why we should not take Antigone’s example literally, as by meeting her death she erases all social bonds and her guilt, not very pronounced as we can see in her case, with it. Guilt does have a function to serve, and in psychoanalytical practice appears as a signpost to the subject’s desire in relation to the desire of the Other.
Janet A : Guilt
What a pleasure to find some real thinking and discussion (that is not adversarial but genuinely illuminating) going on, albeit rather early for the brain cells to keep up with it all - I will need to listen again! But, in my work as a psychotherapist, I do find plenty of pathological guilt and shame - the useful distinction, which Freud made, but has often been forgotten, between healthy and unhealthy versions of these needs to be known more widely. I was also struck by the discussion of the social aspects of morality in an age where individual preference takes primacy over Hume's vision of respect for the other's view of ourselves. What will come next?
Philip W of Warwick: Shame or Guilt societies (1 N
I generally agree with the idea put forward in the trailer for this broadcast, but add another point:Although an athiest, I still behave as though an omniscient god is observing all my actions. Thus there is objective truth & falsehood, and a basis for judging right from wrong. I think this derives from a northen protestant background.A shame society (based on honour or 'face') as in many parts of the East, has no such objective perception of truth. There, saying what is convenient to you or what pleases the listener is not lying - truth is variable. In a guilt society (e.g. catholic, some form of protestantism) objective truth is less important than seeking pardon, sometimes by dubious means. Also guilt/pardon are intrinically much more egoistical than a truth based ethic.
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