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Old 08-13-2008, 02:45 PM   #1 (permalink)
 
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"Good" guilt--does it exist?

What kinds of guilt do you think are necessary for human society? What about for yourself, personally? What is the function of guilt?

Guilt seems to get a bad rap these days. When I've talked about feeling "guilty" for something (usually for something related to family that I think I'm not doing right), I often get the response from my husband and friends, "Don't feel guilty about it. It's not your fault." Which is fine and all--with some things, it's very true. And accepting those things that are not my fault, is something that I am always working on. I can see that this is an unhealthy type of guilt, in my case.

However, when I'm thinking about the big problems of the world, social justice, etc... and feeling bad about those things, that I'm not doing enough to help... I hear the same voices telling me that it's really not my problem. That it's somehow a bad thing to feel responsible for the welfare of others, when I am in a privileged position... that I don't need to feel bad for them, because I haven't done anything actively wrong to hurt people. Which, again, might be true--but it makes less sense to me. This isn't "guilt," to me. It's awareness of social inequities, and being motivated to do something about it. It's empathy for suffering, and that's not something that I want to get rid of, in myself. I see this as a "good" form of guilt, in a way.

But many others would say that even that is a "bad" form of guilt, because no one should be responsible for other people's suffering... that whatever situation those people are in, it's their own fault, or someone else's... that it's a waste of time and energy to be concerned with those people.

I disagree with this, but it got me thinking. What is guilt good for? Do we live in a world where no one wants to really feel guilty anymore, unless it pertains directly to us (and I mean, directly--as in, our family, maybe close friends, that's it) and something that we have personally done? Or is there a purpose for "healthy" guilt?

What kinds of things/actions do you consider it okay to feel "guilty" about?
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Old 08-13-2008, 03:04 PM   #2 (permalink)
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Guilt is a stepping off point. It can lead to positive things like sympathy and remorse, or it can lead to negative things like depression or self pity.

What specifically is it okay to feel guilty about? Anything you feel you've done wrong. If I cut someone off in traffic, it's okay to feel guilty. Hopefully that guilt will aid me in tempering my driving from now on. The direction the guilt takes you will determine if it's "good" or not.
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Old 08-13-2008, 03:25 PM   #3 (permalink)
 
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Hmm. Stemming off of the political correctness theme going on in the Spanish basketball team thread... why is it so "uncool" to be politically correct? Is it because people don't want to feel guilty about possibly offending someone? Or is that they truly believe that no one should feel offended about anything (except maybe someone talking shit about their mother, lol)?--that in fact, there is no guilt, there is only oversensitivity on the part of someone else?
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Old 08-13-2008, 04:11 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Guilt is something deeply personal. If I were to say "the Spanish team should feel guilty", I'd be wrong to say so because guilt is a reaction. It's not always intellectual, as a matter of fact, it's usually not. If the collective Spanish basketball team doesn't feel guilty, then so be it. Yes, it could communicate that they don't care that they hurt a lot of people's feelings, but you can't force someone to feel guilty. You can't even convince them to be guilty. All you can do is convince them what they said was hurtful, it's up to their emotional response to determine whether they feel guilty or not.

The guilt/oversensitivity thing is just a matter of opinion. Maybe it's one or the other or maybe it's both. I can only give my opinion.
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Old 08-13-2008, 05:02 PM   #5 (permalink)
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I don't know that there is a good or bad guilt really. I feel it is more about what you are planning on doing about it. If a certain issue seems to invoke strong emotions and you feel intense guilt over doing nothing of it, maybe it is time you do something about it.

I honestly don't feel guilt about not helping solve the worlds issues. You do what you can, pick the battles you feel are most important, no one person can take on it all. I just cannot feel guilt over huge social problems when I know I am not a direct cause of the situation.

Other than that, guilt should be a red-flag in our personal lives that we are doing something wrong. We all know when we make those choices. In those cases I would call guilt a positive thing to have.
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Old 08-13-2008, 05:06 PM   #6 (permalink)
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Will pretty much summed up how I feel about this and I think you'll agree to Abaya.

Guilt is less a tangible object, and rather an abstract emotion. There is no real general science because it is completely shaped by an individual's life experience.

So is there good guilt? I think guilt in general is two faced. For instance: you could see someone get shot; this could a) inspire you not to shoot someone or b) make you feel horrible for witnessing it and blame it on yourself. In that way guilt is completely determined by how you, yourself, deal with issues that create that fork-in-the-road situation.

Just my opinion.
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Old 08-14-2008, 12:08 AM   #7 (permalink)
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I'm with Katyanna, I don't think any emotion is either good or bad, it just depends upon what you do with it. If you feel guilty and do nothing it can lead to feeling worse, but if it motivates you to change in some way it is useful. If you manage any emotion poorly it usually has dysfunctional outcomes, regardless of whether it is guilt, anger lust or joy.
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Old 08-14-2008, 01:03 AM   #8 (permalink)
 
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Thanks for all the replies. I'm not sure if I expressed myself clearly enough in the OP, though... I don't see guilt as being quite so neutral. To me, guilt does exist on a scale of some kind, with some guilt being healthier/unhealthier than others. Maybe this will help:

Bad guilt: Guilt that someone else is projecting on me (e.g. giving me a guilt trip) for something that I did wrong in their heads, but that is actually their problem and not mine. This is not the type of guilt that should "motivate" me to do anything, period. It should motivate me, if anything, to draw a boundary with that unhealthy person so that they cannot project their guilt on me again. And yet I still manage to feel guilty about these things (this is where family is usually involved)...

Good guilt: Guilt that I feel for something that I know I did wrong, or for neglecting to do the right/good thing when I should have. This is healthy kind of guilt, I would say, because yes, it will motivate me to make changes in my life, to either address the wrongs I've committed or to try and do more good, instead of standing idly by (in the case of helping world problems--which I see everyone as contributing to, even in very small ways, and thus I feel we are all guilty in that sense).

The issue, though, is that one person's "good" guilt can become someone else's "bad" guilt. Hence all the conflict over things like political correctness--that's something that I truly think deserves attention and respect, but many other people would see that as being my problem, not theirs--and so they refuse to feel guilty about being politically incorrect. It all gets pretty fuzzy/relative... but I feel like these days, there is a lot more justification for people not wanting to feel guilty for things, and it even ends up coming out in liberal/conservative discussions. I find that part of it very interesting.

As Will said--you can't force anyone to feel guilty. But a lot of social standards depend on whether or not people feel conscious/guilty enough to live by those standards, even if they don't agree with them--so we all have to agree on some form of acceptable guilt, right? In the old days, it was a religious text that would determine these things, and there was a forum to go and confess this guilt, etc. What do we use now to hold ourselves accountable?
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