Classical Values :: a wealth of guilt

June 03, 2006

a wealth of guilt

Is there such a thing as inherited guilt?

Right there, I'm realizing that the question I posed makes no sense. For, obviously there is inherited guilt, because people believe in it. The concept is as old as original sin, and probably older. And psychologically, there is a tendency to inherit a sense of guilt.

So it's not a sense of guilt that I'm talking about. I think a better way to phrase the question would be along the lines of whether it is fair or logical for anyone to inherit real guilt, in the moral or legal sense. Years ago, I got into an argument with a reparations advocate who said that if I inherited guilty wealth I inherited at least some of the guilt, because I derived the benefit of the wealth. That would mean that if inherited wealth came from slavery, the inheritors of it would be inheriting guilt.

But what about descendants of people who lost money in the slave trade? Or descendants of people whose slaves were confiscated and fortunes ruined as a result of the Civil War? If they had no wealth to leave their descendants, isn't it a stretch to say that the descendants inherited their guilt?

Does a financial benefit have to exist and then be transferred to future generations in order for guilt to be made hereditary?

If an individual does not inherit guilt, then how about a society, a city, a country? Again, to base the argument on economics strikes me as unreasonable. Nazi Germany's Holocaust -- the guiltiest episode in human history -- was far from profitable. Germany was ruined economically and physically, yet it remained horribly guilty. Collectivization and slaughter under Communism also murdered millions -- without any discernible economic benefit. Once the experiments in socialism were over, the countries had to reinvent themselves from scratch. What did the children of the Nazis and the children of the Commissars inherit? Anything of value? Or do they have some type of guilt which is or should be independent of money?

I'm not even sure I agree with the idea of inherited debt. Fair or not, death acts as the ultimate form of bankruptcy discharge. If there isn't enough money to pay whatever debts remain, the creditors are just plain out of luck.

Corporations and countries, though, are treated differently, as they continue to live long after the people who created them have died. Until they are dissolved, as were Nazi Germany and the USSR.

Despite this, there are people who argue that descendants of people who did bad things should be held accountable for the crimes of their ancestors. It's as if the guilt is derived by a sort of historical vendetta. Nor does this guilt even require actual descent from any guilty person. Mere presence in a country said to be guilty can be enough. Thus, a Danish immigrant to the United States is thought guilty enough that he should have to pay "reparations" for what long-dead, completely unrelated people did to long dead, completely unrelated victims, while a Nigerian immigrant would not be. Even more amazing is the notion that "white" Americans have inherited the guilt of a man who came to the New World in the 15th Century and conquered Indians in the name of Spain.

There is nothing logical, rational, or fair about inherited guilt, because it need not even be inherited. It simply derives from whatever doctrines are manufactured from time to time based upon the whims of the people who deem themselves worthy of deciding questions of guilt.

So I can't make any sense at all out of inherited guilt. It's one thing to say that if my father killed somebody, took his property, and left it to me, that I should have to give it back to the victim's heirs. But even that does not involve moral guilt. No reasonable person would say that I should inherit actual guilt for my father's crimes.

So why do they?

I think it's for the same reason a dog licks his you-know-what. Because they can. Most of us feel mysteriously guilty, often for poorly understood reasons forgotten during infancy. So, when someone comes along with a reason, it's emotionally satisfying for people who want shortcuts that obviate the need for geniunely introspective thought. Providing a way to atone for the guilt (whether by joining something, contributing money or adhering to a particular philosophy) makes it even more satisfying. The most marvelous aspect of this type of guilt-system is that it also offers a way to avoid acknowledging or atoning for real guilt. I have to admit, there's even a certain logic to it. By its nature, being sorry for someone else's crimes -- especially the crimes of dead people -- assumes that there is such a thing as collective inter-generational responsibility, and minimizes the guilt of any individual.

A nice trick. Get rid of your own guilt by sharing! There's plenty to go around!

Try it. You'll feel better.

(Especially if you don't want to think.)

posted by Eric on 06.03.06 at 04:05 PM

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Comments

Great subject. I've argued in the past about this sort of thing as well with reparations advocates. I came up with (I believe) a somewhat unique argument that pro-reparations people have yet to get around. Basically its this:

Any perceived debt owed to the descendants of slaves is more than offset by the cost icurred upon the north in terms of lives lost in the Civil War, the war effort and the cost of rebuilding the south.

Compound that with decades of social welfare and Medicaid payments, the US (northern states at least) are owed a HUGE debt by blacks.

So to anyone wanting to argue for reparations, I say fine. Let's settle up!

Mick · June 4, 2006 02:28 AM

Good post. I agree with you on the essentials. However, I must take issue with your characterization of the doctrine of Original Sin as requiring inherited guilt. Augustinian theology does include this idea, and later western theologians such as Anselm did emphasize it. And from western Catholicism this idea of inherited guilt was passed on to Protestant theologies.

However, in the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition original sin never included the idea of inherited guilt. The Orthodox view is that original sin is our TENDENCY to sin, rather than some sort of guilt passed down through the generations from Adam's sin. This tendency to sin is impossible to resist without grace, so children, while being born free of sin become immediately susceptible from birth.

The consequences of the western notion of original sin are many and deep. According to Eastern Orthodoxy, western doctrinal innovations such as the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, or the Roman Catholic/Protestant view of salvation in 'juridical' terms (i.e., as the expiation of some sort of blood debt), stem directly from this western idea of inherited guilt that wasn't part of early Christian thinking on the Adamic Fall.

Brian · June 4, 2006 07:14 AM

Mick has a good point here. One could also say that whites can't pay reparations to the descendents of slaves until we've collected reparations from the English, for forcing our ancestors to leave the British Isles and make new homes in an untamed wilderness. I mean, they could have just let our ancestors live on their little plots and practice their religions free from state interference and sectarian strife, but NOOOOO, they had to kick 'em off that land and take it for themselves, then tell 'em there was more good land across that ocean, and look at all the atrocities that have happened as a result.

Josh Lyman, on "The West Wing," had a similar answer: "I can't spare any change right now, since my dad [granddad?] had it taken from him at Birkenau."

Sardonic jokes aside, the whole "reparations" issue is divisive. The question is not who did what to whom in the past, but, what must we, AS AMERICANS, do in the present to make our country a more just place for all of its people?

Raging Bee · June 5, 2006 03:54 PM

Hey Eric,

This is in response to one of your old posts that i saw just now:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/002502.html

You're fukking dumbass and complete idiot. It's these self-righteous people like you who claim to be proponents of education only to use it divisively to your advantage. You disseminate misleading information and then argue that the people that want to change the way history is taught are misstating history.

The truth is slaves were brought to the British North American colonies (later known as the United States of America) as early as the 1520's to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony who was founded by Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón.

1865 (the year slavery abolished) - 1520 (around the time slavery was first established) = 345 years. But who's counting?

"The United States inherited slavery." You make it seem as if the same people including the founding fathers who were enslaving people weren't the people who were responsible for it. As if the colonies were a different people than the people who founded America in 1776.

You a dumb mothefukker. Giving out misleading information and using it to support your views. And you got these people following, looks like the blind leading the blind. Either that or the ignorant leading the ignorant.

"If you don't like it fuk you," you said. Well, i'm not feeling you so i'm feeling mutual so fukk you too and all the fascists, racists and bigots on this site.

Neez Buck · June 9, 2006 03:59 PM

Neez Buck, the IP numbers from your comment indicate you're posting from the University of Pennsylvania system.

If you're a student, the accuracy of the historical information you provide doesn't speak very highly about the quality of a Penn education.

Regarding "the San Miguel de Gualdape colony who was founded by Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón" it was NOT a "British North American colony" but a Spanish colony abandoned soon after it was founded:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Colonial_America

Historians don't agree on its exact location, but think it was in what is now the state of Georgia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Miguel_de_Gualdape

Even without the gratuitous insults, your argument is simply unpersuasive.

In future, please don't leave the same comment on multiple posts, as it's distracting to other commenters' threads. Thanks.

Eric Scheie · June 10, 2006 05:08 PM

Neez Buck, the hate, the hate in your voice. Please, can't we all just get along?

Big Bill · June 12, 2006 12:00 AM