Table Of Content

ON GUILT Guilt is the dark force behind haunting anxiety, obsessive-compulsive beha- viour, life meaninglessness, and depression – a force to be kept in check. Yet guilt is equally our richest and most hidden resource, the essence of our humanness, and it drives us on to our highest achievements. Today, when individuals feel bad it is not usually because of something specific they have done. Rather, thundering around in the depths of their being is guilt: obscure, unconscious, yet irrepressible and ever-present. Where does it come from, what are its ways, and how might it be put to useful work? This book explores the nature of guilt, shedding light on how the modern West came increasingly to understand it as ‘the most terrible sickness’. It traces the psychological origins of guilt in each person’s family, and demon- strates the historical rise of guilt in parallel with civilization. It examines the modern predicament: the difficulty of finding explanations for guilt in a secular, post-church society – and the possibilityof relieffrom its curse, while channellingitintoafulfillinglife.Assuchitwillappealtothosewithinterests in sociology, psychology, psychiatry, cultural studies, cultural history, and anthropology. John Carroll is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at La Trobe University, Australia, and Fellowofthe Center for CulturalSociologyatYaleUniversity, USA.HisbooksincludeLandoftheGoldenCities;TheExistentialJesus;The Wreck of Western Culture: Humanism Revisited; The Western Dreaming; Ego and Soul: The Modern West in Search of Meaning; and Break-Out from the CrystalPalace. MetaphysicalSociology,abookonhiswork, waspublished in 2018. For moreinformation on John Carroll visit www.johncarrollsociologist. wordpress.com. MORALITY, SOCIETY AND CULTURE The Morality, Society and Culture series publishes rigorous scholarly work exploring how moral questioning and action have been transformed in contemporary social rela- tionships and by contemporary culture. Can cultural texts such as films, television broadcasts and art be vehicles for moral demands? Do we learn what it means to be ‘good’ from soap opera and advertising? If cultural texts are forms of moral mimesis, thenarethestandardsofthe‘right’and‘good’dependentonexternalconsiderationsof cultural visibility and social relevance - and if so, how are some moral issues made visibleorinvisible,relevantorirrelevant?Nowthatmoralityhasbecomeculturalandis amenable to sociological and cultural study as well as philosophical investigation, this series explores how and to what effect moral questioning, action and debate are inex- tricably entwined with contemporary social and cultural forms, texts and institutions. Thebooksinthisseriesoffernewunderstandingsoftheconnectionofmorality,society andculture,analysekeycontemporaryevents,andestablishnewmethodologies. Serieseditors John Carroll is Professor Emeritus of Sociologyat La Trobe University; and Fellowof theCenterforCulturalSociologyatYaleUniversity. Peter Murphy is Adjunct Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe UniversityandAdjunctProfessorintheCairnsInstituteatJamesCookUniversity. Titles inthisseries SociologicalNoir IrruptionsandtheDarknessofModernity KieranFlanagan Makinga Living,Makinga Life Work,MeaningandSelf-Identity SaraJames MetaphysicalSociology OntheWorkofJohnCarroll EditedbySaraJames TheAnxiety ofAscent Middle-Class NarrativesinGermanyandAmerica ScottDoidge EverydayMoralities Doing itOurselvesinanAge ofUncertainty NicholasHookway Cosmologiesof theAnthropocene Panpsychism,Animism, andtheLimits ofPosthumanism ArneJohanVetlesen OnGuilt TheForceShaping Character,History,andCulture JohnCarroll Formoreinformationaboutthisseries,pleasevisit:https://www.routledge.com/Morality- Society-and-Culture/book-series/ASHSER1429 ON GUILT The Force Shaping Character, History, and Culture John Carroll Firstpublished2020 byRoutledge 2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN andbyRoutledge 52VanderbiltAvenue,NewYork,NY10017 RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness ©2020JohnCarroll TherightofJohnCarrolltobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeen assertedbyhiminaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright, DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orin anyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwriting fromthepublishers. Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksor registeredtrademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanation withoutintenttoinfringe. BritishLibraryCataloguing-in-PublicationData AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Acatalogrecordhasbeenrequestedforthisbook ISBN:978-0-367-20767-0(hbk) ISBN:978-0-367-20768-7(pbk) ISBN:978-0-429-26342-2(ebk) TypesetinTimesNewRoman byTaylor&FrancisBooks CONTENTS Preface vii 1 The sense of guilt 1 PART1 What is guilt? 7 2 Definitions 9 3 Naive culture 24 4 Persecutory guilt 36 5 Depressive guilt 54 6 The family origins of guilt 70 PART2 The cultural history of guilt 79 7 England: 1350–1800 81 8 The causes of increasing guilt 100 9 No remission – the death of God: 1800–1920 111 vi Contents 10 Depressive guilt culture: 1920–1980 129 11 A new balance: 1980– 150 12 The metaphysics of redemption 164 Bibliography 175 Index 181 PREFACE Guilt has been described as ‘the most terrible sickness’; as aperson’s ‘greatest asset’;andashumanity’s‘sixthsense’.ItspresencewithinthemodernWestern psyche is pervasive, powerful, and obscure. This book began as a revision of an earlier work, Guilt, which appeared in 1985, subtitled The Grey Eminence behind Character, History and Culture. That book was ambitious and panoptic, drawing on a massive range of psychological, historical, and sociological material. It was dense and, in many ways, difficult, and has long been out of print. As the work of revision progressed, it became increasingly clear that the changesrequiredweremuchgreaterthanIhadanticipated.Iwasproducinga new book as much I was revising an old one. For thiswork, the theoryof guilt has been restructured, with new chapters, and a clarified, simplified, and streamlined argument. A lot of supporting detail that cluttered the original has been cut, reducing the length from 120,000 words to 80,000. About a quarter of this text is completely new, and much of the rest rewritten. It has seemed to me, revisiting thework, that the problem with the original wasnotthatithaddated–themainlinesofthetheoryremainaspertinentas they were in 1985. It is rather that parts of the argument needed rethinking – and, in particular, the cultural history of guilt after 1920. Also, Western society and its culture have evolved since 1980. It might be asked whether there is any continuing relevancy for a book on guilt. In the age of social media, and instant likes and dislikes, why bother with a dark and gloomy, at times pathological force that only operates beneath the surface of individual identity, one that has taken centuries to develop, and only manifests obliquelyon the surface of modern life, directing viii Preface passions, anxieties, attachments, and conduct? Ultimately, the ‘why bother’ question can only be answered by the work itself. I am greatly indebted to Peter Murphy, who suggested some major struc- tural and thematic changes to the original book – most of which I have adopted. John Dickson and Norman Doidge also offered helpful comments; as did my wife, Eva. The late Keith Tester, editor of the series in which the book appears, was over many years, a generous supporter of my work, and a friend. Finally, my editor, Neil Jordan at Routledge, has been a pleasure to work with; as has his editorial assistant, Alice Salt. John Carroll Melbourne 1 THE SENSE OF GUILT Freud wrote his great reflection on psychology and life, Civilization and Its Discontents, late in his career, in 1929. The book pivots on his stated intention: ‘to represent the sense of guilt as the most important problem in the development of civilization and to show that the price we pay for our advance in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt’. In fact, Freud does not carry out his intention, but he does note that the peculiar relationship that guilt has to our consciousness is ‘as yet completely unexplained’. My aim, in On Guilt, is to make some modest progress along this obscure path. The culture of the West has been shaped by guilt. From the crushing humiliation of Oedipus to the original sin of Christianity, and on to the depressive neuroses postulated by modern psychotherapy, there is a con- tinuous, indelible thread. Individuals born into Western societies have lived under a shadow, driven by a hidden force. New questions have emerged with the decline of Christianity. What hap- pens when guilt gets out of hand? What hope is there for a people who experience increasing levels of guilt but who have lost faith in the beliefs that their ancestors used to explain why they felt bad; and to tell them what to do to ease their anxieties? What future, in other words, is there for a guilt-houn- ded people who have lost the culture that helped them to live, and are having trouble finding aviable replacement? Once culture fails to connect individuals in a way that will allow guilt expression, to be worked through, and out, in the social arena, what can they do? Is it simply that guilt will be funnelled into meaningless obsessions and compulsions, or trapped inside, overwhelming its victim with depression?