So Guilt’s a Bad Thing?

Book banning in schools and libraries is often rationalized by the contention that when White kids are taught about our history of racism, something that has always been and continues to be a fixture in America’s character, it makes them feel guilty.

Oh, the poor babies!

This is not just a “sins of the fathers” thing. As the product of our racist traditions, many of these kids surely are racists, many actively and unapologetically so, with the approval of their parents. This is true not just in the White conservative enclaves where the anti-education culture thrives, but throughout the land. Anyone who tells you racism is not institutionalized in our society is either clueless, in denial or a liar.

When I was a kid growing up in a predominantly White, Jewish neighborhood, all my friends used the “N” word and other slurs. We told jokes that painted Blacks as stupid, dirty, dangerous. And here we were, part of an ethnic group whose history should have taught us not to think and speak this way. Imagine how much more comfortable White Christian kids, raised in hotbeds of racial prejudice where they never experienced any form of prejudice, were with their racism.

As I got older and the civil rights movement unfolded, I understood why my compliance with racist speech and attitudes was unacceptable and I worked hard to rid myself of them. I’m still working on it.

What motivated me to change was guilt. Healthy guilt, deserved guilt. A healthy dose of guilt is necessary if we are to create well behaved, honest, considerate people out of the little beasts that young children start out as.

It has been said that guilt got a bad rap when psychoanalysis went mainstream into popular culture.

In the era when Freud put forth the theory that psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression result from the repression of unacceptable feelings of guilt, Victorian society was so much pre-occupied with keeping up the appearance of propriety and with the sinfulness of enjoying sex, or any other pleasures for that matter, that much of the guilt people experienced was so excessive and unhealthy it made them sick.

Over the course of the next hundred years, this evolved into the misperception that all guilt is unhealthy.

Thus was spawned the “if it feels good, do it” generation and the rampant narcissism that characterizes the dominant personality type of our era. Narcissistic personality traits are the product of failure to acknowledge healthy guilt and shame. This leads to the attribution of one’s negative traits, via projection, to others. This forms the basis for prejudice and scapegoating. We see this in its extreme form in Donald Trump whose sociopathic personality is marked by the complete lack of a healthy conscience. That he is acceptable to so many Americans is demonstrative of how such traits are rampant in our culture. This is the case as much in the board rooms of large corporations as it is in our prisons.

It is the duty of parents to foster a conscience by making it clear to their kids when they are doing something wrong. But somehow, the idea of reprimanding these sensitive young souls has been displaced by the “self-esteem” cult that considers shaming to be abusive and damaging to the psyche.

It is as though when Rover poops on the rug, we should not say “bad dog” and rub his nose in it, but, rather, give him a doggie treat.

One important purpose of education is to produce mature responsible citizens. The inculcation of healthy guilt is part and parcel to that process. If teaching kids that they are the legacy of racism and raising their awareness of their own racist attitudes makes them feel guilty, this is for their benefit and for the benefit of society.

Parents who truly care about their kids and for the good of the nation should welcome it.