two types of guilt

yesterday i started presenting joyce trebilcot’s dyke ideas, where she talks, among other things, about guilt. the topic yesterday was identity guilt, the type of guilt we can feel for who we are. trebilcot contrasts this with “official guilt”:

what i call official or polite guilt stems from some particular violation of laws or rules (not from who one is) and belongs to legal and moral systems that provide for its elimination: one is (found) guilty, takes one’s punishment, and that’s the end of it – the guilt, which is mainly a matter of being guilty rather than feeling guilty – is designed to be temporary. also, the specific punishment is prescribed and administered primarily by official representatives of the system, not by the guilty themselves.

shame has no role in this sort of guilt, for an officially guilty person is expected to stand up “like a man”, not to cover himself and hide … unlike identity guilt, it is a fit subject of dinner-party conversation in the homes of the powerful.

official guilt differs from identity guilt most strikingly with respect to the role of retribution. an analogy with market places is relevant here. in a market, a monetary price is paid in exchange for some commodity. in guilt, punishment is the price paid in exchange for the elimination of guilt. in official guilt, as in the market, the price, once agreed upon, is specific and finite.

but in identity guilt, the punishment is not like a market price but like endless extortion. because identity guilt is primarily a matter of who one is (or who one is supposed to be), no payment short of death can ever be enough to end it; strictly speaking, no payment is possible, yet we who suffer such guilt flagellate ourselves endlessly in futile attempts to pay off our debt and/or to transform ourselves into something more acceptable.

it is as though we imagine that we are in a rational system where we can be tried and convicted and sentenced and then work off our debt to society – but we’ve been tricked, we’re not in that sort of system at all.

in polite guilt, peers are reunited with peers after a period of estrangement; in the guilt of oppression, those who impose the guilt and those who suffer it are not and never can be peers.

okay, let’s recap

official guilt

  • being guilty rather than feeling guilty
  • one is (found) guilty, takes one’s punishment, and that’s the end of it
  • specific punishment is prescribed and administered primarily by official representatives, not by the guilty themselves.
  • the price, once agreed upon, is specific and finite.
  • temporary
  • shame has no role in this sort of guilt

identity guilt

  • a matter of who one is (or who one is supposed to be)
  • the punishment is like endless extortion
  • no payment can ever be enough; maybe no payment is possible
  • we torture ourselves endlessly in futile attempts to pay off our debt and/or to transform ourselves into something more acceptable
  • we imagine that we are in a rational system where we can be tried, convicted and sentenced and then work off our debt to society but we’re not in that sort of system at all
  • those who impose the guilt and those who suffer it are not and never can be peers.

as i’m contemplating this, the most crucial sentence seems to be “we imagine that we are in a rational system where we can be tried … and then work off our debt … but we’re not in that system.”

what do you make of this so far?

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