PARTISAN REVIEW
523
FARBER: Certainly, something is shared. But there's a great deal
that is not shared, which has to do with the difficulty of the illumina–
tion of the actual guilt each person acquires. When "collective guilt"
becomes not merely a heading under which eac h person can deal with
his own guilt, but becomes an explanation of what e\'eryone has done,
the n
I
think it is reductive.
LIFTON: One of J aspers's points is that th ere's a kind of earning of
guilt, But there's an earning of guilt that is shared in J aspers's terms
too, for all Germans were part of a ce rta in nationaL and rac.ial entity
that was deep into evi l, even though some indi\'iduals were deeper than
others and in different private pl aces.
JOEL KOVEL: No mention was made in either presentation of what
Freud said was the principa l problem in the development of guilt –
both in terms of objective guilt and in guilt fe eling, a lthough he didn't
distinguish - the problem of aggression. Freud sa\\' aggress ion as a n
independent, self-subsisting instinct in man. This is a very problematic
concept, of course, but something on the order of gui lt fee ling can be
an extremely important a id to explanation so long as it's kept tied
to the problem of aggression, beca use it is aggressio n that will ge nerate
both the act of destruction and the feeling that one is being destructive.
Even more than that.
I
think you have to regard the whole problem of
political power and cultural power as being something that arises in
order to regulate guilt feelings on a societal le\·el. For instance, the
governor's rationaliza tion about Attica was that we ha\'e to kill the
revolutionaries before they retaliate on us. The implication is that polit–
ical power is something which you have in order not to have to feel
guilty.
LIFTON : You know, in Freud 's idea of the unconscious sense of
guilt, he says he is describing something he isn't: it's very hard to get
at the unconscious sense of guilt unl ess yo u ha \'e somebody rig;ht there
before you on the couch and you infer, by self-destructi\'e behavior or
some other evidence, tha t there's an unconscious sense of gu il t driving
that person.
I
think the process has to be looked a t more carefully .
because in the end, given the extraordinary preva lence of guilt and
possibility for guilt, what really matters is one's relationship to that
guilt.
MARSHALL BERMAN : I'd like to <1sk you both something which
may make the discussion a little more concrete. Do you think there
is any sense in which it's legitimate for us Illiddle-class intellectuals to
feel guilty about the war in Vietn<1m?
FARBER:
I
don't think th<1 t it is proper to make this le<1 p from
guilt, in this instance, to the Vietnam \\·ar.
I
think one can object to
the war on all sorts of grounds. One can think of things th<1t should
be done to end the \\'<1r, or could h;t\"e all ma nner of ideas. both prac–
tical and impractica l. and still not necessarily feel guilty, a uthentically.
LIFTON: Here,
I
think , is \\'here the element of shared historical
experience and its authenticity for guilt comes in as perhaps the dif–
ference between us.
I
think that . since all of us are part of America
and we, one \\'ay or another, live in the American realm and con–
tribute to national and milita ry e fforls, we share a certa in culpability.
