526
QUESTIONS OF GUILT
PAUL WACHTEL: But in many ways the concept of collective
guilt works against the possibilities of being animating, because in
some sense guilt is attributed to one by virtue of membership, rather
than by virtue of what one does or doesn' t do, which is an individual
responsibility. And a concept of guilt that isn't tied to a particular
action that should have been taken or that should now be taken is a
concept that's bound to lead to self-lacera ting, non-productive guilt.
FARBER: I suppose this really is my difference [rom Bob. The
more I hear him on this subject of some sort of collective, animating
guilt, and the more I hear it described , it doesn' t seem to me very
different from feeling some sense of responsibility for this country
and its actions. But I must say, this is a long way from what I con–
sider to be real guilt.
LIFTON: The word "collective· ' is the red herring here, I think.
One of the difficulties is that Freud's original notion of the source of
guilt was seen as inherited, genetically, through inherited images around
the Oedipus complex and around the prima l crime of parricide at a
prehistorical moment. Collective guilt was biologically transmitted, as
well as reactivated through generations. But the sort of shared guilt
I'm talking about - and I'll avoid the word collective too - has to do
with shared historical experience in which it can be definable concrete–
ly. And without that shared sense of history and experience, there can't
be community.
PHILLIPS: Bob, I find myself a little disturbed, as I think some
people are here, by the direction in which you've been going. It seems
to me you've been politicalizing the idea of guilt. Aren't you really
talking about using guilt as a political weapon, rather than describinil:
the nature of guilt? And wouldn't you agree tha t the question of guilt
involves the question of political judgment? Obviously, if you thought
this was a just war you would have different psychological interpreta–
tions of the very same phenomena. And Jaspers, as a matter of fact,
in his book on the question of German guilt, doesn't talk about col–
lective guilt, and he doesn't talk about feelings of guilt. He talks about
what we've been calling the fact of guilt. And he says that to some
extent those facts of guilt are imposed upon Germany, by the victors.
The question of guilt is really a complex one, he argues, because to
some extent the French and the English were guilty of not stopping
Hitler at a certain time. By politicalizing the question of guil t, aren't
you introducing a new element?
LIFTON: I don't feel I'm politicalij',ing guilt. The two great i,sues
of collective guilt that most people have been concerned about are the
German experience and, increasingly no\\·, the recent American ex·
perience, and I've started from them in evoking a point of vie\\ about
guilt. Jaspers says very specifically tha t we can work to\\·ard a shared
guilt, which is co-responsibility. He goes on to say: those \vho \\·on the
war - would that they could be perfect. That \\·ould make the task
simple, because then they would be just, and we \\·ould have clear
standards....
PHILLIPS: But they weren't only illlperfect. They were also guilty.
to some extent.
