Collective guilt and privatized guilt both end in the same exoneration of everyone
Evidence
Either everyone must be guiltyand then no one was guilty, and everything was simply fate and the destiny of Being; or else each person must come to terms with it himor herselfand then no one had the right to condemn others, and everything must be left to the healing powers of private life. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 502
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely paradoxical formulation — the harshest-sounding verdict and the most indulgent-sounding one converge on identical exculpation.
- QUESTION: Is there any third position between these two poles that actually assigns differentiated responsibility?
- XREF: connects to: Collective guilt requires admitting in-group responsibility and spurs reparations — Emanuele Castano, On the Perils of Glorifying the…, 65; Collective guilt could distract people from confronting personal guilt. — Janet K. Swim and Deborah L. Miller, White Guilt: Its Antecedents and…, 146
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Collective guilt requires admitting in-group responsibility and spurs reparations — Emanuele Castano, On the Perils of Glorifying the…, 65; Collective guilt could distract people from confronting personal guilt. — Janet K. Swim and Deborah L. Miller, White Guilt: Its Antecedents and…, 146
Broader Connections
- Collective guilt requires admitting in-group responsibility and spurs reparations
#complicates(0.76) — Emanuele Castano, On the Perils of Glorifying the In-group, 65