Privileged innocence is purchased at the cost of others’ suffering

Evidence

If people like him can be “good”, people whose pleasures, whose education, the very days of whose life are purchased at the cost of so much unhappiness to others, then what I did can’t be evil. The difference between him and me is only that I had to act and had courage and strength, while he was able to sit in comfort and enjoy himself and never discovered what his pleasure was costing and that it was tainted with blood. He was no more noble than I am, but enjoyed his whole day and every kind of happiness, and on top of that had a sense of his own innocence; he took life as if it was due to him, he could enjoy it and be happy without a cloud in the sky, with nothing to reproach himself for, without a single thought of sin. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 167

Categorization

• XREF: Prefigures the later Frankfurt School critique of bourgeois ‘good conscience’ (bad conscience of the privileged in 169) — connects to their analysis of the dialectic of enlightenment and guilt. — connects to: Being-for-others is suffered rather than actively existed; Comparing one’s group’s offenses to worse deeds of others is a moral defense — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2085; Accepting one’s own suffering can relieve others’ burden of sin — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists…, 393 (+13 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The murderous protagonist’s argument — that his crime cannot be evil if the benefactor’s pleasure is equally tainted — inverts the moral hierarchy and collapses the killer/saint distinction. This is a dense, unsettling inversion that rewards sustained thought.

Broader Connections

• Keeping harm out of sight enables genuine belief in one’s innocence #exemplifies (0.85)
• Projecting badness onto others protects the self from internal contradiction. #expands (0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 646
• Stoic apathy lets the privileged steel themselves against others’ suffering #expands (0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 83
• Moral restraints weaken when no specific victim is salient #expands (0.82) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4008
• Minority acceptance is purchased through prolonged suffering #exemplifies (0.82)
• Being-for-others is suffered rather than actively existed #expands (0.80)
• Contrasting worse inhumanities makes one’s own wrongdoing seem righteous #complicates (0.80)
• Oppressors see their own privilege as earned while blaming victims for their poverty #expands (0.80) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 143
• Compassion fails when sufferers are collectivities rather than visible individuals #qualifies (0.78)
• Devaluing victims as weak targets suppresses guilt in wrongdoers. #expands (0.78) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1411
• Comparing one’s group’s offenses to worse deeds of others is a moral defense #complicates (0.75) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2085
• Moral disengagement reduces victims’ perceived suffering and thus the desire for justice #expands (0.75)
• Apparent punishment outweighs real suffering whenever the innocent outnumber the punished. #qualifies (0.74) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 14
• Accepting one’s own suffering can relieve others’ burden of sin #qualifies (0.72) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 393
• Self-inflicted suffering can be embodied ethical performance rather than punishment #qualifies (0.72) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 463