Table Of ContentON GUILT
Guilt is the dark force behind haunting anxiety, obsessive-compulsive beha-
viour, life meaninglessness, and depression – a force to be kept in check. Yet
guilt is equally our richest and most hidden resource, the essence of our
humanness, and it drives us on to our highest achievements. Today, when
individuals feel bad it is not usually because of something specific they have
done. Rather, thundering around in the depths of their being is guilt: obscure,
unconscious, yet irrepressible and ever-present. Where does it come from,
what are its ways, and how might it be put to useful work?
This book explores the nature of guilt, shedding light on how the modern
West came increasingly to understand it as ‘the most terrible sickness’. It
traces the psychological origins of guilt in each person’s family, and demon-
strates the historical rise of guilt in parallel with civilization. It examines the
modern predicament: the difficulty of finding explanations for guilt in a
secular, post-church society – and the possibilityof relieffrom its curse, while
channellingitintoafulfillinglife.Assuchitwillappealtothosewithinterests
in sociology, psychology, psychiatry, cultural studies, cultural history, and
anthropology.
John Carroll is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at La Trobe University,
Australia, and Fellowofthe Center for CulturalSociologyatYaleUniversity,
USA.HisbooksincludeLandoftheGoldenCities;TheExistentialJesus;The
Wreck of Western Culture: Humanism Revisited; The Western Dreaming; Ego
and Soul: The Modern West in Search of Meaning; and Break-Out from the
CrystalPalace. MetaphysicalSociology,abookonhiswork, waspublished in
2018. For moreinformation on John Carroll visit www.johncarrollsociologist.
wordpress.com.
MORALITY, SOCIETY AND CULTURE
The Morality, Society and Culture series publishes rigorous scholarly work exploring
how moral questioning and action have been transformed in contemporary social rela-
tionships and by contemporary culture. Can cultural texts such as films, television
broadcasts and art be vehicles for moral demands? Do we learn what it means to be
‘good’ from soap opera and advertising? If cultural texts are forms of moral mimesis,
thenarethestandardsofthe‘right’and‘good’dependentonexternalconsiderationsof
cultural visibility and social relevance - and if so, how are some moral issues made
visibleorinvisible,relevantorirrelevant?Nowthatmoralityhasbecomeculturalandis
amenable to sociological and cultural study as well as philosophical investigation, this
series explores how and to what effect moral questioning, action and debate are inex-
tricably entwined with contemporary social and cultural forms, texts and institutions.
Thebooksinthisseriesoffernewunderstandingsoftheconnectionofmorality,society
andculture,analysekeycontemporaryevents,andestablishnewmethodologies.
Serieseditors
John Carroll is Professor Emeritus of Sociologyat La Trobe University; and Fellowof
theCenterforCulturalSociologyatYaleUniversity.
Peter Murphy is Adjunct Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe
UniversityandAdjunctProfessorintheCairnsInstituteatJamesCookUniversity.
Titles inthisseries
SociologicalNoir
IrruptionsandtheDarknessofModernity
KieranFlanagan
Makinga Living,Makinga Life
Work,MeaningandSelf-Identity
SaraJames
MetaphysicalSociology
OntheWorkofJohnCarroll
EditedbySaraJames
TheAnxiety ofAscent
Middle-Class NarrativesinGermanyandAmerica
ScottDoidge
EverydayMoralities
Doing itOurselvesinanAge ofUncertainty
NicholasHookway
Cosmologiesof theAnthropocene
Panpsychism,Animism, andtheLimits ofPosthumanism
ArneJohanVetlesen
OnGuilt
TheForceShaping Character,History,andCulture
JohnCarroll
Formoreinformationaboutthisseries,pleasevisit:https://www.routledge.com/Morality-
Society-and-Culture/book-series/ASHSER1429
ON GUILT
The Force Shaping Character,
History, and Culture
John Carroll
Firstpublished2020
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CONTENTS
Preface vii
1 The sense of guilt 1
PART1
What is guilt? 7
2 Definitions 9
3 Naive culture 24
4 Persecutory guilt 36
5 Depressive guilt 54
6 The family origins of guilt 70
PART2
The cultural history of guilt 79
7 England: 1350–1800 81
8 The causes of increasing guilt 100
9 No remission – the death of God: 1800–1920 111
vi Contents
10 Depressive guilt culture: 1920–1980 129
11 A new balance: 1980– 150
12 The metaphysics of redemption 164
Bibliography 175
Index 181
PREFACE
Guilt has been described as ‘the most terrible sickness’; as aperson’s ‘greatest
asset’;andashumanity’s‘sixthsense’.ItspresencewithinthemodernWestern
psyche is pervasive, powerful, and obscure.
This book began as a revision of an earlier work, Guilt, which appeared in
1985, subtitled The Grey Eminence behind Character, History and Culture.
That book was ambitious and panoptic, drawing on a massive range of psy-
chological, historical, and sociological material. It was dense and, in many
ways, difficult, and has long been out of print.
As the work of revision progressed, it became increasingly clear that the
changesrequiredweremuchgreaterthanIhadanticipated.Iwasproducinga
new book as much I was revising an old one.
For thiswork, the theoryof guilt has been restructured, with new chapters,
and a clarified, simplified, and streamlined argument. A lot of supporting
detail that cluttered the original has been cut, reducing the length from
120,000 words to 80,000. About a quarter of this text is completely new, and
much of the rest rewritten.
It has seemed to me, revisiting thework, that the problem with the original
wasnotthatithaddated–themainlinesofthetheoryremainaspertinentas
they were in 1985. It is rather that parts of the argument needed rethinking –
and, in particular, the cultural history of guilt after 1920. Also, Western
society and its culture have evolved since 1980.
It might be asked whether there is any continuing relevancy for a book on
guilt. In the age of social media, and instant likes and dislikes, why bother
with a dark and gloomy, at times pathological force that only operates
beneath the surface of individual identity, one that has taken centuries to
develop, and only manifests obliquelyon the surface of modern life, directing
viii Preface
passions, anxieties, attachments, and conduct? Ultimately, the ‘why bother’
question can only be answered by the work itself.
I am greatly indebted to Peter Murphy, who suggested some major struc-
tural and thematic changes to the original book – most of which I have
adopted. John Dickson and Norman Doidge also offered helpful comments;
as did my wife, Eva. The late Keith Tester, editor of the series in which the
book appears, was over many years, a generous supporter of my work, and a
friend. Finally, my editor, Neil Jordan at Routledge, has been a pleasure to
work with; as has his editorial assistant, Alice Salt.
John Carroll
Melbourne
1
THE SENSE OF GUILT
Freud wrote his great reflection on psychology and life, Civilization and Its
Discontents, late in his career, in 1929. The book pivots on his stated inten-
tion: ‘to represent the sense of guilt as the most important problem in the
development of civilization and to show that the price we pay for our
advance in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the
sense of guilt’.
In fact, Freud does not carry out his intention, but he does note that the
peculiar relationship that guilt has to our consciousness is ‘as yet completely
unexplained’. My aim, in On Guilt, is to make some modest progress along
this obscure path.
The culture of the West has been shaped by guilt. From the crushing
humiliation of Oedipus to the original sin of Christianity, and on to the
depressive neuroses postulated by modern psychotherapy, there is a con-
tinuous, indelible thread. Individuals born into Western societies have lived
under a shadow, driven by a hidden force.
New questions have emerged with the decline of Christianity. What hap-
pens when guilt gets out of hand? What hope is there for a people who
experience increasing levels of guilt but who have lost faith in the beliefs that
their ancestors used to explain why they felt bad; and to tell them what to do
to ease their anxieties? What future, in other words, is there for a guilt-houn-
ded people who have lost the culture that helped them to live, and are having
trouble finding aviable replacement?
Once culture fails to connect individuals in a way that will allow guilt
expression, to be worked through, and out, in the social arena, what can they
do? Is it simply that guilt will be funnelled into meaningless obsessions and
compulsions, or trapped inside, overwhelming its victim with depression?
