“In Stage II guilt is first of all social, liberal, moral guilt—a guilt so general as to seem almost formal. It is we who are responsible, either by commission or—more generally—by omission, for everything from killing off the Tasmanians to burning the books at Alexandria.”

—  Randall Jarrell

You didn’t do it? Then you should have stopped them from doing it. You never heard of it? Ignorant as well as evil, eh? You weren’t born? You’re guilty, I tell you—guilty.
“Freud to Paul: The Stages of Auden’s Ideology”, p. 169
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

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Randall Jarrell 215
poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965

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“In Stage II guilt is first of all social, liberal, moral guilt—a guilt so general as to seem almost formal. It is we who are responsible, either by commission or—more generally—by omission, for everything from killing off the Tasmanians to burning the books at Alexandria. (You didn’t do it? Then you should have stopped them from doing it. You never heard of it? Ignorant as well as evil, eh? You weren’t born? You’re guilty, I tell you—guilty.)”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Freud to Paul: The Stages of Auden’s Ideology”, p. 169
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

John Adams photo

“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1770s, Boston Massacre trial (1770)
Context: It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.
But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.

Constantine P. Cavafy photo

“Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility.”

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) Greek poet

The Regiment of the Senses http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=296&cat=5 as translated by Manuel Savidis
Context: Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions.
All of morality’s laws – poorly understood and applied – are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.

“But victimhood was seductive, a release from responsibility and caring. Fear would be transmuted into weary resignation; failure would no longer generate guilt but, instead, would spawn a comforting self-pity.”

Dean Koontz book Intensity

Source: Intensity

“Those who kill “humanely” often contend that their victims suffer minimally or not at all. This contention helps ease their guilt and makes the continuation of the killing more acceptable.”

Charles Patterson (author) (1935) American author and historian

Source: Eternal Treblinka (2002), p. 133

Ayn Rand photo

“The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

As translated in The Portable Nietzsche (1954) by Walter Kaufmann, p. 96

“Guilt and no guilt: these were the worst things. The only thing worse than the guilt was the fear of getting caught.”

Elin Hilderbrand (1969) American writer

Source: A Summer Affair

Eugene J. Martin photo

“Because of subconscious guilt, people spend half their lives in self-punishment and the other half taking on more guilt.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

Walter Benjamin photo

“Capitalism is presumably the first case of a blaming, rather than a repenting cult. … An enormous feeling of guilt not itself knowing how to repent, grasps at the cult, not in order to repent for this guilt, but to make it universal, to hammer it into consciousness and finally and above all to include God himself in this guilt.”

Walter Benjamin book Capitalism as Religion

Der Kapitalismus ist vermutlich der erste Fall eines nicht entsühnenden, sondern verschuldenden Kultus. ... Ein ungeheures Schuldbewußtsein das sich nicht zu entsühnen weiß, greift zum Kultus, um in ihm diese Schuld nicht zu sühnen, sondern universal zu machen, dem Bewußtsein sie einzuhämmern und endlich und vor allem den Gott selbst in diese Schuld einzubegreifen.
Translated by Chad Kautzer in The Frankfurt School on Religion: Key Writings by the Major Thinkers (2005), p. 259
Capitalism as Religion (1921)

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