Wrote Sunny Hundal in a 2007 Guardian article titled "The guilt-free liberal." I'm looking into the topic of "liberal guilt" after my post earlier this morning in which I rejected Power Line's "liberal guilt" theory of why Brian Williams lied. I said:
I've spent decades deeply embedded among liberals and guilt just doesn't seem to be the central force in their psychology. "Liberal guilt" is some kind of meme among conservatives, and it doesn't resonate for me.Meade questioned "Is 'liberal guilt' a conservative meme?" That got me searching. My report from decades of embedding amongst the liberals is that liberals think they are good, not bad. They feel like repositories of virtue — "mindful of compassion and empathy for others," as Hundal put it. They tend to guilt-trip conservatives, who are regarded as lacking compassion and empathy.
Meade and I also got into a conversation about the difference between "guilt" and "shame," which would take me a long time to pursue in a blog post, so I'll just quickly recall the anti-Walker protesters who endlessly shouted "Shame! Shame!" Conservatives were supposed to be ashamed of not caring enough about the plight of the unionized public employees. These protesters evinced no shame or guilt about themselves. They seemed to feel ultra-righteous.
That photograph of mine first appeared in a March 2011 post titled "Shame, shame, shame. Where is the shame?" ("Is it in wearing a gray hoodie under a tailored blazer, a little black derby hat, and a smelled-a-fart expression while carrying a pre-printed 'SHAME' sign when the guy marching after you is wearing a windbreaker and carrying a handmade 'TAX the RICH' sign?..."). "Shame!" — by the way — was #5 on my 2012 list of "Top 5 Wisconsin Protests That In Retrospect Sound Like Pro-Walker Protests Against the Protests."
Anyway, back to "liberal guilt." If you Google "liberal guilt," the top hit is a Wikipedia article, but it's not an article titled "Liberal guilt," it's an article titled "White guilt." And the second hit is a 2008 Slate article titled "In Praise of Liberal Guilt." The subtitle says a lot about what made the term "liberal guilt" go viral among conservatives: "It's not wrong to favor Obama because of race."
If you Google "liberal guilt" and "Obama," among the nearly 32,000 hits you get are a syndicated Charles Krauthammer column under the headline "Obama's Speech Plays On Liberal Guilt" [dead link, but this might be the column]; a Mark Steyn post [dead link] on the National Review Online that describes "a Democrat nominating process that's a self-torturing satire of upscale liberal guilt confusions" ; a column by self-styled "crunchy con" Rod Dreher, who suggests [dead link] the mainstream media coverage of Obama indicates that "liberal guilt will work [on them] like kryptonite." Even liberals make fun of liberal guilt. A couple of years ago, Salon coyly proposed [dead link] supplementing the Oscars with the Liberal Guilt Awards and awarding political dramas with "Guilties."My working theory is that "liberal guilt" got traction as a race-neutral way to accuse people of voting for Obama out of "white guilt" and that the term metastasized into a way to impugn any liberal policy with the idea that it is not rational but emanating from someplace emotional. Of course, those who recast liberal guilt as compassion and empathy are conceding that their predilections come from an emotional place, but they are proud of that, not guilty (or ashamed). Many conservatives react to this prideful confession of emotion by asserting that conservative ideas come straight from the rational mind unclouded by emotion. In my view, that's the most emotive position of all, and I would recommend that conservatives present their ideas as grounded in compassion and empathy, as — obviously — some of them do.
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98 comments:
Here is a new concept libs... live within your means.
Cause it really is about money. No tickie.. No washie.
A not guilty liberal concerns me more than a guilty one. Guilt means one has a conscience, that may restrain one's action.
"They tend to guilt-trip conservatives, who are regarded as lacking compassion and empathy."
Well, a lot of conservatives think liberals have a projection problem.
Here's where this all comes from--the general stereotype among the left is that the right is heartless and uncaring, and the general stereotype among the right is that while the left may "care" they go about things the wrong way (i.e., the left at worst is stupid while the right at worst is evil). True, many on the left think those on the right are stupid, and many on the right think those on the left are evil, but I'm talking about prevailing stereotypes. What adds to these prevailing notions is that leftists spend more time talking about how their ideas are "compassionate" and the right spends more time talking about how their ideas are "smarter".
Naturally, the side considering itself more compassionate (and where their opponents often take for granted the compassion of that side, if not the wisdom of that side) will be associated with guilt, as guilt is the ugly underside of compassion (after all, you wouldn't feel guilt over anything if you didn't have compassion to begin with). Therefore, guilt-ridden leftists and heartless rightists.
Guilt does not drive repression, self-righteousness does. Guilt drives us to repentance. The problem with progressives is that they think all people are good, well meaning, and well intentioned. Well all people except those who disagree with them. 8)
Less liberal guilt than liberal inferiority complex. They meet someone braver, more intelligent, more innovative, more genuinely compassionate than they are and they are compelled to claim they are really the brave ones, they are really smarter, they care so much more... then they arrogate to themselves the right to judge and condemn, to regulate and control, to sneer at other who threatens their self-delusion by existing.
We elected a compassionate conservative which was code for a big spending Republican.
Isn't the whole idea of white privilege actually liberal white guilt?
Buying carbon credits.
Apologizing for "American Imperialism"
Affirmative Action
Head Start programs
Continuing Voting Rights Laws
Men who support affirmative consent laws
SSDI expansion so people who aren't smart (like me) don't have to work
All liberal guilt
Liberals are into doing good with direct action.
Direct action however doesn't work. There are perverse consequences.
The conservatives differ in knowing about the perverse consequences.
Conservatives doing good is opposing liberals, to prevent those consequences.
All the problems where they agree have already been solved. What remains are problems with perverse consequences.
The young will always favor direct action, and the old will know better.
The idea that foreign countries and actors only do things in response to American action, not because they are choosing to be bad actors.
Liberal guilt
BTW, slightly OT I know, but I note all the 'dead links" you came across as you researched your story. Is this the future of not only the internet but of our entire civilization? I.e., huge chunks of knowledge forevermore missing in a non accessible digital netherworld? I used to think I could bookmark an article and it and all the links would be maintained forever (after all it costs almost nothing to store the electrons.) Foolish me...and what implications does this have for historians and history itself and mankind's ability to remember why things came to be the way they were?
My thoughts on guilt.
It's not a stereotype. It's an observation.
Not everyone was born as smart as me and therefore can't be where I am in life. So I will start programs to have remedial courses in college to encourage people with poor education to go to college. I'll increase minimum wage so people can stay in those jobs forever because they will never get where I am. It isn't their fault, and I am lucky to be where I am.
Liberal guild
My report from decades of embedding amongst the liberals is that liberals think they are good, not bad.
That doesn't quite capture it. Liberals define themselves as good, saving them the trouble of actually being good. Much as they define themselves as intelligent, nuanced, and sophisticated, saving them the trouble of actually being any of those things.
I consider myself relatively socially liberal in the classic liberal or libertarian mold.
Why? It seems to flow from the same place as to why I am fiscally conservative. Basically, I don't like big government — in my wallet, in my kitchen, or in my bedroom.
Don't Tread on Me. For any reason.
I feel bad thinking about an unfortunate person with mental health issues having to live in a home. So I support them being free to live as they choose. Just as I get to do.
Liberal Guilt
My report from decades of embedding amongst the liberals is that liberals think they are good, not bad.
Assuredly they think they're good, and certainly are better than those unliberal heretics. Particularly the rural ones.
And from that 'goodness' arises a need for atonement for all the evil doings of the previous white generations back to 1776. The solution generally being, that the liberals want to ensure that the 'victims' of all that white misbehavior be lavishly compensated by someone else's money and resources, and by a volcano of new legislation entangling those 'others' in tomes and volumes and libraries of precautionary and/or punitive restrictions.
Although I live in a million dollar home, I am really just one step away from being homeless myself. So I propose my neighbors should just accept the trailer caravan of homeless people parked on their streets. It could be them.
Liberal guilt
Written in 1969
National Lampoon's Middle Class Liberal Well Intentioned Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2yppzb-Lpo
I pay my maid Consuela minimum wage in cash, and she does a great job cleaning my home, watching my kids, and doing laundry. I don't want to pay her more, but I want her to know I appreciate her so I fight hard for illegal immigrants to stay and work in this country.
Liberal Guilt
Conservatives give money to charity, liberals don't or give very little so to assuaged their guilt they use the taxpayers's money via big government programs to help the inferior and less fortunate poor people.
I would characterize the attitude of the hard-left as self-righteous, not guilty.
I'm suspicious of people who proclaim their compassion to all and sundry. Such behavior is denounced in the Bible.
"The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector"
Luke 18:11
"Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you ?"
Because there is a Dylan line for every topic.
I am Laslo.
Liberals believe in good intentions and the idea the world can be made into a utopia.
However the processes that are implemented to try to achieve that result mostly result in the opposite occurring.
And when confronted with the
evidence, they claim the implementation was flawed due to racists or bigots or a lack of money.
Repeat ad nauseum.
Regarding the liberal/conservative divide, as portrayed by the popular media, my findings demonstrate that nearly 85% of the contribution to the variance is attributable to any given individual's need to be liked.
My research continues.
As to your original post, AA, I would opine that the reason leftists exhibit so little shame in telling outright lies in support of their cause de jour/"narrative" is because they truly believe themselves to be on the side of the Angels, reason and rationality, i.e., the only ones possessing of superior knowledge and morality. Thomas Sowell has neatly encapsulated this with the phrase "The Vision Of The Anointed." Needless to say, when one is possessed with such superior vision, intellect and morality, no tactic is too underhanded to use in thwarting those who oppose the morally blessed "Vision-based narrative." Hence "no shame" in lying thru one's teeth in order to advance the cause--anything is permissible in order to thwart the philistines, n'cest-ce pas?
Coda -
The Liberals of Guilt are perversions of the classic liberal, who was a firm believer of equality of opportunity, and of the maximum diversity of thought and opinion, and of the maximum personal liberty.
Those volcanic emissions of precautionary and/or punitive restrictions are the exact opposite of personal liberties; the concept of diversity has shrunk to exclude all but skin color; and equality shall no longer mean opportunity, but outcome. Hence the incessant political trumpeting of the 'inequality' chorus throughout the Guilty Liberal Media.
Reading a story about the editor of the Columbia student paper where he talks about being afraid to bring up due process in cases of alleged rape. Had he not said that I would have thought that the paper was acting on liberal guilt about an supposed past in which men like this editor were oppressors. But it seems that liberal guilt is morphing onto liberal cowardice - a specific awareness of a fear to challenge the latest liberal meme.
Pretty much all of Howard Zinn = Liberal Guilt.
@tim maguire
I have actually seen a liberal argue, condescendingly, that liberal was, by definition, good and therefore it was impossible for any liberal to be not good.
That was the dumbest thing I ever saw on the Internet until a couple of days ago when I saw a post from an atheist that argued that since even dumb people could see that there is no god then that was proof that it was obvious that there was no god.
Argument from the authority of the idiocracy.
"guilt" indicates a judgement rendered for a violation, typically of a moral code.
Odd that liberals typically reject outright any and all moral codes, yet have devised the most extensive list of comprehensive--yet contradictory--list of moral codes known to modern man.
That is, if you exclude fatwaas.
Obama just brought up the Crusades as a way to temper whatever he had to say about Islamic Terrorism.
Liberal guilt
I think liberals' support of big government is like a religious indulgence. As such, they feel their guilt is wiped clean by their support of the collectivist responses to problems and they project shame onto those who seek to block them. Their focus on shaming others crowds out any impulse toward introspection.
Brian Williams lied to increase his social and professional stature and to build the Brian Williams brand. Its that simple. Not guilt, ambition.
In his profession, Facts don't matter, The narrative matters. Write the story, get the emotional reaction, get the ratings.
This story is an overlap of his personal and professional life. He did what he does.
Echoing posters TMink, FissionChips and sane_voter, I would describe it as the unearned virtue of good intentions.
Powerful liberal people's support for Occupy Wallstreet.
Liberal Guilt
People and press zooming off to cover Ferguson and to join the protests.
Liberal guilt
Liberal guilt isn't just a false pose, but a tactic to get what you want.
Remember the old term missing from this discussion: "Guilt Trip".
when someone tries to make you do whatever they want you to, so they start making you feel bad about something.. so then you'll give in and do whatever they want.
"he convinced me to do what he wanted by guilt tripping me!"
@ May Bee
Not so sure these things are guilt.
More akin to what Brian Williams did. Stolen merit. Increased stature in the meritocracy.
Rational free market conservatism IS the most compassionate position possible, as that is the way to bringing people out of poverty. Why are there so few who can articulate that argument?
Liberal guilt is aggressive and aimed outward,
Yes, when liberal says "we" are guilty and should be ashamed, of course he doesn't really mean "we" but actually "you" and "me."
rhhardin:
Liberals are into doing good with direct action.
Direct action however doesn't work. There are perverse consequences.
Yes. Liberals are first-order people in a second-order world.
Like Ann, I have spent much of my career embedded amongst Liberals (Biglaw division), and I don't sense that guilt plays much of any role in their personal or political lives. Shaming is their thing; an obsession with being seen as a member of the tribe, as having the correct attitudes on any given social or political question. To ascribe internal guilt to such people is mistaken, an example of conservative projection of their own internalized guilt mechanism.
More akin to what Brian Williams did. Stolen merit. Increased stature in the meritocracy.
I disagree.
The thinking is, "I or someone I am related to in history did these things to cause these problems. I, if I weren't me, could have these problems. I have a special understanding of these problems, and I know how best to solve them for the people who are not lucky enough to be in the position I am in. A position I got to based on the bad actions of others or the luck of my birth on top of my own special awesomeness."
Liberals use "shame" on others because they believe guilting people into doing things works. Because they themselves are partially motivated by guilt. They fear feeling shame. They absolve themselves of guilt and shame by making the rules they are sure help others. And buying carbon credits.
(not all liberals, of course. But the guilty liberal types)
Liberal guilt was already a thing when I was a kid (or possibly Patti Smith) in the '60s; you always got a lot of it from Woody Allen, for example. As others have said, it never was very sincere: liberals generally went for it either as a pretext for some token act of expiation for which they could then congratulate themselves, or out of the realization (later carried to a high pitch of perfection by Bill Clinton) that apologizing for other people's misdeeds can be a mighty handy substitute for apologizing for your own.
It's a narcissistic kind of guilt. Where you or those you are associated with are the center of activity. The action around which others only react. You and yours are the cause of all things, and must be the solution to all things.
Concern about causing Micro Aggressions and Rape Culture.
Liberal guilt.
MayBee said...
Liberals use "shame" on others because they believe guilting people into doing things works. Because they themselves are partially motivated by guilt. They fear feeling shame. They absolve themselves of guilt and shame by making the rules they are sure help others. And buying carbon credits.
This is what I've always believed was meant by liberal guilt. It's the motivator underlying all things liberal.
You're out of the cult if you don't...
Evidence of liberal guilt's existence: liberals use lots of Xanax.
Rational Person: I think the way I do because I have made observations about human behavior and know enough now to determine what works and what doesn't. Some say this is a conservative mindset.
Emotional person: That's the most emotive position of all! You should present your ideas in an emotional way, grounded in empathy and compassion, like a recent R president! (Links to article titled "Worst Ideas of the Decade.")
Rational Person: I pretty much agree with the headline. liked the guy, but his spending drove me nuts.
Emotional person: That's not very emotive. I recommend you start emoting.
Rational person: I refuse to emote, even if that is the only way to convince you to consider my ideas.
Emotional person: That's not very rational.
"Liberal guilt" is manifest in the notion of the neo-Marxist's concerning "white privilege"; which posits that whites didn't earn their wealth, they stole it from others and thus should feel guilty about that and give some of it to other, usually non-white, people.
"Social Justice" is part and parcel of this underlying meme that claims others, usually white males, unfairly got things, in order to justify redistribution. This is a blatant emotional manipulation.
And yes, it relies on others agreeing with their notion of unfairness, which implies guilt of wrongdoing.
They use this same guilt projection when talking about the homeless. They use the shaming tactics because they are projecting that guilt.
They define "compassion" as giving away other peoples money, regardless of it actually solving anything.
"White guilt" is what Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have relied on for decades. The claim that this dynamic doesn't exists is typical revisionism.
There. SGT Ted summed it all up in one post while I have been spamming the thread.
IOW, "Liberal guilt" is a tactic for emotional manipulation, not a state of mind amongst liberals.
IOW, "Liberal guilt" is a tactic for emotional manipulation, not a state of mind amongst liberals.
2/5/15, 10:34 AM
Excellent point- and piggybacking on that is the emotional manipulation of the liberal herd by left wing politicians (see Althouse's many examples of the email solicitations.) The liberal base is motivated by this because they are absolved of individual guilt when they sign on to the collectivist rhetoric. The price of that absolution is to pay up with campaign donations and toe the party line.
I do agree that "liberal guilt" is probably not what drives them. Maybe it is that we expect that is the reason why the famous liberals end up as liberals, when their success, at some point, was a result of capitalism. And, esp. when it was a generation or two back. Maybe it is the question of how they could be so unconnected to how they got their money.
But, everyone here is probably right - the dominant trait of liberals is not guilt, but rather, smugness. Which reminded me of that South Park episode where the smug cloud was rolling in from California.
I do wonder though if the reason that so many progressives are so stingy with their own money in giving to charity is that they are giving away so much of our money, and that is where their smugness comes from.
But, of course, the maddening thing about their smugness is that all it seems to take is to feel enough about some cause, and then throw (other people's) money at it. It doesn't matter whether that money helps or not, rather, all that matters is that they felt strongly about the issue, and did something about it (by spending that money). And, of course, their leaders are happy with that, since the fact that progressive programs almost invariably fail miserably is a feature, and not a bug - because they can spend money later on other solutions, after the previous one(s) failed, providing further opportunities for graft and corruption for their family and cronies. And, they too can feel good about skimming off all that money, because the intent was to help some disadvantaged group. Indeed, for so many on the left, anything that gets in the way of their feeling smug, including that the money spent was wasted, is attacked viciously.
SGT Ted- oh I agree with the emotional manipulation, but not the second part. There is definitely a collective guilt that is a state of mind.
We are responsible for your problems and behavior. I know how to fix it.
Of course they think they are good people. Everybody (except for the very most depressed) thinks of himself as a good person.
I have long said that liberalism is a fashion statement, though that is unfair to fashion, which is often more mindfully embraced than liberalism.
A lot of contemporary liberalism or progressivism is driven by the need to feel good about oneself.
But actually working with the underprivileged is very tough. A liberal padawan might serve a few years in the peace corps or Americorps. But making a career of such work is a lot to ask. Obama's four year tour of duty in the slums of Chicago is like the liberal equivalent of a Mormon mission.
But helping others doesn't provide enough self esteem for some or a nice lifestyle. So righteous indignation must conquer some guilt about not living up to personal principles.
Toss in a little envy that elite credentials aren't intrinsically valued and you have many contemporary progressives.
I do think that the white guilt, and the like is problematic. True progressives really don't seem to feel guilty about what they do, esp. when it harms others. That just doesn't seem in their repertoire. White guilt seems rather to be something that they use as a bludgeon, esp. against the middle class, who are capable of feeling guilt. Make everyone feel guilty about their advantages, and the left can screw up the country even more with their social programs. Something like that.
I do find it humorous that they have now progressed to "privilege". They seem to be able to shut up quite a few people by just asserting that they have some sort of privilege. White privilege. Male privilege. Middle Class privilege, etc. I should note that one of the funniest fights right now is between the (m-to-f) transvestites and feminists, esp. over access to their bathrooms. The trannies apparently haven't suffered enough PMS and periods to be allowed into the sisterhood.
Of course, it is often quite humorous watching these progressive elites lecturing others on privilege. White progressives tell us that those of us unwashed (white) masses can't opine on anything racial, because of our white privilege. But, the smugness is, of course, rankest with the most privileged among us, such as those from the elitist schools, regardless of color.
Ann, I am almost exactly your age and in high school and college "guilty white liberal" and "white liberal guilt" were phrases my friends and I often used. Of course, it was a term we didn't think applied to us, though we considered ourselves liberals.
Conservatives have a moral architecture that balances Care, Fairness and Liberty with a center that supports all. Thus, conservatives see the difference between self interest and selfish interest. Self-interest is self focused but morally balanced. Selfish-interest has a component that violates one of the moral centers.
Liberals have a moral architecture that emphasizes Care, with Fairness and Liberty defined as subsets. Thus liberals do not see a difference between self-interest and selfish-interest. Any self focused activity comes at the expenses of providing Care thus the selfishness.
Since self focus is natural and unavoidable, liberals like all others must engage, but for the liberal this natural act is a violation of their Care focused moral center, thus the guilt. To assuage this guilt, liberals must strike a balance between helping themselves and helping others, usually in a tit for tat arrangement where an act of Care earns a credit or license for a selfish act.
This pattern leads liberals to discover that compelled Care is the best care of all. By forcing others to provide Care they gain the moral credit and add to their self-interest ledger, without actually spending any resources. Guilt assuaged and self-interest provided for.
Good perceptions.
Unacknowledged departures from the scientific domain. Devaluing capital and labor. Selective exclusion, rather than principled tolerance. Denigrating individual dignity. Debasing human life, including unprecedented commission of collateral damage.
Yeah, the generational liberals have a problem. Are the opiates (e.g. dissociation of risk, "free" stuff) worth consuming? The primary and secondary effects are toxic. Oh, well. A majority of the population is addicted and quitting will neither be easy nor free from painful withdrawal symptoms.
Sunny Hundal is welcome to her views, but a few years back I read an essay by the Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley where he was pretty up front about his guilty feelings that most of what he got in the 1950s came at the expense of people of color thanks to Jim Crow.
Of course his solution was to disadvantage middle class white children (such as mine) in the present to make up for what he got in the past, but liberals got theirs, and they ain't sharing. They make you give more than your share so they can feel good about themselve, but they ain't sharing. No way.
I think the cognitive dissonance for Prof. Althouse comes because 21st century liberals are not motivated by guilt, they're motivated by self-righteousness. Like the guy with the blazer (who clearly needs a cream pie in the face). Once upon a time one could have a good discussion with a liberal. Of course, once the falsity of their arguments was clearly established they were likely to flounce off calling me "evil" (with the 'e' sound drawn out for five or ten seconds), but at least one could debate and discuss. Not so with 21st century liberals/ progressives/ whatever they are calling themselves this afternoon. They are so full of their own unshakeable belief in the rightness of their cause (make that "correctness" of their cause) that there is no room to debate and discuss.
The other part of 21st century liberalism is the lying. Whether it's Brian Williams claiming his helicopter was hit (the one that actually was hit was scores of miles in front of his) or Hillary Clinton claiming to have come under fire or, here at home, ARM blandly insisting that he is a moderate, the lying is guilt-free and automatic.
The question is not whether liberals lie to the rest of us. The question is whether they're also lying to themselves, and that answer seems to me to be affirmative.
Liberal guilt has been a thing since the 1960s, following on the concept of Catholic guilt. I definitely remember the stereotype existing in the 1980s for the same reason as Catholic guilt - it's impossible to live up to all the moral demands of liberalism, and most liberals are aware of that.
Guilt is a useful tool. It governs children. It enforces social conventions. It make "Subjects" bow to kings.
The rubber meets the road when men say they are not guilty and Stand Up for that assertion. This is what makes unrestrained Calvinist Reform Christianity based on Pauline theology so dangerous to organized social institutions that employ Guilt.
The MLK Day stories reminded me that Daddy King had raised Martin to be like a chosen namesake Martin Luther, who in his day rejected Catholic Church guilt'atonement rule.
Liberal guilt is a play act. It is nothing more than a crafty kabuki theater meant to enroll the weak minded who still feel the need to work out internalized guilt/atonement hang ups from childhood.
This reminds me of a quote from Sergey Dovlatov, a famous Russian
writer. He quotes his wife saying the following:
"All people have an inferiority complex, and my husband is no exception. He has a complex of my inferiority."
This applies to liberals, and yes, they have a strong guilt complex, and it's a complex of conservative/white guilt.
The author misunderstands. Liberal guilt is more about Indulgences, like the Catholic Church used to hand out.
Basically, liberals behave like douchebags in their daily lives. So they adopt "causes" to boost their self-esteem and to feel righteous. Very much along the lines of "okay maybe I DID make a pass at the babysitter, but I BELIEVE! in world peace so I can't be a total jackass, right?"
I have a 3 year old son. I refuse to do anything for him that he can do himself outside of together play time. I'm not heartless, I love him with all my heart and that is why I make him do for himself. To say "oh you poor things, can't do anything, here let me vote to take someone's life and give it to you," that is truly heartless. You are making someone dependant and robbing from someone else.
Back ages ago when downs syndrome children were considered nothing more than helpless infantilized nothings, my mom babysat one. My dad would not accept that this person could not learn to do anything and made him. In time he learned to dress and feed himself and communicate better. My mom and dad named me after him years later.
Liberals suck. They just suck so bad.
"Shame" "Shame"
We are the liberals who say shame.
"Shame"
Oh liberals who say shame. "Shame" What may we do "Shame" for you to allow us to pass.
Give us your income so that we may redistribute it. "Shame" And a shrubery.
"Shame"
Oh liberals who say shame. "Shame" Here is our income "shame" and a shrubery. Now. May we pass?
It's a nice shrubery. "Shame" But no! Go earn more income and bring it to us. "Shame" And a bigger shrubery.
AA is right that liberal guilt is overrated as general motivation of liberals. But liberal guilt does affect white liberal racial attitudes -- blacks are victims of our historic injustice, therefore they deserve a hand up and a handout.
White privilege and social justice do play on guilt, but not as liberals' own motivation, just using guilt as shaming device, so to speak. Of course, conservatives (but not all of the American public) have figured this out, and resist.
Still: one difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals can reasonably assume that their opponents/targets are capable of feeling guilty.
The quote in the title is telling. The author says she is annoyed by the meme about liberal guilt. Why would it annoy her, even if (for argument's sake) it isn't true to her own experience?
Methinks she doth protest too much. Liberals are in fact motivated by guilt, but only in the sense that they want to collectivize all guilt and redistribute it, so that they don't have to examine their own consciences. In other words, the motivation is that they really, really don't like feeling guilty if it would make them change their own behavior. This is why they are susceptible to the rhetoric of the left, because it offers an easier offloading of the guilt.
Liberal guilt has always been directed at others, with invocations and exhortations and regulations and punishments if that guilt did not cause others to cave to the demands of the day by liberals.
Sort of like communist equality - the equality was forced on others by the totalitarian rulers.
Not sort of like, actually exactly like.
If you Google "liberal guilt" and "Obama," among the nearly 32,000 hits ...
Nowhere near 32,000 hits:
Actually Page 34 of about 337 results (0.43 seconds)
Liberals define themselves as good, saving them the trouble of actually being good. Much as they define themselves as intelligent, nuanced, and sophisticated, saving them the trouble of actually being any of those things.
I think that is getting close but my impression is that "liberals" (leftists) are living in a world of fantasy. Where wanting something makes it so. Conservatives, and most Republicans, are the reality party. The "Daddy Party."
I have seen this over and over in my reading of history. The political left hides some of the cul de sacs their fantasies have led them into, like eugenics and sterilization of "defectives."
"Three Generations of Imbeciles are enough" wrote leftist hero Oliver Wendell Holmes, mentor to Alger Hiss.
The Great Depression is finally being analyzed honestly, for example.
The left is about fantasy and Utopia.
A Reminder that white liberal guilt was once safe in the North because they could exorcise it by pointing at the Confederate States and punish them in the ways a dominant conqueror always figures out.
The South's knee jerk reaction was that the Yankees got rich selling them the slaves they had kidnapped in West Africa.
Enough guilt to go around for sure.
But today we are over all that except as a political wedge issue. Follow the votes. And see Hispanic votes grow.
It's a continuum.
For example, the two best example of 'good liberals' that I currently know (actually progressives) are the kids of strongly religious parents. One was Catholic with a strong background in family service and the other was Protestant/Quaker with a minister in the family.
They were inculcated with very strong moral values and have good relationships with their families. Later when they dropped the religion, the character traits and brotherhood remained.
Since I spent some younger years as a libertarian, I can say that they did not guilt trip me because they weren't feeling guilty themselves. However, I always felt the fact that they came from fundamentally stronger families gave them a stronger platform from which to launch into a community-oriented life. I, meanwhile, was forced to spend some time building or rebuilding my psychological platform on my own (hence the libertarianism) and was only truly capable of engaging on a group level later. For many years, I just wanted people to get out of my face. I certainly didn't have the time or energy for causes. That was a relative luxury.
Guilt and shame naturally are defenses against behaving unnaturally. If by nature one doesn't like doing bad things, one doesn't need guilt or shame to prevent one from doing them (unless you define the words differently from what I take them to mean), and if by nature one does like to do bad things, one probably won't have much capacity to feel guilty about them. It's only when one does things unnaturally (basically just as a result of chemical addiction) that guilt and shame are appropriate, imho. It's really just a secondary phenomena that people tend to feel guilty when they do unusually bad things, because shameful addictions are so frequently a cause of doing uncharacteristically bad things.
Those liberals who are bad tend to want people to feel that depraved addiction (sodomy) is not shameful and not worth guilt. And so they tend to try to make people feel guilt and shame about other things instead. Since liberals are more influenced by liberals than conservatives, many liberals are duped into being controlled by guilt in situations where really guilt is not appropriate. But really one can't say that liberals tend to be more inappropriately guilty about sodomy issues (some may feel more shame and guilt from being more screwed up, but that is agood and appropriate reaction)--except for the probably few people who would feel guilty about viewing shameful behavior as shameful.
It's an interesting question whether excessively shaming liberals would tend to be excessively shamed. In a way one might think so, because people with shaming ancestors might tend to have shamed ancestors controlled by that shame. But on the other hand, if the shame is a red herring to keep people from being shamed about sodomy, it won't work to pick up females unless the female doesn't have much tendency to feel shame about depravity. I conclude that excessively shaming leftists probably wouldn't tend to be more susceptible to shame and guilt in general, but would probably be more susceptible to feeling and not feeling shame accurately and appropriately.
There are people on the right who try to inappropriately shame people as well, e.g., to try to make males feel they need to go to their church to keep from lusting for sex or wanting it outside marriage. But except for some shameless hypocrites, that strikes me more about wanting males to go to church or to appeal to materialistic women wanting males to not have sex without caring. In short, when the right shames inappropriately, they do so for direct effect; when the left does so, it tends to be to make a red herring.
The leftward-leaning feminist movement, too, tends at times to be excessively into shaming males about sex--making males who want sex feel like rapists--much as churches tend to have done. But these shaming feminists tend to be pro-sodomy, so I suppose the best way to look at them would be as screwed-up or highly naive females who want from males the unrewarding stuff that feels rewarding for screwed-up reasons just as much as the rewarding stuff that feels rewarding because it actually is rewarding (and may or may not be appropriate for the male to give).
"Not much annoys me more than the stereotype that to be liberal is to be full of guilt."
He's right, you know. It's about self-righteously making others feel full of guilt.
Now that I think about it, one does lampoon conservatives privately. I'd say the strongest manipulative elements leveraged are questions of intelligence and class rather than direct guilt and shame.
Fun to read that old post. 'Twas a Golden Age on Althouse. ST in full roar and free-range Lefties slobbering all over themselves.
"AA is right that liberal guilt is overrated as general motivation of liberals. But liberal guilt does affect white liberal racial attitudes -- blacks are victims of our historic injustice, therefore they deserve a hand up and a handout.'
That's a power play, not a guilt trip.
The 10:10 ad showed the dark side of Libs.
Basically, liberals behave like douchebags in their daily lives. So they adopt "causes" to boost their self-esteem and to feel righteous. Very much along the lines of "okay maybe I DID make a pass at the babysitter, but I BELIEVE! in world peace so I can't be a total jackass, right?"
Or that PETA VP who opposes animal testing of medicine but has no problem taking insulin made from animals because she is fighting to protect them.
Or environmentalists who live in extravagant homes and fly everywhere.
The term has been around longer than Obama. I remember it (minimally) from a Murphy Brown episode where they got a black manager and were all careful about what they said around him (even though they thought he was a jerk), and he (the black manager) eventually told her straight up that he purposefully played on their white, liberal* guilt for his own benefit.
* May have omitted the "liberal" part as they assumed they were only smart, not liberal, but it was certainly implicit.
Liberals don't feel guilt or shame but you should, unless you are liberal.
Back ages ago when downs syndrome children were considered nothing more than helpless infantilized nothings, my mom babysat one. My dad would not accept that this person could not learn to do anything and made him. In time he learned to dress and feed himself and communicate better
Reminds me of Leslie Lemke. (Though Wikipedia doesn't provide much of the relevant information. His mother constantly tried to get through to him, enduring many, many years with no response at all, but she persisted, and it paid off.)
damikesc:
Insulin and vaccines.
As for the environmentalists, the policy is out-of-sight and out-of-mind. The environmental disruption is either shifted (e.g. China) or obfuscated (e.g. solar ovens and windmill gauntlets).
Then there are the abortion clinics. Oh, the unprecedented termination of human life behind solid walls, not in an open cage, or in plain sight, as women (and men) follow the secular profits of wealth, pleasure, and leisure.
Praise the mortal gods who sell indulgence in lieu of repentance and a lifetime of cognitive dissonance, and offer hits of opiates to purchase their loyal followers. The Catholic Church has nothing on the ancient "secular" Church.
I don't understand your premise. I think guilt is very basic to most liberal mindsets. They feel guilty about being racists (which they are, or they would not feel that black people can't possibly prosper without their help) and guilty about living well, when so many others don't. (Their solution to that is to give the others government handouts -- i.e., other people's money, not their own.)
damikesc: "Basically, liberals behave like douchebags in their daily lives. So they adopt "causes" to boost their self-esteem and to feel righteous. Very much along the lines of "okay maybe I DID make a pass at the babysitter, but I BELIEVE! in world peace so I can't be a total jackass, right?"
Like the anti-war loon who slaps Jenny in "Forest Gump" and then "apologizes" later by blaming Johnson and the war.
in re the photograph.
Wearing a bowler with a hoody is indeed shameful. Who's that hipster think he is, Charlie Chaplin?
kzookitty
Liberal guilt is about being sorry/embarrassed for one's success, wealth, and/or class, and, deep down, believing one is not deserving. In some senses, it then goes a step further and requires the guilty party to adopt the signaling behavior of the cultural mainstream to demonstrate their goodness. This is where the parade of do-gooder activities gets associated with the concept of liberal guilt.
It is possible, as Ann notes, that many liberals that do adopt this behavior really do believe it is good behavior, i.e. that they don't feel "guilty" about their penitence. But, the original sins (in their eyes) are the achievements or rewards that set them apart from the masses. And, I suspect in many cases, those achievements and rewards are truly undeserved, and therefore some penance appropriate.
I just wish the penance didn't include so many activities that screw things up for everyone else.
My report from decades of embedding amongst the liberals is that liberals think they are good, not bad. They feel like repositories of virtue — "mindful of compassion and empathy for others," as Hundal put it. They tend to guilt-trip conservatives, who are regarded as lacking compassion and empathy.
This is correct, but it is still consistent with the idea of Liberal guilt. Liberals tend to express their criticisms by saying things like, "we need to do more to fight..." racism, or poverty, or global warming or whatever. Thus, the guilt is inclusive but collective. The "we" is America or the Human Race or White People or whatever broad group is relevant to the issue at hand. But they exempt themselves from the guilt by pointing it out. This is similar to the Hindu parable of the blind men and the elephant. That parable is often used as an argument the complete knowledge is elusive, but of course, the Hindu telling the tale can see the elephant just fine.
I would recommend that conservatives present their ideas as grounded in compassion and empathy
I agree. David Horowitz has an excellent booklet (which used to be available for free) called The Art of Political War that makes this point very effectively.
I have read of several studies that show that liberals do NOT give as much to charity as conservatives do. Plus, the charities they give to tend to be arts councils and symphony orchestras, not soup kitchens or homeless shelters.
If they feel guilty about this, I don't know and don't care.
If you apply the meme of 'guilt' to, say, eating two bars of chocolate for lunch, one can say they are guilty of that indulgence. If they do not, they are not guilty.
So it goes with the liberal, as evidenced by the projection of guilt, as others have pointed out.
The liberal is not guilty because the eschew the things that make one guilty. Of course, in their minds view, they simply attribute those ideas that in opposition as being a guilty action.
Some people can eat two bars of chocolate for lunch. Others cannot; well, they can, but perhaps there's a repercussion to doing so. But the repercussion either real or perceived is not applied equally. The perception that a rich man is rich at the expense of a poor man is a perception, not a reality, but that perception is played out as guilt because of that belief.
When my daughter is accosted with claims of white privilege at college she tends to smile at the accuser and say, "It is not that I am privileged, I am just better than you."
She says that the ensuing rage is amazing and amusing.
Trey
The confusion or difference of opinion here arises out of the use of the word "guilt" to mean two different things.
"Liberal guilt" as conservatives use the phrase means collective guilt: "we" (the US, whites, men, the power elite) are guilty of acts (imperialism, slavery/racism, sexism) that are the root causes of social problems (crime, poverty). Therefore the blame for those problems should not be on the "victims" but on "us".
But individual liberals do not feel (much) individual guilt: all whites are racist, except for those rare individuals like me who recognize that all whites are racist.
So there is really no contradiction between conservatives asserting the "liberal guilt exists" and individual liberals who say "I don't feel personally guilty about any thing."
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