Was Stewart right for blaming Cramer?

What is Collective Guilt? Can collective guilt be found in nature? Do the lemmings have a case of collective guilt when the entire group of lemmings commit “suicide” together? Was it collective guilt that caused massive suicide in the Jonestown Colony, via a toast of doctored Kool Aid?

Here’s a recent article called “Calif. lawmaker seeks apology for Chinese workers” that serves as a learning example about collective guilt in Californians:

California’s Chinese immigrants helped build ships, levees, irrigation systems and the transcontinental railroad. They worked in farm fields and mines and helped develop the abalone and shrimp industries.

For their efforts, they were rewarded with special taxes, forced out of towns and denied the rights to own property, marry whites and attend public schools. They also were subjected to violence and intimidation and denied equal protection by the courts.

State Assemblyman Paul Fong, a Cupertino Democrat whose maternal grandfather was subjected to immigration restrictions, thinks it’s time the state and the federal governments formally apologize for mistreatment of the Chinese.

To move forward and become a stronger state, we need to recognize our mistakes …

After reading the above, b4b readers now should have an idea of the concept of collective guilt. Usually, just saying, “We’re sorry” doesn’t quite help anyone. Most often, there should be monetary reparations as well.

The work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung is important for an understanding of guilt and collective guilt, especially when linked with his concept of collective unconscious and his ideas of psychological archetypes.

Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony…. He considered the process of individuation necessary for a person to become whole. This is a psychological process of integrating the conscious with the unconscious while still maintaining conscious autonomy. Individuation was the central concept of his analytical psychology.

–Wikipedia, selected source data on Carl Jung

Collective guilt, collective shame. Oh woe is us!

This nation must whine together as a group about the failed economy. The shame now resides in our blood. Collective guilt has settled in the unconscious minds of our nation. Would an apology and perhaps some sort of reparations make us, as a group, whole again? Maybe yes, hell yes!

Promises of structural budget reform, promises of bank regulations reform, promises of lobbyists rules reform, promises of health care reform…. Any of these things sound good on day one, until watered down, and compromised months later. They become too weak as reparations.

Consider this. Politicians want to push the collective guilt another’s way. They say through the media, “We’re all in this together. Each one of us had a part in wrecking the economy. Banks and real estate agents, fund managers, stockbrokers and especially the irresponsible mass purchasing goods bought on overextended credit. I don’t think so. Why?

Before anyone can rescue the economy, we must deal with our collective guilt in finding out what made this happen. The problem is where responsibility resides. What group or groups in our society must shoulder the blame? Stand up and confess, “We ruined everything.” Then the nation can go on from there. Can this group be ex-president bush and his administration folks? A guilty group, indeed!

Or is it possible, maybe more than possible, that the blame belongs with Madison Avenue, especially its TV advertising? Did Madison Avenue brainwash us, and the kids, too, to buy, to buy, to buy? “Look at this, kiddies!” Sheer guilt was used in such a way that it pressured you into feeling un-American if you didn’t own a new automobile, any automobile, even an imported one. So I say, Madison Avenue screwed us. As did real estate agents. As did the banks. As did … Please tell me, who are the guilty ones?

Good Gawk, as if we didn’t know.

Wikipedia says it best with, “In the past, guilt has been used as a tool for social control because people who feel guilty are less likely to assert their rights.” The same with collective guilt but among nations.

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