Guilt, Forgiveness, and Repentence
Sep. 22nd, 2002 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldEvents of late have made me conside anew the question of guilt.
I'm quite good at feeling guilt: Ask Erin, or Tom, or anyone else who knows me. I'm good at feeling guilty whenever I do anything wrong; I'm good at feeling guilty whenever I suspect I'm doing or have done anything wrong; I'm good at feeling guilty even when I'm fairly sure I've done nothing wrong. Needless to say, this weird Calvinist guilt is rather paralyzing, and I'd like to think I'm beginning to move beyond this paralyzing guilt.
But still. I do feel that guilt is necessary, as a kind of purgative. I'm reluctant to forgive and forget, or be forgiven and have my sins forgotten; that seems much too easy. I believe that if you do something wrong, you should feeling guilty for your actions, and that the onus should not be placed on your victim to forgive you but on yourself to apologize without a selfish expectation of forgiveness. You should apologize simply because you owe it to a person.
I'm not a formally-trained moral philosopher by any means, of course, but there's one angle of attack I can see: Is there ever any such thing as a totally innocent victim, or a totally guilty perpetrator? Or at least, is there any such thing in ordinary life?
I leave the floor; I leave the discussion open to everyone.
Thoughts?
I'm quite good at feeling guilt: Ask Erin, or Tom, or anyone else who knows me. I'm good at feeling guilty whenever I do anything wrong; I'm good at feeling guilty whenever I suspect I'm doing or have done anything wrong; I'm good at feeling guilty even when I'm fairly sure I've done nothing wrong. Needless to say, this weird Calvinist guilt is rather paralyzing, and I'd like to think I'm beginning to move beyond this paralyzing guilt.
But still. I do feel that guilt is necessary, as a kind of purgative. I'm reluctant to forgive and forget, or be forgiven and have my sins forgotten; that seems much too easy. I believe that if you do something wrong, you should feeling guilty for your actions, and that the onus should not be placed on your victim to forgive you but on yourself to apologize without a selfish expectation of forgiveness. You should apologize simply because you owe it to a person.
I'm not a formally-trained moral philosopher by any means, of course, but there's one angle of attack I can see: Is there ever any such thing as a totally innocent victim, or a totally guilty perpetrator? Or at least, is there any such thing in ordinary life?
I leave the floor; I leave the discussion open to everyone.
Thoughts?
