Guilt is difficult to analyze because it is ‘dumb’. It is a feeling of being blocked and frustrated without knowing why we feel that way. This develops when embraced by powerlessness while clutched by the unknown. Guilt is a bind of life.
A feeling of guilt emanates from our peculiar ability to apprehend life’s totality but unable to move in relation to it. “This real guilt partly explains willing subordinacy to his culture: after all, the world of men is even more dazzling and miraculous in its richness than the awesomeness of nature. Also, subordinacy comes naturally from man’s basic experience of being nourished and cared for; it is a logical response to social altruism.â€
There are many ways in which we feel this “bind of lifeâ€:
When ill or injured we are cared for by a cultural system
Not achieving all one can be
Recognition that we are the source of a serious accident
Inability to meet responsibility to family
Displaying certain accomplishments
Evolution’s bounty to me
Fate’s bounty to me
Sticking out in a crowd for some biological reason
“There, but for the grace of God, go Iâ€
Social organization helps the individual expiate guilt by sharing guilt and a symbolic confession of it. “This is why the main general characteristic of guilt is that it must be shared: man cannot stand alone.†Primitives seem to be more honest about these things, probably because they were more realistic about our desperate situation vis-à -vis nature. You cannot fool Mother Nature. Modern man seems more arrogant as regards nature.
Hubris is another word signifying a forgetting from whence real power comes. We seem like sophomores, not yet comprehending the source of real power; imagining it is in our self.
Quotes and ideas from “Escape from Evilâ€â€”Ernest Becker
guilt can have positive qualities in your life, if you realize why you feel guilty, and do something about it. Dwelling in it is what is lame, you gotta see the big picture of a bunch of mortal dorks trying to find their way.
Guilt is not something im capable of in my imediate self, i’d have to go near my concience and put the guilt switch on or so to speak, its not quite as simple but not difficult to do with most emotions and feelings.
A benefit and ability of being some what highly conscious i assume.
When it comes to logic and reason, the more you know, the less you feel and the less you rely on emotions and feelings to tell you whats right/wrong or how to react.
the more you know, the better you know how to “interpret” your feelings. I am not sure you neccessarily “feel” less. That would depend on how you use your knowledge.
Yes thats the case with sesory perception i meant the feelings caused by emotions, i could have worded it better but im sort of short on time
I was also refering to “filling the void”, well those that search for knoledge to fill the void, once you completely fill that void, you stop wanting and that is experiencing living death, that may be a discussion for another time though.
I think that one cannot enter into the territory of some domains of knowledge while listening to common sense voices. Our common sense will immediately reject some facts because those facts are contrary to common sense.
You must still these instinctive reactions because common sense knows nothing about many things; just as the physicist had to still her common sense reaction at the results of some experiments regarding the inner working of the atom.
The inner working of human nature can be as mysterious to common sense as is the inner reality of the atom.
We can see only what we are prepared to see. Common sense does not prepare us to see many things. We have to creep up on certain matters and withhold judgment until we are intellectually mature enough to judge their reality.
