Hello F(r)iends,
Is guilt learned?
Is guilt a fabrication imposed on us by society or by other environmental influences?
Do we learn to feel guilty about things?
Or do we feel guilty and learn later that it is called “feeling guilty”?
Can we unlearn guilt?
What are the implications or learning or unlearning guilt?
-Thirst
We act, then there is the reaction by the people around us.
They, the reaction, determines what the child feals is the “proper”, “improper”, “normal”, “abnormal” repayment/“justice” – for the action+reaction (interaction).
This is why people who are abused emotionally [as children], feel that they deserve to die or be hurt. It doesn’t have to be true, it just has to be brain-washed, experienced many times, become the “average” or “normal” way.
Guilt comes from the idea that “bad” actions should be punished. After experiencing social law/“justice” – rapid experience within this causes the individual to adopt or learn the reactive system.
“Guilt”, “pride”, “shame”, “dept”, “expectation” – they are all learned.
(Edit:
What are implications of removal of guilt?
The action is easier/possible at that time.
Remember to replace dogma with full understanding,
and value your health/love yourself – use this as a responsible motivator. That’s my advice to everyone.)
Example:
Mom got murdered,
dad died from old age.
Which death is more “evil”?
Which death is more “shocking”?
Mom died fast, dad died slowly, very painfully, because of his health deteriorating – the ends of the old age.
But the factor that makes 1 thing “natural” and 1 thing “evil” – is expectation and social norms.
I’ve listed here today, the reason why we feel anything “morally”. I know this, I see it deep within all of humanity. All of the stupid or bad/illogical patterns that I see in humanity, these are the norm, the average, and the natural. I also full-know that I can’t stop or save anyone, and I can barely maintain my own purity – trying to disgard wrong or delusional influence.
As I’ve said in other places, people are fundamentally “insane”, and I don’t really know what the correct wording is for that… Perhaps, “programmed” would be a better word. Sigh.
Atleast you learned something new today, Thrist.
I think that most of the time guilt is more of a social construct. It is learned from an early age that certain things are acceptable in the normal discourse of relating to events and some are not. You also learn that when you have acted in a way that is not, you will be treated outside of the game the rest of them are playing. Thus, you learn to feel bad for being outside. This translates into guilt. It is you that have done something wrong, and not them for excluding you or reacting as they have instead of how you did.
However, people with pets may have noticed that they also can feel guilty. Whether this means they have the same capacities as us in certain areas or not, it could also further the argument that there is something natural about guilt. That it is a natural response given to certain reactions.
Can we unlearn guilt? I think to a certain point. You can train yourself (or have yourself trained) that other people acting in a certain way should not affect you. You therefore feel none of the social pressures to react in any given way and instead react in the way that you see fit. When others disagree it becomes their problem. However, I do not know that you can fully remove the feeling of guilt. No matter how callous a person has become, I’ve never seen anyone who cared so little for everyone else that there is no room for another’s feelings having implication on their own.
I think the key would be to control guilt. Know that only certain reactions are worth feeling guilty about. Reduce the amount of guilt you feel and limit it to the places where feeling guilty would actually be beneficial to you. Guilt can be a good motivator in some people. You say something stupid, it’s okay to feel guilty if you’ve hurt a friend. It helps you to make up with that person, because you honestly did not want to hurt them. Likewise, if they are being unreasonable about it, it’s okay to not feel guilty but still want to make things right in a way, just without feeling guilty. You know that is their problem, but you still want to help them with it, it’s just not your problem as well.
Our emotional responses, like our “intellectual” responses, are taught to us, either directly or through the teaching to us of our basic beliefs (it is both at once). The philosopher’s task is to decide just what those basic beliefs should be. We are not born philosophers - we are born helpless children dependent on our parents and other people.
I am speaking here of specific responses, and not the basic ability to repond itself. The latter is just part of our physiognomy - our inborn wiring.
fausty
Guilt’s a choice. You can let it get to you or not. Personally, I’m often a guiltless badass, but can be a softy over what matters to me.
Hi thirst,
I started a thread in religion on the externalization of our spiritual nature which is a side issue here, but basically asks the same question. We are taught guilt first, by those in authority (parents and community) and through enculturation, learn to feed our own guilt.
Can we unlearn guilt? I think it is possible. The only guilt that we seem to never escape is the guilt of acting out of ignorance. Technically, it may not be guilt, but just feeling badly that we’re too damned dumb to be in complete empathy with those around us.
I think it finally has to do with knowing our own intent. If we mean well, then there is nothing to be guilty for. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we won’t feel badly about being plain stupid… 
See I disagree. I think guilt is a choice, but a subconscious one. You are equivocating your response to the actual feeling of the emotion. They are two separate things. I can get angry but react in a completely opposite manner. I still experienced the anger, it did not go away, I just chose not to act on it.
You can choose not to act on your guilt, but that does not mean the guilt was never there. Now you may be able to get to the point where you do not experience the guilt, but I think that it might affect you in more situations than some people might like.
Dear silent,
I think you can intellectualize the guilt and know that it is stupid - and be a "“badass,” but guilt (sometimes) is quieter and sneakier in the middle of the night - wakes you up and BAM. Even when you know you should not give in, know you are right and intellectually believe the truth - it lurks. Emotions are funny little suckers that literally suck the life out of you.
I would like some more input here on unlearning it. What makes YOU not guilty. Is it your general makeup that disallows you to be dragged down? We are all so different and (I know) it takes more than a parent to raise (or LOWER) a child. Genetics is something we will never quite understand. It starts within us, I think, but is nurtured by upbringing.
Sara
If I didn’t care, why would I feel guilty? It wouldn’t be because I was told to. I wouldn’t feel guilty. I can choose what I care about.
Right but you’re only arguing one point. You’re arguing from the standpoint that you don’t care.
Assume you do care. How do you prevent the guilt? This leads back to the argument that your reaction and the emotion are different. If you care, then seemingly according to what you’ve said, you could feel guilt. What would prevent you from feeling it then? Emotions are entirely logical.
Tell me, have you ever fallen in love? Did you sit around and logically debate with yourself over whether you were in love and come to the conclusion that yes, you must be because your actions dictate that this must be so? I would find it doubtful.
Obviously it’s much easier to not feel guilt when you have nothing to lose by not feeling guilty. But overall, the emotion can still occur. What measures can be taken to prevent guilt, besides becoming a severely callous prat that no one wants to be around?
Why would you want to prevent guilt?
Because you dislike experiencing the emotion. That would be a determination left to each individual. I’m sure there’s been at least one instance in many people’s lives where they felt guilty but wished they didn’t.
Sure, but that’s no reason to deny it. Guilt, I think, is a rather useful emotion. Think of criminals without guilt that commit crimes based on carelessness. Now, tell if you’d rather care and accept the after effects of guilt rather than not care and go without guilt.
And there’s a difference between denying it and preventing it. It certainly can be a useful emotion as I stated way up there. However, there are times when it does not benefit anyone for person A to feel guilt. Person A feels bad and really did nothing wrong. Think of children who feel guilty for every wrong done unto them because they have been trained that it’s their fault and to feel guilty for it.
We are looking to prevent unnecessary guilt, not deny guilt altogether. You want to limit the emotion to when it is necessary for you to realize or do something productive because of it. Sure there’ll be times when you still feel it and nothing good comes of it really, but I think people would like to minimize those times.
I always thought of that sort of guilt as self-pity having never experienced it. I think you can be influenced and taught to do anything that isn’t true and if you knew it wasn’t true then you already prevented it.
Ahh…but it is guilt. You have been convinced that because you did action A and received response B, you are guilty of something. It’s different from self-pity.
We’re walking around in circles here. If you’re taught to feel guilty you will, if you’re not you won’t. Right. But how do you teach someone who has been taught one way the other way. How do you correct that kid who believes themselves guilty of all their parents faults into knowing that it is not their fault? Or is there an inherent feeling of guilt built in that can never be compensated for?
…It’s really the opposite. You can blame your parents for the guilt or you can blame you. If you blame your parents you’ll have a reason to feel guilty, but if you blame you, you won’t. Why would I blame myself for myself? I wouldn’t. Blaming the guilt on my parents would give me a reason to. In blaming the guilt on my parents I realize my parents’ wrong doing and not my own because if I blamed myself I’d blame my own wrong doing and not my parents’. My wrong doing is my guilt because my parents did nothing to make me feel guilty. It was me all along. My choice.
Sky - when you speak of a child who believes themselves guilty (of anything) you are using a different sense of the word “guilt” than is operative when we actually experience guilt. “Believes themselves guilty of all their parents’ faults” can be rephrased as “Believe themselves to have all their parents’ faults”. How they feel about this is covered by the other sense of the word - the sense that describes a feeling. They could posess these faults and feel nothing about them - if, for instance, they are not aware that they posess them.
You don’t unlearn a feeling. You unlearn a response. The operant term in your question is “believe”, wherein lies your answer. It is our beliefs - values - that must (and can) be changed, to change our feelings of guilt - what we feel guilty about.
We do not control our emotions with our emotions. We determine them with our values. We may feel guilty about pre-marital sex, but escape this guilt by revaluing the values that cause the judgement we make that produces the guilt. We learn how to make these judgements from our parents, mostly, and others. We make our own judgements only after we make philosophical inquiry into them, and decide on new values. This is a long process, and it is the philosopher’s task. There is no easy fix.
f