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Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
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BookishLookish
08/25/09

In reply to Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
I am writing a book called The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Gilt. It is all about getting jewelry from unsuspecting men. I am publishing it under the nom "Lorelei Leestein." Look for it soon!
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Edited by BookishLookish at 08/25/09 10:00 AM BookishLookish was starred BookishLookish was unstarred

snugbug
08/25/09

@BookishLookish: I'd read that! Seriously, have these eggheads never heard of "Portnoy's Complaint" or just about any Philip Roth book? *Snort* Yeah, sure, if your childhood is one big guilt trip you're gonna be sooooo happy and well-adjusted as an adult.
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BookishLookish
08/25/09

@snugbug: Gilt trippers! Je ne regrette rien.
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restless
08/25/09

In reply to Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
True. Society establishes appropriate social boundaries as a way to mitigate human behavior, otherwise, the more extreme among us would be allowed to act out at the rest of us unchecked. This is a detriment to the greater good.

Or as my Dad always says "Guilt. It's the gift that keeps on giving."
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snugbug promoted this comment Edited by restless at 08/25/09 10:08 AM restless was starred restless was unstarred

SpyMagician
08/25/09

In reply to Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
But, in the end, self-control does matter, because it can compensate for a lack of guilt. If you have neither? Well, you're probably just a lost cause.
Nah, in that case you are most likely "The Shape" or Hannibal Lecter or a housecat.
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The Real JR
08/25/09

In reply to Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
Recently I had the worst case of the guilts that it actually drove me to an early morning mass at St. Patrick's WITH a session in the confessional. I hadn't gone to confession in 22 years.

Father said that since it's been decades since my last Confession, any sins I may have committed during that time would also be forgiven, I don't even have to list them.

That was cool.
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FattyCatty
08/25/09

@The Real JR: Now I'm dying to know what you did. You killed a man just to watch him die, right?
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BookishLookish
08/25/09

@FattyCatty: She loved him to death. Just cause.
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snugbug
08/25/09

@The Real JR: Did you take her man just because you can, Jolene?
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paxcincinnatus
08/25/09

In reply to Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
"But, in the end, self-control does matter, because it can compensate for a lack of guilt. If you have neither? Well, you're probably just a lost cause."

That, or making a mint in finance.
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Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate
08/25/09

In reply to Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
My mother-in-law could have told you that. But don't tell her that, because you'll make her cry.
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FattyCatty
08/25/09

In reply to Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
Look at you, with your fancy Gawker column, posting it so early in the morning. Must be nice, to be so young and healthy that you can wake up and work so early in the morning. Me, ah - I can't do that any more what with the arthritis. No, no don't worry about me. I'd think if you woke up so early you'd have some time to call, say hello, but you're busy, I know. I'm so glad you don't think you have to call me or visit me all the time like Mrs. Smith's columnist across the hall. All day long, her columnist calls her to see how she is doing, inviting her out to dinner, talking about maybe having a few grand-columnists. But me? No, I'm fine here on my own. Alone. In the dark. You're young. You go live your life.
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momo
08/25/09

In reply to Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
Great advice for becoming a successful seven year old, but not really relevant to my experience, thanks.

In trying to sell a memoir and shorter works though, I will admit that stories of guilt (going to rehab, making a change "for the better") will be more likely published than "living without shame". It's just a huge cultural buy-in that has created the stagnancy in which we now live.

But, in the end, self-control does matter, because it can compensate for a lack of guilt. If you have neither? Well, you're probably just a lost cause. Thank you so much Ann Landers.
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skt.smth
08/25/09

@momo: Are you implying that all guilt is bad? I think we should judge guilt on a case-to-case basis. I'm definitely sick of religious and sexual guilt (often these are intertwined), but I think we could do with a lot more of the socio-cultural variety.
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ShanghaiLil
08/25/09

@momo: I'm with you on this one -- I'd love to see which of those kids are more likely to enter therapy as adults in order to get rid of that nagging feeling at the back of their heads that they've done something wrong. Also, in my experience, guilt is kind of useless -- either someone changes what their doing wrong, in which case picking at old scabs doesn't add anything useful, or they hold out their guilt as a way of disguising the fact that they're damned well going to keep doing what they have been doing, but somehow the fact that they feel guilty about it is supposed to make it better. And then there's all that random guilt about things that people have no business feeling guilty about in the first place...
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lawyergay
08/25/09

@momo: Good point. Until, say, Lloyd Blankfein cries at a press conference for ruining the U.S. economy and checks himself into a monastic retreat (heavy on the penance), I'll take my guilt on the side.
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skt.smth
08/25/09

@ShanghaiLil: Guilt over breaking a stupid crappy plastic toy is meaningless, yes. I think the study is flawed, in a way, because it could just as well be gauging fear of punishment.

I think guilt only does its best work when the fear of feeling guilty actually prevents people from doing things that they should not do (and by this I mean things that are clearly criminal, like murder or assault or robbery, or clearly socially deleterious, like treating the elderly like shit, driving like an asshole, things like that). In other words, when guilt is working properly as a form of social cohesion, people will rarely experience the feelings associated with it.

One can probably judge the pointlessness of a form of guilt by how often it is experienced by people. The more it's experienced, the less effective, and probably the less socially beneficial it is. So basically, all the religious and sexual guilt in Western society is pointless.
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Magister
08/25/09

@momo: A lot about the validity of this "study" might be learned, if we knew how they defined "behavior problems" for the next five years, how they were recorded and whether it actually continues beyond elementary school.

@skt.smth: Seriously.

But first, for 60 seconds after the toy broke, the psychologists recorded every reaction as the toddlers squirmed, avoided the experimenter’s gaze, hunched their shoulders, hugged themselves and covered their faces with their hands.

These all sound like behaviors that would be exhibited, if the kid was expecting or anticipating parental punishment and not just some internal thing, they might do to themselves.
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snugbug
08/25/09

@skt.smth: I think in graph #2 you're sort of mooshing guilt and shame into one concept. They're different--guilt is an internal dialogue (you vs. God, or some abstract moral authority) while shame is an external dialogue between the individual and the others. It's shame that's the social liant, actually--it prevents people from doing a-hole things because it colors their perception by the others negatively.
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skt.smth
08/25/09

In reply to Forget Greed, It's Guilt That's Good
I think guilt is great when it results from a larger sense of social and cultural obligation, as in Japan, because that actually translates into hard results (lower crime, etc). The problem with guilt in America is that it mostly comes from religion, and so when we feel guilt, it is still largely an individuated, "spiritual" experience. So what happens is we go out, do stupid shit, and then we feel guilty about it after the fact. Some people actually develop neuroses which compel them to do stupid shit, because the feeling of guilt that follows is the only thing they have that reinforces their ingrained beliefs. But rarely is there anything to reinforce that doing such a thing was stupid in the first place, and so we do it again. Rinse & repeat forever.
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Edited by skt.smth at 08/25/09 7:40 AM skt.smth was starred skt.smth was unstarred

Inhaler
02/26/09

In reply to Thanks For Letting Us Use You, Slumdog Kids, Here Are Some Houses
The real question here is, of course, will Short Round be the driver of said rickshaw?
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arguablythemostfamous
02/25/09

In reply to Thanks For Letting Us Use You, Slumdog Kids, Here Are Some Houses
But did they get to meet Miley?
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iplaudius
02/25/09

In reply to Thanks For Letting Us Use You, Slumdog Kids, Here Are Some Houses
It would be good to know what the children and their parents think about all this. My guess is that, on the balance, it beats slum living, and they’d rather take the good with the bad.
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Mymoustache
02/25/09

In reply to Thanks For Letting Us Use You, Slumdog Kids, Here Are Some Houses
This reminds me of the news segment I saw about camel jockeys. Apparently, Bangladeshi families are so poor that they sell their young sons to rich Arabs to act as camel jockeys. Some group got all up in arms and returned the kids to their families...who promptly sold them again.
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miss_msry
02/25/09

@Mymoustache:

Isn't camel jockey a slur?
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gawkimo
02/25/09

In reply to Thanks For Letting Us Use You, Slumdog Kids, Here Are Some Houses
Out with the optimistic, American feel-good Holocaust movies, in with the optimistic, American feel-good Third World shit-hole movies.
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pufflehuff
02/25/09

@gawkimo: Slumdog had nothing to do with America and is not all that feel-good.
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mass romantic
02/25/09

@pufflehuff: Thank you. There's like 2 Americans in the movie and they look kind of silly.

I just saw it today after hearing how it "romanticized" slum life, and let me tell you, I didn't see it at all. It showed the horror of slum life with bright spots in between.
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pufflehuff
02/26/09

@mass romantic: Yes indeedy. I saw it for the second time on Tuesday, and it made me feel much more sympathetic towards Salim, who is ostensibly the baddie, but a lot of the bad acts he commits are in order to save Jamal, who is very passive.

A fascinating film, great rollicking entertainment, and non-condescending - for once, it's not about one of us finding ourselves in mystical India.
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Cheney Guevara
02/25/09

In reply to Thanks For Letting Us Use You, Slumdog Kids, Here Are Some Houses
How much money did the producers of Doubt or The Reader donate to rehabilitating people molested by priests or German Nazi pedophiles?

How much did the producers of Rachel Getting Married donate to drug rehabs?

How much did Pixar donate to recycling?

How much did Hellboy donate to... um...

etc.
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Richard Lawson
02/25/09

@independentthinkerdude: Whoosh!
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pufflehuff
02/25/09

@independentthinkerdude: How much did the makers of The Wrestler donate to Mickey Rourke?
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robot ninja spy
02/25/09

@independentthinkerdude: I don't think that's the same unless real victims/addicts appeared in those films and I'm not sure recycling can be exploited.
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britneyspearstears
02/25/09

@pufflehuff: Ha!
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