Collective Regret and Guilt and Heroic Agency: A Pro-Existential Approach

Abstract

Studies in social psychology point out that feelings of guilt are more likely than feelings of regret to occur in an interpersonal context (Wagner et al. 1) marked by “interpersonal harm,” or harm done to others (Berndsen et al. 55, 66). In keeping with these studies, in social ontology, regret seems to involve an evaluation of the kind of wrongdoing that is out of someone's control (Konzelmann Ziv 488), while the feeling of guilt implies the self-attribution of blame over something that is connected, even in a loose manner, to a blameworthy action (Gilbert, “Group Wrongs” 65, 66n3).In order to advance the argument of the reasonableness of a person's feeling of guilt if that person is part of a group that has acted wrongfully, Margaret Gilbert distinguishes between feelings of personal guilt and feelings of collective guilt (“Group Wrongs” 76), with the latter still impacting on the individual feelings of guilt. From this point of view, a person may be “personally guiltless,” but can still reasonably feel guilt if that person's group behaves in a morally unacceptable way (“Group Wrongs” 66). By distinguishing between personal and collective guilt, Gilbert intends to give an “intelligible” dimension to what she calls Jaspers's “dilemma” (“Collective Guilt” 135, 136). She emphasizes Karl Jaspers's hesitation in categorizing his own feeling of guilt for what his people have done: “There is a way that he ‘cannot help feeling’ which is ‘rationally refutable’” (Gilbert “Collective Guilt” 135; Jaspers 74). As a philosopher, Gilbert argues, Jaspers finds this existential dilemma “extremely problematic” (“Collective Guilt” 135). Nonetheless, Gilbert also concedes that these two types of guilt may be difficult to distinguish in regard to their “phenomenological conditions” at the level of the “pangs and twinges” experienced by each person, but rather on the basis of the “judgment or thought” involved with that feeling (“Collective Guilt” 135).Gilbert argues that “it is indeed intelligible for group members to feel guilt over the action in question” by virtue of what she calls a “foundational joint commitment,” which brings together a number of people to “intend as a body” to carry out certain actions (“Collective Guilt” 136). Although not committed to the goal of showing the intelligibility of the feeling of membership guilt as is Gilbert, I favor the acceptance of a kind of reasonableness of such a feeling, even when it conserves its “rationally refutable” character. This even applies when membership guilt may not so easily be distinguished from personal guilt. Gilbert sees joint commitment as “authority-creating,” in the sense that “a person or body” may become “authorized” to apply the collective intention to the concrete settings. This is realized by making decisions for the entire group, thus bringing the collective intention into effect (“Collective Guilt” 136). This joint commitment becomes binding for individual members of the group since once they commit themselves to the group's intention, “they are not in a position unilaterally to change the collective's mind.” This does not apply in situations when “they may do so by mutual consent” (“Collective Guilt” 127). What I find concerning about Gilbert's involvement of the argument of the “authority-creating” (“Collective Guilt” 136) joint commitment within the dimension of membership guilt is precisely that it discourages any contestation of the authority that decides the content of the collective intention, unless this is done by “mutual consent” (“Collective Guilt” 127). This makes the members of the collective rather passive, and unwilling to challenge the authority generated through their participation in the joint commitment.This reluctance of the members of a collective body to challenge the authority that gives content to their collective intention can easily be identified in history and in the contemporary landscapes of political authority, especially in countries led continuously for decades by authoritarian leaders. In spite of the oppressive character of their leadership, these are very rarely contested, and then only by sporadic voices who fail to generate a coherent long-term commitment from other group members. In this sense, Gilbert's argument assumes that the group's “mind” can be changed only when those sporadic voices gain enough traction to generate a general “mutual consent” to deprive of authority a specific person or group in power, and to generate a new authority to replace the old one (“Collective Guilt” 127). Nonetheless, Gilbert does not focus on the transition from the passivity of the group members to the active mutual agreement to change their ruling authority, but simply suggests that this does occur. Indeed, she leaves this aspect to the contingencies of societies in specific geographic, cultural, and political contexts. Moreover, when this event does occur and the members change their authority, it remains “intelligible” that they should also feel guilty for what the previous person or group in power has done in the name of the entire community.Gilbert's argument overlooks the element that initiates the change of attitudes of those submitting themselves to the decisions of the authority that they have previously collectively established and are continuously confirming through their continued submissive behaviors. This element may metaphorically be identified as a spark firing up the entire community toward active, mutual agreement to bring change. The irrational element plays an essential role in the occurrence of this spark, both at the individual level and in the way it influences public opinion. However, while its occurrence is highly unpredictable, it is less contingent on external factors than on personal attitudes defying the “intelligible” structure of the social fabric. Such a personal attitude may be illustrated by something that might seem for most of the group members as an irrational behavior. Even so, once this attitude manifests itself in morally exemplary actions, the established rationality of the social setting applauded by the majority is brought to shame.That said, despite its irrational allure, this “controversial” (Konzelmann Ziv 488) or “rationally refutable” feeling (Gilbert, “Collective Guilt” 135; Jaspers 74) might prove itself to be a source of moral renewal for a society. In many countries around the world, there have always been silent majorities who did not share their government's thirst for glory, revenge, and persecution, but who felt powerless to stop what they clearly saw as utterly wrong and felt sincere regret for the treatments inflicted upon those populations considered inferior to their group. As I will argue throughout the essay, those silent—or perhaps dormant—majorities that retreated into complacent attitudes regarding the way things are in their society need the kind of spark that could set alight the entire social structure, consume the old rusty customs, and remold the authority chains of mutual dependence, thus maintaining not only the institutional but also the moral coherence of the collective body.What I call a “spark” is a metaphorical way of talking about the psychological dynamism transferred from one or several personalities to the entire community by virtue of their capacity to influence the community's “mind.” This dynamism instantly transforms the passivity of the way things are into a collective outcry about the social injustice, which until then had failed to impress the majority population. I will argue throughout the essay that this instant change of mind within the community is less likely to emerge out of feelings of regret, and even out of social shaming. The existentialist perspective adopted in this essay will emphasize the connection between the “rationally refutable” guilt feeling and a special kind of responsibility for the coherent ontology of the individual's group or community. This is a responsibility to contribute to or maintain the collective life without looking primarily to one's own self-interest or personal gain. It is a responsibility for the existence of the other, an existentialist stance that cultivates what Shannon Sullivan calls one's “active thriving,” which is “intimately linked to the active thriving of others” (148) and for which I coin the term pro-existence.In contrast with co-existence, pro-existential attitudes lead people down the path of caring for or feeling responsible for the lives of others in multiple ways. The aspect I emphasize in this essay is the courage to feel guilt for others on one hand, in the sense of not feeling morally good if others are suffering and, on the other hand, in the sense of allowing oneself to feel guilt in other people's place, for the sake of righteousness. This occurs in contexts where social healing cannot happen because there is nobody, or too few, willing to accept guilt. My argument on pro-existence that is developed in this essay mainly emphasizes the existentialist and—to a lesser degree—the theological sources of thinking about the experience of guilt. It is meant to distinguish a more positive reading of guilt from its negative perception, not only in the general discussion about the “rationally refutable” character of guilt, but also in the contemporary distortion of guilt through its sectarian reading as “white guilt.” Also adopting the criticism of the Redneck Manifesto, which I read in an existentialist perspective in order to bring it closer to Jaspers's dilemma on guilt, I argue that the localization of guilt within one segment of society, namely middle-class white males, goes against what “white guilt” is meant to generate: solidarity throughout society, irrespective of skin color, religion, or historical experience.A pro-existential reading of the task of embracing guilt for the other's happiness, in the place of those others who would not—or do not know they should—accept guilt, de-localizes guilt. This may be done without relativizing it, hence prompting members of the society to reflect upon and engage in activism for social justice, by renouncing self-centeredness and the agonistic ambition to prove the other wrong. This attitude creates the opportunity for the kind of engagement that can be called heroic. Heroic agency does away with simple pride for collective glory, which only highlights segments of one's past and leads to contrastive—and potentially antagonistic—readings of the past by members of different communities that make up the ontology of the larger social body.The absence of “mutual consent” (Gilbert, “Collective Guilt” 127) influences the member of society to adopt a passive attitude regarding collective feelings of guilt and regret. This can translate into finding one's current social settings as the most comfortable (given the potential challenges and risks associated with changing them) and in making the confusion between regret and guilt. This may be illustrated, for instance, by considering Anita Konzelmann Ziv's observation that “subjects experiencing regret usually feel a kind of distance to their regret's content that subjects experiencing guilt do not feel” (476). It means that once the individual realizes that mutual consent to bring about a regime change without impacting on one's own safety or well-being cannot reasonably be achieved, then the impression that the collective's mind cannot be changed may lead to a gradual confusion, and ultimate replacement, of guilt with regret. Having moved toward a predominantly regretful attitude, such individuals will become less and less willing to see themselves as sharing responsibility for a state of affairs that is maintained by the social system and that may be favorable to them but hurtful to some people or groups that are part of the same social body. Having talked about regret as a feeling regarding a “wrongdoing that is out of one's control,” Konzelmann Ziv appreciates that there is “no question whether it is appropriate” for her “to feel regret” for a certain decision of her country's government “while the appropriateness of my feeling guilt for it could be controversial” (488). It could be controversial indeed to feel guilt, especially when it might be almost impossible to assess one's potential contribution to the effort of reversing the government's decision.In considering Konzelmann Ziv's argument about regret, I do not intend to argue that regret completely lacks moral strength in motivating individuals to restore a state of affairs or find opportunities for apology and reconciliation. Indeed, as Konzelmann Ziv argues, “[t]he fact that moral regret is a more ‘distanced’ feeling than guilt does not imply that its motivational force is weak” (490). I do not intend to argue that a “motivational force” is not involved in the feeling of regret, and in many cases, it is manifested collectively, as Konzelmann Ziv puts it, in an “efficient” way (491). This may happen especially when collective participation is encouraged by public policies. In other words, when the goal of reconciliation is part of what has been termed “the politics of regret,” understood to be the sum of policies promoted within a political community and supporting restorative actions and intergroup opening and reconciliation (Olick 14, 128), the expression of regret may be indeed efficient and necessary.The question remains open whether this kind of feeling may also be considered sufficient by those individuals or populations who have directly been hurt, or their descendants. I suspect that it all depends on the way the policies regarding the expression of collective regret are conducted and implemented. The focus of this essay is not that dimension of the official expression of regret and implementation of specific policies in contexts which welcome reconciliation and reparations, but rather the insufficiency of feelings of regret to motivate the transition from the member's passive submission to those in power, to the public contestation of government decisions, and mutual agreement to divest the government of their authority. If put into practice, the political engagement of the subjects of the feelings of regret could be very risky, given that those who have authority ceded to them by their subjects also enjoy the power to conserve it, which they can use despite any loss of legitimacy.In these cases, while personal regret may still keep its motivational force, this force cannot be expressed as long as there is a doubt among the subjects about whether their action will make a difference regarding the orientation of the collective mind-set. In the long term, as those in power consolidate their influence in the institutional and customary ties of the collectivity, the individual's mere doubt will develop into a strong rational conviction about “the subject's lack of influence in the wrongdoing” perpetrated by the leader(s) (Konzelmann Ziv 490). All that remains is to be grateful to the leader for those actions that are still serving the overall goal of collective benefit and protection, while keeping critical voices at the level of private murmuring. Additional feelings of awe for the projects of the ruler presented as great achievements on the road of conquering glory among other nations, or fear and anxiety for loss of social status, property, loved ones, or one's own body may contribute to making the motivational force of moral regret appear as simply irrational.In the context of a collective reluctance to oppose the status quo, even when it is unfavorable to one's own place within the social body and eventually to the collectivity as a whole, and given the apparent irrationality of contestation, the members of the social body are on the path to committing what is known as the “naturalistic fallacy.” This fallacy of judgment has been described as “any leap in reasoning in which one deduces an ought,” that is, the “assumption regarding the way things should be,” from “an is,” the mere observation of “the way things are” (Kay et al. 431). If the status quo is unfair to many, they might accept it as being based on the rationality of a higher collective intention to which they are irremediably connected, and whose content is given by those invested with authority and power. Moreover, the motivational force of regret for others, and even for their own situation, is weakened by the fact that the current system makes the social wheels turn and the giant collective body move, which is something that may be overwhelming for an individual or a small group.This may not mean that the motivational force of the feeling of moral regret disappears completely, but simply that the spark to ignite the dormant moral discontents in everybody is missing. This spark can only appear when a person or a small group does something considered to be irrational, a highly risky act that brings potentially dreadful consequences to them and their friends and families. Nonetheless, once this act becomes known to the rest of the members of the group, it confronts—and brings shame upon—the kind of reasoning that appeared so firmly established in the minds of the majority. This kind of an apparently irrational gesture impacts upon the collective's purportedly rational appreciation of the way things are by awakening the moral feeling that something is deeply wrong about the established way of life that requires the sacrifice of a few for the benefit of many and, furthermore, the unfairness toward many for the comfort of a few. This new situation awakens the moral feeling of collective regret and widens it toward the more intuitive, and shocking, dynamics of guilt. The dynamism of guilt affects those who realize that by their lack of motivation toward action, they have tolerated, encouraged, and legitimized collective customs and institutions for far too long. These have generated unimaginable pain and suffering for those perceived as too different, such as ethnic, sexual, religious minority, aboriginal, or non-white communities: in short, all those deemed unessential pieces in the building of the collective edifice imagined by those in power.The collective need for glory among other nations has largely contributed to the members turning a blind eye to the social injustices committed by their regimes. As Peter Forrest suggests, the exact opposite of the feeling of glory is guilt (145). Whether or not this suggestion is correct, the argument of glory has been indeed used by authoritarian leaders to influence the members of the collective body to overlook questions of personal and collective guilt regarding the marginalization or overt persecution of some members of their society as a price for collective glory. Set against the attitude of adopting the quest for glory as a tool to avoid guilt, I will suggest that a clearer and more impressive glory can be displayed among nations by the collective embracing of the feeling of guilt, and the resulting responsibility. It does not mean that guilt is to be embraced as simply an irrational and potentially dangerous feeling for one's well-being, but in conjunction with the collective responsibility for wrongful actions, past and present. This collective responsibility nurtured by the feeling of guilt that determines “the emotional subject to be involved as responsible agent in the emotion's content” (Konzelmann Ziv 476) is nevertheless set ablaze by the spark that changes the mind-set of the entire community. This spark is the irrational but highly desirable act of heroism.To expand on the transforming power of heroic acts on members’ collective guilt, which transforms a negative to a positive feeling meant to generate, rather than discourage, cooperation and mutual agreement over previous misdeeds, I will briefly critically discuss and develop Gilbert's example of “the commander of a small battalion of soldiers” who “orders the battalion to destroy a certain village along with its inhabitants” (“Collective Guilt” 132). Gilbert's example is meant to illustrate her critique to the aggregative account of collective guilt, according to which collective guilt feelings are nothing more than the personal feelings of guilt of those who make up a certain group that acted in a bad way (“Collective Guilt” 130). In response to this account, Gilbert argues that “we cannot expect all of the members” of the group to feel personal guilt when a group does something wrong, as the aggregative account would suppose, but that at the same time, “it is not obvious that a collective feeling of guilt is ruled out” (“Collective Guilt” 132). She points out that one member of the group may pretend “to have a bad knee” to avoid taking part in the action, another really has an accident and cannot participate, while another one “pretends to be taking part in the carnage but in fact tries to help the villagers escape with some of their belongings” (“Collective Guilt” 132). Other cases may be considered, since Gilbert adds “and so on,” which gives me the opportunity to expand on this example by adding another case.Gilbert's point seems to be that the reason of collective guilt is not based on the members’ feelings of guilt for their actual participation in the carnage, but on another kind of members’ guilt, coming from the fact that “each member is party to a joint commitment that created the relevant collective intention and subsequent action” (“Collective Guilt” 133). Although Gilbert's suggestion of the dimension of joint commitment tying together both those who acted according to the commander's order and those who escaped it seems an “intelligible” way (“Collective Guilt” 136) to deal with the “rationally refutable” (Jaspers 74) feeling of collective guilt, it still generates confusion over the different kinds of guilt the members of a group are supposed to be feeling. Gilbert seems not to be bothered too much by this ambiguity, since, as mentioned, at the level of their “pangs and twinges,” the two feelings may be indistinguishable (“Collective Guilt” 119). While Gilbert argues strongly for the impossibility of distinguishing between the “pangs” of membership guilt and those of personal guilt, the problem is that this kind of reading generates the impression that “a pang is a pang is a pang” (“Collective Guilt” 141), which inadvertently suggests that any feeling of guilt does nothing more than generate a serious psychological discomfort in those experiencing it. My rereading of Gilbert's example will show that there is much more than a “pang” related to the feeling of guilt. While the “phenomenological” dimension of guilt tends to be depicted in negative terms, I will show that the experience of the feeling contains the potential for personal and collective moral change, which is something that has been ignored by those seeing guilt as something merely irrational, or a burden of the conscience.According to the cases proposed by Gilbert, of those who did not want, or were unable to, participate in the wrongdoing of the group, it may be observed that there may be different qualitative experiences of guilt, even though in principle the phenomenon of guilt may be the same in all cases. For instance, the kind of experience of guilt by those who actively participated in the destruction of the village is qualitatively different from the experience of guilt of the one who at the time intended to participate with the others but was kept out of the action by reasons independent of his will. In this case, if Gilbert supposes that all those who did participate in the wrongdoing might reasonably subsequently feel personal guilt, then it would be too simplistic to suppose that the one who wanted to but failed to participate experiences collective guilt through his general joint commitment to the group intention rather than through his remorse for the actions he intended to accomplish himself. There is already in this case a qualitative distinction between the experience of guilt by the actual perpetrators, and the experience of guilt of those who, at the time, aspired to be among the perpetrators but, for reasons external to their intention, failed to fulfill their wish. Although the feeling is still a “pang” of guilt, there is a clear difference between feeling guilt for an accomplished plan and feeling guilt for intending to carry on a plan that might have generated a lot of damage to innocent people. Moreover, it would be improper to say that because the plan failed, it would be unreasonable for the would-be perpetrator to feel personal guilt.The case of the one who pretended to have “a bad knee” may indeed point primarily to the feeling of collective guilt simply by virtue of his joint commitment to the group intention. After all, he did not challenge the order of the commander openly, which still makes him a participant in the joint commitment, even if he did not personally injure anybody in that village. Even so, the kind of guilt that affects him may not only come from his joint commitment, but also from his understanding that he did nothing to break this joint commitment. In this case, if those who became the actual perpetrators might feel guilt for burning the village, the person who pretended to be injured might also feel guilty for not having done anything to stop them, even if he accepts that only his isolated action could not have changed the group's “mind” or intention. More simply put, he might consider himself a coward for not having done something to stop the others, and this is another aspect of the experience of guilt that is overlooked by the exclusive focus on joint commitment.Finally, in Gilbert's example, there is the case of the one who pretended to take part in the wrongdoing but who actually helped some, but not all, people to escape. It is “intelligible” that this person will also feel collective guilt by virtue of his joint commitment, especially because he reconfirmed his public commitment to the group intention by actually giving the impression of participation in the carnage. Nonetheless, his choice to mimic participation in the wrongdoing does not completely exonerate him of the feeling of personal guilt. In order to understand this case better, I will add another case, which is not discussed by Gilbert, perhaps because of her argument that an isolated and uncoordinated action has little chance of changing the group's intention. Suppose that, upon hearing the command, one of the soldiers of the battalion steps forward and challenges the commander's order by clearly exposing, in front of everybody, the moral reasons and feelings according to which the action of the group is utterly wrong. This infuriates the commander, who takes out his revolver and shoots him on the spot. Or, in a milder version of the story, he is incarcerated for disobeying an order.It can be argued that this apparently irrational action of the soldier, to speak up against the wrongful command, endangered the safety of the person who challenged the authority of the one officially entitled to give content to the group intention, and did nothing to change the content of this intention. This supposition is not correct. If the gesture of the challenger did not effectively change the content of the intention, it did change several things. Firstly, it openly showed that the authority of the one who makes the decision can be challenged. From this point of view, the choice of the commander to shoot the contender may reveal exactly what the commander was afraid of: his weakness, and his intention to discourage the soldiers from further contestations, although this may not work the next time. Also, the apparently unreasonable gesture of the soldier suggested that all that is needed is a few more soldiers to oppose the commander, so that his authority may seriously be questioned by the other soldiers to whom the commander had seemed omnipotent. Moreover, it potentially awakened second thoughts in the minds of the soldiers: it can reasonably be supposed that this gesture of irrational courage prompted the one who did not want to participate in the wrongdoing to invoke an injury to his knee, or encouraged the one who feigned participation to save some of the villagers. This is a pro-existential gesture, which endangered the challenger's own situation, but was aimed at awakening the moral conscience of others.Coming back to the one who mimicked involvement in the wrongdoing, it can be argued that his gesture did nothing to stop the collective “mind,” or intention, but rather confirmed it. Had he made a step forward together with the one who chose to openly challenge the authority of the commander, then potentially the one who pretended to have a bad knee might have stepped forward, too, and so on, generating a domino effect that would have undermined the authority of the commander and would have prevented the taking of so many innocent lives. The fact that he chose to save some of the victims is still morally laudable, and his gesture may be considered courageous, too, and even heroic, especially because he potentially faced the possibility of being discovered, but this does not mean that, in this case, he cannot feel personally guilty. His guilt comes from the fact that he did not embrace a fully pro-existential attitude to risk everything to save the lives of the villagers and to awaken the moral consciousness of his fellow soldiers. Indeed, this person does not feel guilty for the evil he did not do, but for the good he chose not to do, given his reluctance to openly challenge the authority of the commander. This is another kind of guilt that the exclusive focus on collective guilt by joint commitment might overlook. All these dimensions of the feeling of guilt, not for the evil perpetrated, but for the vocation of the moral duty to do good, point toward the great potential for collective moral chang