| From the Archives |
| SUMPTER ON BASIC GOODNESS AND NATURAL GUILT |
| The material in the archives was not originally written for a website, but is nevertheless well worth reading. It was all written in New Zealand, and you will occasionally notice this. |
| Many excellent social reforms have met with resistance because by saying "this way is better", the reformers have caused their listeners to think, "that means the old way is bad, and I am bad to follow it, and I don't want to hear that, so I won't listen, and I won't change." The difficulty lies in some basic, very basic, attitudes which have become standard in your world and which lead to guilt, and the denial of guilt and also the misapplication of guilt, by which I mean people are expected by society to feel guilty in some cases where no natural reason for guilt exists, and to deny natural guilt where it very definitely does exist. So the thoughts and feelings of almost everyone have become rather muddled in this crucial area. First I will make a series of simple statements about guilt. Then I will give the reasoning and background to explain them. The statements, then: 1. EVERYONE IS BASICALLY GOOD. 2. GUILT IS FURTHER EVIDENCE AND PROOF THAT A PERSON IS BASICALLY GOOD. 3. GUILT IS NATURAL AND IS AUTOMATICALLY FELT WHEN A PERSON VIOLATES AGAINST ANOTHER OR AGAINST NATURE. 4. GUILT CARRIES ONLY ONE MESSAGE "IT WAS WRONG TO DO THAT, DO NOT DO IT AGAIN." 5. NATURAL GUILT DOES NOT LAST, IT SHOULD BE FELT, THE MESSAGE UNDERSTOOD, AND THEN IT ENDS, AND THE PERSON CAN GO BACK TO FEELING GOOD AGAIN. 6. THE ADMISSION OF NATURAL GUILT IS ENOUGH, PUNISHMENT IS NEVER NECESSARY. 7. NATURAL GUILT, LIKE ANY FEELING, CAN BE DENIED, AND THEN THE LESSON IT CONVEYS IS NOT LEARNED. 8. BEGINNING WITH NATURAL GUILT, HUMANS HAVE BUILT UP A RANGE OF ARTIFICIAL GUILTS FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES, AND FURTHER COMPLICATED THE CLEAR MESSAGES OF NATURAL GUILT. 9. THE INDIVIDUALS YOU MEET HAVE, THEN, NO CLEAR GUIDELINES FOR KNOWING WHEN GUILT IS NATURAL, NOR HOW TO HANDLE EITHER NATURAL OR ARTIFICIAL GUILT, AND SO WILL DO THE BEST THEY CAN, WHICH IS AT LEAST SELF-PROTECTIVE. 1. EVERYONE IS BASICALLY GOOD. Persuading people to believe they are basically good is the most important issue, for when someone knows they are basically good they are much more willing to try new ways of living. Believing they are good, they can anticipate good results from making the change, they trust themselves with it. Believing they are good they can objectively look at past behaviour and decide for themselves where it was good, or where a violation occurred, or where it was merely unhelpful, without feeling personally bad. For the spiritually inclined, the correct argument is that each person is a divine being, a "Child of God", and as a divine being, is good through and through. Add to that the information that humans are divinely graced with freewill, trusted to learn to use it wisely and well. Because of freewill, humans are able to violate against nature and against each other, and will, as they learn to use this divine gift, but this does not mar or blot their basic goodness, and good will out, as the truth will out, in the end. For the Christian, who will ask about "original sin", the explanation is that the story (of Adam and Eve) is a representation of the origin of freewill, and the basic goodness of each person is obvious in the story and existed before the so-called original sin, or the birth of freewill, and still exists today: there is no such thing as a bad or tainted person. For the secular questioner, I would point out that animals are generally regarded as innocent of any inherent badness, the tiger is not considered wicked when it kills its prey, for example. Humans are animals too, with the same basic innocent goodness, however humans have developed freewill, which enables them to violate against nature and each other in ways animals cannot. The freewill itself does not make humans bad, they retain the basic goodness but must learn at conscious levels not to violate against nature, and this they are learning, and will continue to learn. You will see, then, that freewill can be described as the ability to make conscious choices, including the choice to violate against others or nature. Animals have limited ability to choose, but cannot choose to violate against nature. 2. GUILT IS FURTHER EVIDENCE AND PROOF THAT A PERSON IS BASICALLY GOOD. This statement naturally flows on from the previous information, but by setting it out separately, the point can be made clearly and not lost in the rest of the argument. It is only possible for people to feel guilty because they are basically good, they have their own innate goodness to compare their actions against and know when the actions are good and when they are a violation. That natural knowing is instant, and upon violating, instantly becomes the natural, and very unpleasant, feeling of guilt. It is fair to say that to feel guilty is to feel bad. However the feeling is quite literally only possible because of the basic goodness. If there were such a thing as a truly bad person, which there is not, the internal standards would be equally bad, and far from violations setting off the natural alarm of guilt, they would instead induce feelings of pleasure, well-being, and sympathy with the inner state, the bad person would not feel bad, would not know the meaning of the word! 3. GUILT IS NATURAL AND IS AUTOMATICALLY FELT WHEN A PERSON VIOLATES AGAINST ANOTHER OR AGAINST NATURE. Now, you are natural beings, you are spiritual beings, the two statements mean the same thing. Each consciousness, from the least to the greatest, as you understand them, has a built-in recognition of the requirement to cooperate with all other beings in the gestalt or gestalts to which it belongs. The Earth is one such gestalt, (composed of many others) and all the consciousnesses which form it have that built-in recognition with regards to their earthly existence. Atoms and molecules and all other such particles have it expressed as their natural attraction/repulsion behaviours. Plants have it very much as a mass consciousness with some individuality sitting as it were on the top, for a plant, what happens to another plant or indeed any other lifeform, is experienced as happening to itself so of course it "wants" to do what is best for all. Animals have it as instinct, that natural guideline to proper behaviour for each species and each individual. And my lovely human friends have it as two guidelines, compassion and guilt, and these are as natural as instinct, or the other recognitions of the requirement to cooperate. It is entirely possible, theoretically, for humans to operate so effectively with the use of compassion, that they would never violate against each other or against nature, and then they would never feel natural guilt. But compassion alone is not an adequate check where a being is capable of violations; in the natural order of things, in all realities where this is possible, guilt, or its equivalent, instantly, automatically, appears. It is the recognition, you see, at conscious levels, that a violation has occurred. So it is a natural, indeed inevitable, part of the development of freewill. The beings who are graced with freewill, always experiment with it, will attempt violations, and in doing so, learn at conscious levels to care for the fulfilment of all others and to cooperate with all others, and this can be regarded as a more advanced, or specialised, development of consciousness, in certain ways. You will notice also that guilt does not have to be inflicted upon the offender, it is built-in, instant and automatic and suitably horrible so as to stop the offender in their tracks. 4. GUILT CARRIES ONLY ONE MESSAGE "IT WAS WRONG TO DO THAT, DO NOT DO IT AGAIN." The very unpleasant feeling of natural guilt, brings this message. When people are in touch with their feelings, they get the message and understand it. Guilt does not of itself require the person to seek punishment or to make reparation, it acts merely to inform the person that a violation has happened, and that the same action should not be repeated. Compassion may then propel the person to make reparation, but that is not the job of the guilt, and they need not feel guilty if they do not, or cannot, make reparation. Again, if they are in touch with their natural feelings they will not continue to feel guilty. 5. NATURAL GUILT DOES NOT LAST, IT SHOULD BE FELT, THE MESSAGE UNDERSTOOD, AND THEN IT ENDS, AND THE PERSON CAN GO BACK TO FEELING GOOD AGAIN. Natural guilt does not reverberate through the past, nor colour the future. It is an instant response to a violation. For the average person, who is doing their best in a normal life, guilt should only occur at the time of an act of violation. The only time natural guilt will continue past the moment, is when someone is living with a continual violation, if they own slaves, for example, or run a bordello, or a prison, or are in command of troops in a war, or if the guilt is denied instead of being felt and acknowledged. If guilt lingers in any other situation, they are dealing with an artificial guilt, not natural guilt. Continued on the next page Copyright © Z Smith 1993, 1995 (edited in 2004) Unaltered copies may be made for free or non-profit distribution All other rights reserved |
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