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It would seem that we are much more relaxed in many matters than, say, the generation of our mothers and grandmothers. Does this mean that we are gradually freed from guilt? No, according to our experts.
“Now you won’t be surprised by this!” – my friend chuckled when I, shocked, told about a conversation with a childhood friend – after ten years of marriage, she found out that all these years her husband had relationships on the side. I was indignant, but my interlocutor only smiled. As well as colleagues, women and men with whom I discussed (out of professional interest) this event.
Unexpectedly for me, different people agreed that cheating does not matter much in a couple’s relationship if the other does not suffer because of it or does not know about it at all. The very same culprit of this whole discussion (I had a tense conversation with him) amazed me with a complete lack of guilt.
Our experts confirm that infidelity, as well as open relationships, sexual “excesses” and the prohibitions associated with these aspects of life, which previously traumatized entire generations, now make us feel less and less guilty. Other “accusers” enter the scene.
Enjoy without looking back?
“Our feelings are connected with the values accepted in society,” explains family psychotherapist Inna Khamitova. – So, the totalitarian system imposed strict prohibitions on the manifestation and discussion of sexuality.
Thanks to changes in society, our internal boundaries have become more flexible, we feel freer, including in intimate relationships. It is enough to go online to make sure that now literally everything is possible, allowed and available, any fantasy can be realized.”
The feeling of guilt is “activated” by the norms and rules of the environment in which we move
Guilt is one of the most ancient human experiences (as well as anger, shame, interest, surprise, fear, shyness…), it is a part of our mental life. Only some people with certain mental disorders are deprived of this feeling. The feeling of guilt is “activated” by the norms and rules of the environment in which we move. But each era has its own norms of behavior, its own taboos, its own values.
In the XNUMXth century, married pregnant women hid from view in country estates (a growing belly emphasized that the lady was sinful). In the middle of the XNUMXth century, scary stories about “what masturbation leads to” were popular in many families, there were talks about the immorality of pornography, oral sex and other sexual “perversions”.
Perhaps we are not ready to talk about our intimate life even now – “yes, I masturbate”, “yes, I prefer anal (oral) sex”, but we have definitely ceased to consider these preferences unnatural, dangerous, scandalous. Today, we are also far from discussing adultery at party meetings.
“At the same time, it is important to understand that changes in the perception of sexuality become irreversible only when several generations grow up,” continues Inna Khamitova. – After all, children involuntarily reproduce the attitude of adults to their bodies, to sex, to themselves. And the current 30-year-olds were brought up, among other things, by grandmothers who grew up before the sexual revolution.
It is hard to imagine what today’s children will face in adult life, the non-observance of what norms will arouse in them a sense of guilt. In any case, we are no longer embarrassed by sexual experiments: on the contrary, now we are simply “obliged” to receive maximum sexual pleasure, and those who do not experience it are “to blame”.
But why should we be guilty of anything at all? Where does this painful feeling of guilt come from?
“The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, believed that the basis of morality, including feelings of guilt, is the Oedipus complex,” explains psychoanalyst Marina Harutyunyan. – Any child in early childhood feels rivalry with his mother or father and begins to fight for the object of his love. Ambivalence of feelings – “I hate the one I love, and I want to eliminate him” – causes a feeling of “I’m bad”, which leads to feelings of guilt.
This is a natural stage in the life of the child, which then allows him to identify with the parent of the same sex, move from rivalry to awareness of similarity. The child gradually begins to trust himself more (“I’m angry with my dad, but I won’t kill him”) and parents (“they won’t punish me for my desires, but they won’t let me cross the line”). In this case, he will have no reason to excessively protect his psyche from bad thoughts.
But if the relationship develops differently and there is no opportunity to trust yourself and parents, the child may be in the grip of “neurotic guilt.”
Children who are surrounded by soft, humane loved ones also know what guilt is.
“Over time, conflicting impulses cease to be realized: this is how the psyche protects itself from what it cannot bear,” continues Marina Harutyunyan. “And it turns out to be completely different on the surface – after all, we are not able to admit that the source of such feelings as envy, jealousy, hatred is in ourselves, so we can feel guilty ourselves without knowing what.”
There is a popular notion that overly strict parents increase the child’s feelings of guilt. “Such logic is too straightforward,” objected Marina Harutyunyan. “Negative feelings arise very early: even a baby can be angry, furious or helpless.”
Children who are surrounded by gentle, humane loved ones also know what guilt feels like. “This emotion is universal, it is the basis of our conscience, morality or “Super-I”, as Freud called this personality structure, says Marina Harutyunyan. – For example, a child is afraid of offending someone, feels aggression. To whom? If he cannot explain to himself why and with whom he is angry, he will begin to blame himself. In addition, children easily fantasize, exaggerate.
Psychoanalyst Eric Erickson described a case where a 6-year-old girl lived in constant confusion and did not make contact. It turned out that when she was 9 months old, her mother contracted tuberculosis and was isolated from her daughter. And then the girl, as Erickson explains, “decided” that it was her fault that she had been deprived of her mother, because she had “damaged” her with mistreatment. Only by dissuading the girl that contact with her is destructive for others, it was possible to improve her condition.1.
New standards
The unconscious internal mechanisms that led to feelings of guilt in childhood are subjected to stringent external demands in adulthood. The inability to be perfect is the phenomenon of the beginning of the XNUMXst century, the philosopher Gilles Deleuze explains by the fact that we are sliding into a “society of control”.
In the world of large corporations, “irreconcilable rivalry is being introduced as an incentive and role model: a great motivator that actually pits people against each other and goes through everyone, causing an internal split”2.
We feel guilty because others tell us that we are to blame.
You can’t do less than your neighbor, you can’t leave on time, take a vacation when you want, or just get sick without letting your colleagues down…
Victor, 50, is surprised: “How do young guys today agree to work 14 hours a day? Don’t they feel sorry for themselves, their personal lives? Why are they sitting at the computer from 9 am to 11 pm? Work weekends, take your laptop with you on vacation? It doesn’t fit in my head.”
Everything must be done perfectly, and every day more must be done – these are two beliefs that the management of large companies exploits. Their young employees “live” in the office, and immediately after – a treadmill or tight pedals in the gym to lose extra pounds, be in shape …
Careful body care has also become the norm. As well as a critical analysis of the contents of his plate. Sports, Eastern philosophy, a healthy lifestyle… Ignoring these canons, we suffer from confusion. Are we ashamed?
“It is difficult to distinguish between guilt and shame,” explains Marina Harutyunyan. – The one who is consumed by shame, is guided by the views of other people. He is ashamed, for example, to be fat (it seems that everyone looks at him with condemnation), but at the same time he feels guilty because he did not do something, and he has no excuse in front of his ideal “I”
Unreal perfection
“How can we forgive ourselves for even a minor mistake, if we have a strong idea that we should be perfect? Marina Harutyunyan continues. “When we pit our ideal self against our real self, we always lose.”
35-year-old Margarita describes the case of such a “loss”: “Now I myself understand how stupid it was: one summer I was the last to leave the office and already near the house I remembered that I hadn’t turned off the air conditioner. Imagining that he would work all night and the first person to come would end up in a real refrigerator, I broke out in sweat. And then, it’s wrong to leave electrical appliances on … In general, I returned so as not to be tormented all night by remorse.”
Why did simple forgetfulness cause a strong experience, disproportionate to the cause? Not getting the excellent results we expect, we ask ourselves: “Did I try hard enough?”, “Did I do a good job?”, “Did I give everything to the family, children?” And even minor mistakes can cause an unpleasant, aching feeling, prompting you to admit your “mistakes”.
So what are we to blame now? Basically – in our own imperfection: we are not always happy, we work hard or poorly, we raise children in the wrong way, we do not care enough about our health and beauty. We feel guilty because others tell us that we are to blame. We will never be free from guilt, but it is within our power to resist it.
Questions to an expert
“Culture is largely based on guilt”
How does guilt arise?
To answer this question, Sigmund Freud imagined and described an episode from the prehistory of mankind. The despotic father controlled the life of the tribe and did not allow young males to claim freedoms, including females. The males rebelled and killed him. They got their way, but they were tormented by patricide. So there was a sense of guilt. This deep experience also underlies the biblical fall into sin, so that in the future everything is built on the idea of redemption, the need to make amends, to live anew. It turns out that human culture is largely based on guilt.
Why is this experience so painful?
Excruciatingly excessive, neurotic guilt. It suppresses, forces to be aggressive towards oneself or others. To others, because the guilt is unbearable and a person must shift it onto someone. To himself, because he is tormented by fruitless remorse, which rather serve as self-punishment than encourage change.
How to distinguish a conscious feeling from a destructive one?
It is possible to free oneself from conscious guilt. “I just can’t finish the job … I’ll sit longer and do it!” This is not the case with neurotic experience. For example, a woman accuses herself of being a bad mother, not reading books to her child. It would seem, take it and read it. But she cannot do this, because the child annoys her, she is bored with him. To avoid these feelings, not to admit them to herself, she moves away from the child. Neurotic guilt is associated with a deep experience of “I am bad”, the origins of which are hidden.
1 E. Erickson “Childhood and Society” (Summer Garden, 2000).
2 J. Deleuze “Difference and repetition” (Petropolis, 1998).