Chapter 8 Chapter 7 Guilt

When it comes to guilt, we have already discussed it fragmentarily in Chapter 1, but we now need to go further and more fully because it is one of the most important underlying psychological causes of unhappiness in adult life. . The crime of traditional religion.theory, which no modern psychologist would accept.It is said, especially among Protestants, that whenever a man is tempted to commit a sinful act, conscience arises, and that after he commits this sin he is likely to experience two painful sensations, one called Regret, that is useless; the other is called cessation of remorse, which can remove his sins.In Protestant countries even many who have ceased to be religious continue for a time to accept, for a while, the orthodox crimes with some variation.In the present age, thanks in part to the invention of psychoanalysis, the opposite has happened: not only are the unorthodox rejecting the old crime, but even many who call themselves orthodox have adopted the same attitude.Conscience is no longer a mystery, as in the past, just because it was a mystery, it could still be called the voice of God.We know that in different parts of the world, the behavior prohibited by conscience is different, and on a large scale, it is consistent with the customs of the tribes everywhere.So what actually happens when a man's conscience stirs him?

In fact, the word "conscience" has several meanings, the simplest of which is the fear of being discovered.And you, reader, I believe to live a life of perfect honor; yet if you ask anyone else, if you ask someone who will be punished if found out, you will find that, in a moment, When there was a possibility of being discovered, he confessed his sin.I don't mean that it applies to habitual offenders, who see prison as a necessary professional adventure; but it applies to respectable first-time offenders.Take, for example, a bank manager who embezzles amidst a bout of tension, or a priest who, driven by passion, commits escapades.Such people forget their crimes when they are difficult to be discovered, but when they are discovered, or are very likely to be discovered, they hope to retain their nobility of character. Feel the gravity of your sin.Closely connected with this desire is the fear of being exiled from the group.Once it is discovered that a man has tampered with his game, or failed to pay his credit-secured debt, he has no reason in himself to object to the verdict.In this he is not like a religious reformer.Anarchists, revolutionaries, etc.The latter firmly believe that, whatever their present fate, the future belongs to them; that what they suffer now must in the future become honor and compensation.Despite the general hostility they received, they did not feel guilty.But a person who fully accepts and agrees with the social moral norms will feel great misfortune when his behavior runs counter to these norms and thus loses his social status. Painful feelings can easily make him think his actions are sinful.

But the most dominant form of responsibility lurks deeper.Guilt has its roots at the unconscious level, and it does not surface at the conscious level through fear of the disapproval of others.At the conscious level, some actions are labeled as sinful even without the slightest reflexive reason.When a person performs these actions, he feels uncomfortable without knowing why.He wants to be a man who can escape the kind of evil he believes in.He expresses moral admiration only for those he considers pure in heart.He realized with some regret that he could not be a "saint". Indeed, his belief in the divine was almost impossible to realize in daily life. Therefore, he lived with a sense of guilt. , I feel that all the best things in this world have nothing to do with me. For me, the most glorious moment in my life is just a time to make a sad confession.

In fact, the root of all this lies in the moral education he received from his mother or nurse before he was six years old.He had learned before that that swearing was wicked and that nothing should be spoken but in that effeminate language; that only rascals drank;He learned that one should never lie.And first of all he knows that any kind of sexual interest is repulsive.He knew that all this was his mother's opinion, and he believed that all this was the will of the Creator.The happiest thing in life for him is the caresses of his mother, or, if the mother is indifferent, the caresses of his nurse; to enjoy.Thus he gradually learns to associate vaguely dreadful things with actions his mother or nurse disapproves of.As he grows older, he forgets where this moral code came from and what the previous punishment for breaking it was.But he did not abandon the maxim, still less the thought that if it were violated, terrible things would happen.

Most of the moral education in infancy lacks a rational basis, so it is difficult to apply to the ordinary behavior of ordinary people.For example, a person who speaks a so-called "swear word" is not necessarily worse from a rational point of view than a person who does not speak foul language.But in fact, anyone who thinks of himself as a saint would think that the prohibition of swearing is of the utmost importance.From a rational point of view, however, this is silly.The same goes for drinking and smoking.When it comes to drinking, it doesn't exist in some countries in the South, because everyone knows that God and his disciples drink alcohol - which is kind of disrespectful.As far as smoking is concerned, it is easier to take a position of disapproval, since all the great sages have no idea what a cigarette is, and any rational argument on this point is impossible.The idea that saints don't smoke is based on the idea that, after all, saints don't do things just to have fun.This ascetic element of one morality seeps almost into the unconscious of man, and works in various ways to render our moral code irrational.In rational morality, as long as it does not bring pain to others or to oneself, it is acceptable to bring happiness to anyone, even to oneself.If we discard asceticism, then a person who can enjoy all kinds of good things without negative consequences is an ideal moral person-let's look at lying again.I don't deny the fact that there are too many lies in the world. It would be better for us if everyone could tell the truth more.But I do deny, and I think every reasonable person would deny, that lying is not justified under any circumstances.Once I was walking in the country, an exhausted fox was still running desperately forward.A few minutes later, I met hunters, and they asked me if I had seen the fox, and I said yes; they asked me in which direction it was fleeing, and I pointed to another way.I figured if I told the truth, I wouldn't be a better person for it.

Early moral education is a hazard to sexuality.If a child has been brought up traditionally by strict parents or nurses, by the time he is six years old the idea of ​​the connection between crime and the genitals has been so firmly established that it will be difficult to get rid of it completely later in life.Of course, this idea is reinforced by the Oedipus complex, since it is impossible for the favorite girl in childhood to have any free sexual relations with him.As a result, many grown men feel that women are corrupted by sex, and that they do not respect their wives unless she expresses an aversion to sexual intercourse.But if a man's wife is indifferent to sex life, he will be driven by instinct to seek the satisfaction of instinct elsewhere.But even if he is temporarily satisfied with his instincts, this satisfaction will be violated by guilt, so that he cannot find happiness in any relationship with any woman (whether married or extramarital).A similar thing happens with a woman, if she has received the same strict education in what is called "chaste". She instinctively withdraws from sexual relations with her husband, fearing any pleasure or satisfaction from the act. Of course, women are far less likely to feel this way today than they were 50 years ago. I should point out that, among educated people, men are more sexually guilty than women. Depressing and toxic.

The dangers of traditional sex education for children are now beginning to be more widely recognized, but not enough has been done in terms of public authority.The correct approach is simple: Before a child has reached puberty, do not teach him or her any sexual morals, much less instill in him or her the idea that there is something repulsive in the natural bodily functions. this kind of thought.As the time comes, it will be necessary to give them an ethical education in this respect, and this education should be reasonable, and have sufficient and definite grounds on every point mentioned.In this book, however, I am not going to talk about education, but mainly about how adults can minimize the negative effects of unwise education that induces irrational guilt.

As we have discussed in previous chapters, the key issue here is how to make the unconscious accept the rational beliefs that rule the conscious mind.People should not be manipulated by emotions, believe in one thing at one time, and believe in another thing at another time, without a fixed opinion.Guilt becomes more prominent when one's conscious will is weakened by fatigue, disease, alcohol, or some other cause.One's feelings at this time (unless induced by alcoholism) can be seen as a manifestation of the higher self. "The devil is as much a saint as he is sick." But it would be absurd to think that man has greater insight in his moments of weakness than in his moments of strength.It is true that in infirmity it is difficult to resist the cues of education, but this does not mean that such cues necessarily prevail over those beliefs when the bodily organs of man are fully developed.On the contrary, those beliefs acquired by the exercise of all one's reason when the strength of one's mind is full, should be the criterion which he never rejects.It is possible to eliminate unconscious cues at this time, and we can even change the content of the unconscious with the right methods.Whenever you start to regret an action that your reason tells you is not evil, you should reflect on the source of these regrets and make yourself understand why it is all absurd .Let your own conscious beliefs stand out, and let them make such an impression on your unconscious that they will be sufficient to counter those impressions made by your mother or nurse in childhood.Don't settle for alternating moments of rationality with moments of irrationality.Examine irrational consciousness carefully, never give in to it, never let it dominate you.Whenever it injects a foolish thought or emotion into your level of consciousness, simply push it all away, examine it and reject it.Don't allow yourself to be conditioned half by reason and half by childhood ignorance, and turn yourself into a vacillating creature.Don't be intimidated by being disrespectful to the memory of those who controlled your childhood development.They may have seemed powerful and wise to you at the time only because you were weak and foolish then, and now that you have shed your weakness and foolishness, you should look at him again.See their apparent strength and intelligence, and see whether they still deserve the respect which you owe them by habit.You should seriously ask yourself whether the kind of moral education traditionally given to young people can make the world a better place.Think clearly how much of those really superstitious thoughts have entered into the character of a traditional, moral man; The real danger is that it doesn't actually get noticed.What are those really harmful behaviors that the average person is tempted to do?Fraud that goes unpunished in the conduct of business, brutality to employees, brutality to wife and children, vicious attacks on rivals, cruelty in political conflicts--these are the citizens of high repute genuinely harmful acts committed.By these shameful deeds a man sows misery in the circle of his life and takes a step towards the destruction of humanity.But all of this did not make him feel like a hated villain who lost the blessing of the gods when he was sick, nor did he see his mother's reprimanding eyes in his nightmares.Why is his subconscious morality and reason so far apart?This is because the moral values ​​believed by those who raised him are stupid; Contains some morbid elements from the psychosis that plagued the dying Roman Empire.Nominally, our morals were formed by priests and enslaved women.It is time that people with normal functions in normal life begin to learn to resist this sick, absurd belief.

But if this resistance is to be successful, for personal happiness, for a man to live his life with unchanging principles, he needs to think and feel more deeply what his reason tells him.Most people tend to think that all is done when they superficially abandon their childhood superstitions.They fail to realize that these superstitious thoughts are still lurking at the bottom of the mind.When a rational belief comes, it needs to be thought about carefully, watching its consequences, looking out for any other beliefs you might have in your head that are inconsistent with this new belief, and as the guilt builds up, Take it not, as it so often does, as a revelation and a call to higher things, but as a disease, a weakness, unless, of course, it is justified by rational morality. condemned behavior.I am not advocating that people do not need moral concepts; I am just saying that people do not need superstitious moral concepts, and the two are completely different.

But even when one violates one's own rational codes, I doubt that guilt is the best path to a better way of life.There's such a base, low self-esteem element to guilt.It is impossible to set a man on the right path by giving up his dignity.Rational people will treat their own bad behavior as the bad behavior of others, and regard it as the consequence of behavior under certain circumstances.These bad behaviors can be avoided in two ways, one is to fully realize the badness of this kind of behavior, and the other is to avoid the environmental conditions that cause such behaviors under possible conditions.

In fact, guilt is a very unhelpful emotion, far from being a cause of the good life.It makes people unhappy and creates a sense of inferiority in people.Precisely because of his unhappiness, he can make excessive demands on others, which in turn prevents him from enjoying the happiness in human relationships.Because of his low self-esteem, he will show hostility to those who are superior to himself.He found it difficult to be envious of others, but easy to be jealous.He will become a persona non grata and find himself increasingly alone.A liberal attitude towards others not only brings happiness to others, but is a great source of happiness to the man who adopts it, because it makes him universally liked and popular.But such an attitude is highly unlikely for those plagued by guilt.It is the result of people's self-confidence and self-reliance; it requires a kind of psychological integration of people. By this integration, I mean that psychological factors at all levels of human nature, consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness work together in harmony, while Not in an endless battle.Such a harmony can in most cases be brought about by wise education, but is more difficult when education itself is not wise.This is a process that psychoanalysts have tried, but I believe that in the vast majority of cases the patient can do it himself, except in very severe cases when specialist assistance is needed.Don't say things like: "I don't have time for this kind of mental labor. My life is so busy with things that I have to let my unconscious do what it wants." When a person's personality is split, there is nothing like It reduces human happiness and efficiency even more.It is worth the time it takes to harmonize the various parts of your personality.I am not saying that one should set aside an hour every day to examine oneself.I think this is by no means the best way, because it reinforces one's self-concern, which is one of the diseases that needs to be cured, because the harmonious and healthy personality is directly extroverted.My claim is that a person should focus his mind on what he rationally believes, and never allow contrary, irrational beliefs to enter his mind, or even control himself, without being questioned, regardless of time. Short will not work.It is a matter of reasoning with the self when one is tempted to return to the state of infancy, and if this reasoning is concentrated enough, its course is very short.Thus the time taken is negligible. In the minds of many there is an attitude of aversion to reason, and in this case all that I have said here will seem irrelevant and meaningless.There is a view that reason, if left to its own devices, kills all deep emotion.It seems to me that this view is mainly due to a completely wrong perception of the role of reason in life.It is not the business of reason to arouse emotions, although part of its function may be to discover the means by which certain emotions will be sufficiently prevented from interfering with one's happiness.It is undoubtedly one of the tasks of rational psychology to find out the means by which feelings of hatred and envy are minimized.But it would be a mistake to think that by diminishing these passions the force of these passions, which reason has not denied, is diminished.Reason will never suppress or weaken passionate love, parental love, friendship, benevolence, devotion to science and art.A rational person will be happy to have any or all of these emotions in himself, and will never try to weaken them, because all these emotions are part of the good life, which brings happiness to others as well as to oneself. Happiness is part of the good life.There is absolutely no irrational element in such emotions, and the emotions of many irrational people are the most vulnerable.Never worry that a person will make his life monotonous and boring because he becomes full of reason.On the contrary, since rationality consists chiefly of inner harmony, the rational man is freer in observing the world, and in using his powers to achieve external ends, than is he who is constantly plagued by inner conflicts and torments of conscience. Much more.There is nothing more dull than shutting oneself away, and nothing more exhilarating than turning one's attention and energy to the outer world. Our conventional morality is inappropriately self-centered, and a sense of guilt is part of this ill-advised focus on the self.Reason is an unnecessary thing for those who have never got beyond the subjective feelings caused by this false moral conception.But for those who have suffered from the disease for a time, rationality is a necessary and effective medicine.Besides, perhaps this disease really is an inevitable stage in the development of the human mind.I am inclined to think that, by the aid of reason, those who have passed this stage have reached a higher level than those who have never suffered from the disease and have not been treated for it.Our age's aversion to reason is largely due to the fact that the use of reason is not regarded as a fundamental method.A man with a divided ego is looking for excitement and pleasure. He needs intense passion not from sound reason, but because it makes him forget himself for a while, and suspends painful thoughts for a short time.For him, any emotion is a form of anesthesia, and since he does not believe in the most fundamental happiness, it is only in the form of anesthesia that all pain can be relieved.However, this is a symptom of an old disease.Where there is no such defect, the greatest happiness derived from the faculties of the body will be most realized.Man experiences the greatest joy when the mind is most active, when very little is forgotten.This is indeed the best litmus test of happiness.Happiness based on any form of anesthesia is false and unsatisfying.Happiness that is truly satisfying is always accompanied by a full activity of the bodily faculties and a full awareness of the world in which we live.