Guilt as an Ideological Weapon - Part 1: Historical Guilt — Dark Emu Exposed

Feb 17

Feb 17 Guilt as an Ideological Weapon - Part 1: Historical Guilt

The feeling of guilt is very rarely spoken about, but it is underlying every kind of conversation with the implication being that the white man is bad; and being bad he has to apologise for everything that he did in the past.

- Pascal Bruchner, French writer

In this first post in our series on “Guilt”, Lord Sumption, British author, medieval historian and jurist provides a clear explanation of '‘historical guilt’. The text below is an abridged transcript from an interview he had with Peter Kurti of the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.

Transcript of comments by Lord Jonathan Sumption on History Revisionism and Historical Guilt*

- based on a CIS interview by Peter Kurti with Lord Sumption. The following text starts in this shortened video version here from 04:00

[Peter Kurti’s CIS Introduction abridged] - “One of the objectives of the current movement for history revisionism is to urge us that today's generation not only bears guilt for the past, but is actually morally responsible today for the deeds of an earlier generation, and needs to apologize for those deeds.

But as we all know, what has happened has happened, so what sense does it make to keep apologizing for the past, as people, particularly political leaders and church leaders, seem to want to do? Why don’t they try instead to convey an understanding that what was done was a mistake, rather than trying to efface the wrongs committed in the past?

[Lord Sumption] - There are two problems about this history revisionist movement - one is a purely practical one and the other is a moral one.

Let's start with the moral problem first.

The notion behind apologizing for the past is that there is a concept of collective and inherited guilt. The inheritance occurs on both sides of the equation.

The descendants of the victims of whatever wrong it is, are deemed to be entitled to an apology, and the apologizing should be done by descendants of the wrong-doers, that is, those who live today in the same country, or are descended from the people, who did whatever wrong it was in the past.

I find this notion of collective and inherited guilt morally repugnant.

The most notorious historical example of its deployment is also I think demonstrably the most wicked. For many generations, for centuries, the main justification for the persecution of the Jews was that they were hereditarily and collectively responsible for the death of Christ.

I think that no one can contemplate that proposition without being repelled by it.

I would make exactly the same point of those who say that 21st century Britons are responsible for the Irish potato famine or the Atlantic slave trade, or the 21st century Australians are responsible for some of the worst aspects of the early history of Australia and indeed the much more recent history of its treatment of Aboriginal people.

These are terrible things from which we should learn. We are not going to learn from them unless we understand them and that's an historical process.

The practical problem is related to a past that has happened.

You can protest about what is currently happening. You can protest about what you think may be about to happen. Many people do and the justification of that is that it might change attitudes and lead to a different present or future.

But you can't change the past.

All that you can really do about the past is to express your own indignation; and I think that the main motivation behind those who pull down historical statues is essentially to show which side they're on.

This is a completely useless exercise. For example, nobody nowadays thinks that slavery is morally justifiable. Values were different in the 17th and 18th century, but nobody thinks that today.

So, we're all on the same side. All that is achieved by pulling down statues is to show that some people are even more outraged about this than others. But the outrage of individuals is a completely insignificant fact. It's not going to achieve anything except material destruction of, for example, historical statues.

**Figure 2 - Captain Cook’s statute toppled on 26 Jan 2024 in Melbourne. It was promptly restored a few days later.** *Source*

So, the practical objection to this form of historical revisionism is that it is a completely pointless piece of personal exhibitionism by people who want to demonstrate that they are on the right side with even more fury and vigour than everybody else.

It is just a more public form of virtue signalling.

[PK] - “Academic David Runciman has criticized this view that you've just stated - that it's irrational and absurd to try to remake the past. Runciman said people who pull down statues are not trying to change the past they're trying simply to change how we commemorate it in the present. How do you respond to that criticism, which is slightly a subtle variation on the point that you are making? Isn't it reasonable, after all, to allow that people might wish to rethink the ways they commemorate the past?”

[LS] - Well it's not a question of rethinking. We all agree that slavery was a bad thing. That doesn't require any further thought. Nobody needs to be persuaded today that slavery was an appalling injustice.

So, I would agree with David Runciman’s view that what people are doing is not trying to remake the past. I don't even think that they're trying to efface it.

They're trying to demonstrate the intensity of their own opinions about the past.

But my view of that, that it is a useless thing to do, remains unchanged. It doesn't achieve anything and the strength of individual feelings is not a matter of any great importance.

There are many things that I feel indignant about, but what is to be gained by my simply expressing myself in ever stronger terms?

You do not actually improve the case for any proposition by labelling it full of expletives and essentially the statue-wreckers are simply adding an expletive to what is already completely common ground.

[PK] - It seems to me that the people who are so indignant about this, pay nothing like the kind of attention that needs to be paid to the persistence of slavery in parts of the world today.

It seems to me that for these people, it's much easier to criticize people in the past for an association with slavery than to try to tackle complex political problems today in countries where slavery persists. I wonder why it is that campaigners pay spend so little of their energy on those sorts of issues?” [see Note 1 below]

[LR] - Well it's partly because their views have even less relevance in the kind of countries which still countenance slavery than they do in Western countries. That's sometimes expressed by the statement that many of these people hate their own country. I don't actually think that is true, but I certainly think that the desire to express one's own indignation has more resonance in one's own community than it does elsewhere.

* with minor edits to improve transcription and emphasis to highlight important points