WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL GUILT?
October 1, 2008 by Seth Manne
A little about instincts and intuitions. You can have an instinctual or intuitive feeling can’t you? For instance guilt is an instinctual feeling. Do you know the difference between natural guilt and artificial guilt? Is there a right and wrong and can you feel a difference between the two? Of course you can. These lofty philosophies that tell you that in the big picture there is no right or wrong, go against the grain of your instincts and intuitions.
The way natural guilt was explained to me is that it is like animal instinct. In the early days of man, if a cave man were to kill more than he needed to survive …he would feel guilt. It has been called your conscience. Since man did not have the animal instincts of, let’s say, a lioness that would kill only what she needed to survive, the man needed guilt in order to know what the lioness felt instinctively. Certainly you’ve heard the term guilty conscience.
As long as a person causes no harm, he should feel no guilt. Guilt is a byproduct of causing harm. Though that may seem to be a broad area of scope, you do know when you cause harm and when you don’t precisely because you can feel guilt. When you cause no harm and you still think that you are feeling guilt…that is artificial guilt.
