Tripping Guilt
Remember the time when you were a kid and you did something which you were forbidden to. More often than not the reaction of the authority figure (your parent, elder siblings or teachers) would be to hammer that your action was unparalleled in history for its vileness and that your villainy had increased the entropy thereby pushing earth towards destruction and you were one of most naughty boy or girl (are girls naughty?).
This kind of conditioning instills a healthy sense of guilt in individual while growing up.
Why is this healthy? For the reason, that it lets one vent psychological pressure. Confronted with a problem which is difficult or even impossible to solve, one can resolve the dilemma by feeling guilty.
The problem starts because psychological escape is addictive. Increasingly one starts looking for escape even when situation is not difficult. What does this lead to? When one becomes addicted to guilt complex, instead of even attempting to critically analyze a problem the tendency is to bring into play guilt complex and sidestep the problem with rhetoric and hand wringing. At this point, it is no longer a harmless escape but a neurosis.
Hence “I am ashamed to be Indian” crowd.
2 comments:
But I think the "I am ashamed to be Indian" crowd is actually trying to imply that they are a glorious exception from among the vast populace of Indians a majority of who are chauvinist/castesist/whatever.
So in particular people who are large-hearted etc.
By the way I am not sure the usual means of inducing guilt by claiming that what they did was the most villainous thing does more good than harm to children in general.
Frog,
Yes that too.
It does harm. I am an example ;-)
Dee,
Yes you always think of new things, if you have too much time ;-)
No it is strongest in English media.
Regards
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