Reactions to Collective Guilt. Argument? Or Penitence?

I'm part of a culture of greed destroying our planet in a suicidal frenzy of consumption. My sermons often include such confessions of collective guilt. But I haven’t really provided a sound argument, my critics complain. “Where's the evidence supporting this alleged decline of morality?”

What evidence do I need when I already know in my soul I am guilty? My soul is full of greed. I was nurtured from infancy by Hollywood and Madison Avenue executives, who taught me to desire manufactured products as fervently as an earlier culture might have taught me to desire God.

“There you go again with your unsubstantiated claims. Where are the statistics?”

What statistics do I need? I see in my own soul, I am guilty. My culture taught me, every moment the radio was on, buying is commendable, desire is a virtue, owning is a mark of piety, greed is good, profit is noble, rate of return is God.

The mark of a good man is that he demands little in things of the body, while he demands much in things of the spirit. He asks for a minimum of food and shelter, but he demands new feats of intellectual and moral excellence from you, and shows you how to achieve them.

Is this the man television presents to us as a role model? Television was supported from the start by advertising, and adopted the values of that culture. Its aim from the start was to turn parishioners into consumers, to turn us away from desiring virtue and wisdom to desiring goods and services.

“Greed is good—particularly an insatiable greed for the product I happen to be selling.” The message of advertisers and their accomplice entertainers has infected my mind and spirit to a degree that will require a lifetime of careful thought to undo.

But there I go again with my unsubstantiated claims.

No, I can’t offer any statistics. I can only tell you what I see in my own soul.

No, I have no way to quantify and measure the effect I’m describing. I only know my mind was destroyed by it.

And it seems to me those asking for arguments and evidence are unsound in their method. When someone tells me I’m complicit in some collective sin, my first reaction is to repent. Even if the speaker isn’t so guilty as he imagines himself to be—even if I don’t so easily find in myself what the speaker finds in him—even then, I know there’s some other sin I can find. And I can repent for that.

When I talk about collective guilt, and people respond by asking for evidence, they miss the point. The point is, look into your own soul, see where guilt might lie. The point is, examine yourself. Ask yourself, “Is there an unjust institution in my society I know in my heart is wrong?” “Could I do something to stop it?” “Could I stop supporting it?” “How could I be a better person today?”

But the bourgeois doesn’t enter into the true spirit of repentance. He responds to every accusation by defending himself. He’s a lawyer by nature. And he mounts such a good defense, he will never see his own guilt. And he will never repent. And he will never truly experience the kingdom of God.

I’m part of a culture of greed destroying our planet in a suicidal frenzy of consumption.

Do you find this culture of greed in your soul too?

Maybe you don’t. But I know you have some ideal, some principle you could uphold and embody with more vigor and courage than you do now. We may not agree about the nature of the sin. But I know you can join me in the spirit of repentance.