The tyranny of guilt
Subtitle: an essay on Western masochism
By: Pascal Bruckner ; translated from the French by Steven Rendall.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9780691143767
Subjects: Civilization, Western -- 20th century; Civilization, Western -- 21st century; International relations -- Moral and ethical aspects; Guilt; Self-hate (Psychology); World politics; Western countries -- Foreign relations; Western countries -- Intellectual life
Work titles: Tyrannie de la pénitence.
Description: Fascism, communism, genocide, slavery, racism, imperialism - the West has no shortage of reasons for guilt. And, indeed, since the Holocaust and the end of World War-II, Europeans in particular have been consumed by remorse. This title argues that guilt has gone too far. It states that obsessive guilt has obscured important realities
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Guilt peddlers; title: The irremediable and despondency; title: The ideology that stammers; title: The self-flagellants of the Western world; title: A thirst for punishment; title: The pathologies of debt; title: Placing the enemy in one's heart; title: The vanities of self-hatred; title: One-way repentance; title: The false quarrel over Islamophobia; title: The swimming pool of innocence recovered; title: How central is the Near East?; title: "Zionism, the criminal DNA of humanity"; title: Unmasking the usurper; title: A delicate arbitrage; title: The doubly damned; title: The fanaticism of modesty; title: A tardy conversion to virtue; title: The empire of emptiness; title: The pacification of the past; title: The guilty imagination; title: Recovering self-esteem; title: The twofold lesson; title: The second Golgotha; title: Misinterpretations of Auschwitz; title: Hitlerizing history; title: The twofold colonial nostalgia; title: Listen to my suffering; title: On victimization as a career; title: Protect minorities or emancipate the individual; title: What duty of memory?; title: Depression in paradise : France, a symptom and caricature of Europe; title: A universal victim; title: The wild ass's skin; title: Who are the reactionaries?; title: The triumph of fear; title: Metamorphosis or decline; title: Doubt and faith : the quarrel between Europe and the United States; title: To be or to have; title: The troublemakers in history; title: The archaism of the soldier; title: The swaggering Colossus.