A Social Trend: The Guilty Conscience

A Social Trend:

The Guilty Conscience

“The Guilty Conscience”. It is the New Religion; the Raison D’être; the new Modus Vivendi. North Americans now view this plight as a Natural Right, and as such, views guilt as a unifying force that brings closure, and clarity with all of guilty conscience’ principles of any good-hearted guilt ridden liberally compassionate conservative.

Now more than ever we need guidelines – or so I am told – that we have to live by. I find the trusty English Proverbs always provide a marsh-mellowy landing when times get rough. But, we have to be careful when it comes to safety nets because we could find ourselves right smack in the middle of a contradiction, and for most people, that is not where most of us want to be. Nevertheless, here are some guiltless guidelines coupled with their rejoinders:

He who hesitates is lost! BUT Look before you leap!

Birds of a feather flock together! BUT Opposites attract!

You're never too old to learn! BUT You can't teach an old dog new tricks!

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom! BUT Faith will move mountains!

The pen is mightier than the sword! BUT Actions speak louder than words!

Don't cross your bridges before you come to them! BUT Forewarned is forearmed!

Silence is golden! BUT The squeaky wheel gets the grease!

Clothes make the man! BUT Never judge a book by its cover!

Good things come in small packages! BUT The bigger the better!

A miss is as good as a mile! BUT Half a loaf is better than none!

Great starts make great finishes! BUT It ain't over 'till it's over!

Practice makes perfect! BUT All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush! BUT a Man's reach should exceed his grasp!

Ignorance is bliss! BUT An unexamined life is not worth living!

Is it any wonder that drug and alcohol use is always on the rise? Aside from the fact that there is an ever increasing population entering the age of consent. Excess in moderation leading to moderation in moderation is a good thing because it keeps our gene pool in relatively safe boundaries, but we still remember things that we've done, acts that we've committed, and, yes, everything looks bad if you remember it.

A Guilty Conscience surveys as a whole, allows us to see where and why we are generally dissatisfied with predicaments as we objectively see them (note: not objectively because that’s too much work). The key point here is that something more than a force that generates vices and victories but we neglect to give them rein when need be, and then we gripe like a poet that has finally killed his inspiration when things don’t go our way.

Guilt is the oxygen, the greater currency that the West needs to keep going. Western comprehensive doctrine best serves the spiritual and material needs of people, but there is the actual need wherein we need a Douglas Adams Point-of-View to protect our self-serving and very (greedy?) personal interests, and utilize the time tested Zen Method of Navigation. A Guilty Conscience is a slender mistress with locks of gold and a see-through white silk and muslin robe that makes all want to worship Guilt. Pangs of self-reproach bring us aspects of governing morality – a human conscience. Acting purposefully is acting morally; is acting within a guilty conscience. To act within one's guilty conscience is nothing more than to listen to a nagging little voice that is supposedly a part of our spirit and self that tells us how to act. Three purposes that we can all agree on are dictated by this “voice of reason”; to act to 1) preserve one's body 2) develop one's mind and 3) expressing one's spirit that brings alignment with the dictates of one's guilty conscience. Whatever… I still have to say that everything still looks bad if youremember it. “Breakdowns only occur when my feelings are misunderstood” and this is when and where in our being left in confusion with all those silly and annoying conflicting impulses between body and mind, spirit, desire and action, and a good thing as opposed to something that could be potentially debilitating. Who gives a crap about your feelings, I have my own to contend with, and they are some tough mother-in-law ‘fuckers’. As with any voice being given the opportunity to share its opinion, it is time for me to allow the religious right to bear its argument and bring force and explanation as to why we do what we do.

Although guilt is commonly thought to be the emotion most linked with conscience, this is simply not so. Most events which elicit guilt are in fact amoral, but for entirely different reasons than might be suspected. They spring from amoral mental shifts which incorporate ideas into the mind which place mind above the body. This is when a learning experience, a right response is chosen.

Still keeping an eye on guilt as being brought about by peer pressure, itis a good place to start and end with one of today’s culturally exploited heated debates, referendums, or what-have-you arguments. That of same sex marriage. Notwithstanding that it is a fundamental breakdown in constitutional rights in a person’s ability to have dictated who, or what for that matter, to marry although I have no future intention of marrying any goats, I am simply addressing the issue of labels here. Rawlsian, Rortyism, Hobbesianism, and Kantianism states that we have a freedom of will that by right needs be left unimpeded. In our deliberative liberally constitutionally dictated society, we all have certain basic rights, liberties, and opportunities, and one of these is the right to be happy as an end in itself – although being happy in this culture goes against every grainof the democracy in which we presently reside. For years now I have debated with my girlfriend whether Brazilian waxing is better than shaving. But, it has been impressed upon me that the Christian Right whom has been claiming same-sex marriage would destroy our very fabric of being is a severely more important issue.“The gospel of Jesus Christ will be severely curtailed” as recorded in the four gospels that state absolutely nothing about same-sex marriage, or GAYuality for that matter. Nevertheless, poignant “variations” of the Christian Right are fond of using the internet and here are the very strong arguments in favor of the Christian Doctrine, unfortunately their author is not known. I discovered them at 411mania.com some time ago, but the link no longer seems active.

1. Being gay is not natural. And as you know North Americans have always rejected unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behaviour. People may even wish to marry their pets because, as you know, a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed.

The sanctity of Brittany Spears’  55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in North America.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

WHAT THE FUCK!!! “A good laugh is good medicine" is a good viewpoint, and seems to be in appropriate here, but it is a Christian point of view that appears to poke fun at evolution, and the natural laws as well as a fairness and justice that escapes even the most sensible Mormon, mind you that most people of sense don’t readily have at hand a hat full of golden plates and seer stones that translate God’s words. We laughed at the Queen in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”, wherein she“ sometimes believed in six impossible things before breakfast”. So now I am forced to laugh at all my Cosmological buddies and all my Darwinian professors who try to teach me these really outrageous and quite impossible fairy tales to me. From the comma splice in the first sentence to the misplaced period in the second, religion is filled with grammatical faux pas, not to mention factual ones, and downright silly claims such as, and I do not remember who coined this phrase, “Darwinists know they have to hide their atheist religion”. I used some edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary:

Atheism: a disbelief in the existence of deity. Religion: the service and worship of God.

“Atheist religion” is an oxymoron.

The too frequently used threat that "God will punish you for...whatever", is mass control at it's worst, reflecting moral arrogance by those who claim to know what God wants, but spend too much time talking to God and too little time listening to the nagging little voice within. I need my little voice, it listens. But in reality, any directive that elicits a guilty conscience remains in the realm of control and has solely to do with politically correct cultural trappings which are Pavlovian learned responses. My mind should no more be elevated above body than my body should be elevated above my mind. Both must work in concert in order to serve me. It is a Cartesian dualism that I feel perfectly at ease with and my nagging little voice is telling me that the instillation and manipulation of my guilty conscience is a heinous, power-stealing practice, which misses the message of any emotion that I might be capable of perceiving…in part or in whole.

I find that a guilty conscience puts me in a “Lingerie State of Mind”.