Personal Guilt Research Articles

Translator's Afterword

Translator's Afterword Annmaria Simabuku (bio) I. Before Kōya Nomura, the opening chapter of whose maiden work Muishiki no Shokuminchishugi—Nihonjin no Beigunkichi to Okinawajin (Unconscious Colonialism: The Japanese People's U.S. Military Bases and the Okinawans) is presented here, was born in 1964 in one of the largest U.S. military outposts of East Asia: Koza (currently Okinawa City), Okinawa. He grew up in the midst of the Vietnam War, minutes away from the famous "hub of air-power in the Pacific"—Kadena Air Base—where he saw B-52 bombers routinely depart and return from destruction in Southeast Asia. Eight years after his birth, in 1972, when the Vietnam War began to draw to a close, for the first time in his life he became a full-fledged "national of Japan." When Nomura left the island for schooling in Japan, he lived as a minority surrounded by Japanese and, more shockingly yet, no U.S. military bases. As a graduate student at Sophia University, he served as chairperson of the Okinawan Youth Group in Tokyo from 1992 to 1994, where he came into [End Page 117] contact with numerous Okinawans who were driven out of an economically depressed Okinawa to enter the Japanese work force as laborers. Today, he is a full professor of Sociology at Hiroshima Shūdō University. "Undying Colonialism" is the opening and foundational chapter of his maiden work. Upon its debut, the book immediately instigated heated controversy, purportedly because of its frank, fiery, and polemical tone. A more sober reader, however, will find a pedagogical design to the text that seeks to make an intricate academic argument accessible to the general public. An academically disciplined reader will further discover an original contribution to the postcolonial and sociological theories that lie beneath the surface of the text. The central idea behind the chapter is suggested by the book's title—colonialism is the unconscious. Although Nomura copiously quotes from postcolonial authors Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Malcolm X, he suppresses the identity of the European sociologist who also informs this analysis—Max Weber. Specifically, the "ethic of conviction" (Gesinnungsethik) and "ethic of responsibility" (Verantwortungsethik) are taken directly from Weber's 1918 speech "Politics as a Vocation" (1958, 75-128). The former refers to conduct inspired by the pure intention to implement an ideal, principle, or conviction without regard for consequence. The latter, by contrast, refers to the ability to account responsibly for the consequences of one's actions regardless of one's intention. According to Weber, the rise of modernity is marked by an "ethic of conviction" that facilitates a transferal of guilt and deflection of responsibility associated with violence to the state. For example, a soldier need not feel guilty for another's death if responsibility for the execution can be displaced onto the state. Nomura uses Weber to develop his concept of "democratic colonialism" in postwar Japan. Significantly, he is less concerned with conservative Japanese nationalists than he is with so-called progressive Japanese, who assume their disavowal of the former is an adequate basis for "alliance" with Okinawa. Understandably, this may be perplexing to some readers because Japanese who oppose U.S. military bases appear to be the lesser of two evils when compared to Japanese who unabashedly support militarism. However, Nomura's insistence that both are "guilty of the same crime" cuts to the heart of an understanding of colonialism in the Japanese state. [End Page 118] If colonialism, in this sense, is the displacement of responsibility to another entity so as to absolve oneself of personal guilt, then progressive Japanese unwittingly cement this operation even while they claim to detest the violent consequences of colonialism. In other words, Nomura points out that, by shifting blame to the United States, the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, or the conservative political party in power, progressive Japanese not only overlook how they nonetheless inherit the benefits of colonialism, but worse, they set into motion the very operation of colonialism that is predicated on the purity of personal intent without regard to ultimate "responsibility for consequence" (Weber 1958, 126). This operation works even within the state of Japan, where the democratic process...

The working environment in small firms: Responses from owner-managers

Limited research has been conducted on owner-managers’ responses to the working environment (occupational health and safety). This should be understood in the light of the way owner-managers develop identity from their business, and a better understanding is needed to develop preventive programmes that fit the owner-managers’ interpretation of the working environment. Qualitative interviews were carried out with the owner-managers or the managers responsible for the working environment in 23 small firms from the construction and metal industries. The interviews were analysed for attitudes on the working environment, understanding of risk, responsibility for the working environment, and attitudes towards regulation. The analysis revealed both a great heterogeneity of views on the working environment and groups of owners who share important characteristics. Most owner-managers take a positive approach to the working environment, but also try to ‘talk risk down’, criticize regulation as bureaucracy and push a part of the employer responsibility on to the employees. They try to follow what they experience as a generally acceptable standard for the working environment among the stakeholders in the sector, but some owner-managers also tend to neglect the working environment. The reason for the down grading of risk and the push to share responsibility can be found in the close social relationships and the identity work processes of the owner-managers with their business. They try to act as decent people and thus avoid personal guilt and blame if employees should get injured.

Evasion and the Unsaid in Kazuo Ishiguro's A Pale View of Hills

Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View of Hills (1982) has been described as having a culturally Japanese location and setting, reflected in its stylized narrative subtlety and indistinctness. However, the functional stage of the novel is not a physical place but rather the recollections and thought processes of the protagonist, Etsuko, as she attempts to come to an understanding regarding her daughter Keiko’s suicide. The historical fact of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and its repercussions for the city and the nation both ground and symbolize Etsuko’s thoughts, her acts of repression and evasion in response to her submerged sense of personal guilt for Keiko’s death through her emigration and remarriage. Ishiguro evokes Etsuko’s inner life through narrative, characterization, and imagery, particularly that of living space. In Etsuko’s memories of Nagasaki, repression is seen at the level of the community of survivors, in interpersonal relationships, and in Etsuko’s cognitive actions of recollection and representation, which often indicate symbolic interconnections or meaningful lacunae caused by psychological repression. While criticism has tended to focus on how Etsuko’s unreliable narration affects the “truth” of the story, the narrative focuses on the ways in which Etsuko’s mental processes reflect a conflict between desire, evasion, and resolution.

The experience of being an ‘extracorporeal membrane oxygenation’ relative within the CESAR trial

This article reports a study exploring experiences of the relatives of adult patients receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) within the CESAR trial. Relatives of ECMO patients have undergone unique experiences which have not previously been addressed in the literature and thus may have different needs which may not be met by present practice. A grounded theory approach was adopted. In-depth unstructured interviews were conducted with family members of 10 surviving adult patients who had been randomized and received ECMO within the CESAR trial. Relatives have a range of needs specific to the ECMO experience, these include the depth and positivity of information. Particular areas for support were concerning a perceived self-inflicted nature of illness, personal guilt, distance from home, receiving 'the call', weaning from sedation and transfer/discharge from the ECMO unit. Relatives would benefit from the opportunity to talk about their 'ECMO experiences' following the patient's recovery to enable them and their families to 'move on'. Interventions need to be in place to follow-up relatives and patients to provide ongoing support to the family unit.

Understanding unethical retail disposition practice and restraint from the consumer perspective

This research expands marketing's knowledge regarding unethical retail disposition (URD). URD is a type of consumer fraud, whereby consumers purchase an item of merchandise with the intent of using it and returning it to a retailer for a refund. The authors first employ grounded theory methodology to develop an original framework illustrating why consumers engage in either URD participation or restraint; next, they demonstrate empirical support for the framework. The authors support and augment previous URD research by reporting that URD offenders employ eight neutralization techniques to remedy personal guilt associated with committing the fraudulent behavior. This research also takes a novel approach by illustrating that consumers describe six motivations underlying URD restraint. Most concerning for retailers is that four of the six reasons for restraint are tenuous. Thus, consumers who refrain from URD may be easily swayed to participate in this illicit behavior. The authors posit that URD may represent a means by which consumers express disdain and mistrust for contemporary retailers, contributing to the societal discrimination that retail organizations owned by “middlemen minorities” engaged in trade and commerce often experience. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Incompatible Contrasts? — Preventive Detention in Germany and the European Convention on Human Rights

AbstractThis article will give an overview of the idea and history of origins of preventive detention and the legal changes in the German Criminal Code that underlie the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) (17 December 2009). It will attempt an outlook by considering the prospective outcome of future law suits against German legal statutes relating to preventive detention, and will also describe the present situation and current legal recommendations, including the much-discussed alternative of detention in psychiatric wards. The article will close with a brief comparative look at the related legal problems arising in countries with a criminal law which is based on the establishment of personal guilt of the offender while facing public pressure to detain persons for protective reasons.

Reactions to Terror Attacks in Ultra-Orthodox Jews: The Cost of Maintaining Strict Identity

Traumatic events can shatter faith and beliefs. The responses of Ultra-Orthodox survivors of deadly terrorist attacks illustrate an effort to reconcile dreadful experiences with deeply embedded beliefs. Qualified clinicians prospectively evaluated self-reported and interviewer-generated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and cognitive appraisal in Ultra-Orthodox (n = 20) and non-Ultra-Orthodox (n = 33) survivors of suicide bus-bombing incidents in Jerusalem. Ultra-Orthodox survivors reported higher levels of PTSD symptoms and more personal guilt. Their narratives reflected an unshaken belief in Just Providence, within which being a victim of terror was perceived as a Just retribution for known or unknown wrongdoing. Survivors' reactions to trauma often reflect an effort to reconcile incongruous experiences with previously held beliefs. When treating strict believers, helpers should be sensitive to the identity-preserving function of posttraumatic cognitions.

A Writer’s Prowess

Page 19 September–October 2009 even that is too slight to matter. Lush as Blackwood’s descriptions of the urban landscape are, they are geographically ambiguous. What finally emerges from this writer’s muchtouted second volume of fiction is a series of connected but negligible events that ultimately have a profound impact on fairly unremarkable people. The intensity of their emotional reactions to these incidents makes for an interesting study in the human psyche; but short as it is and lyrical as Blackwood’s prose often is, by the end, things become mundane. Even after multiple readings, it’s not entirely clear which have actually taken place and which are part of dreams and fantasies, how, if at all, the characters and their relationships have been changed by the experiences , or what, if anything, they’ve learned. That Scott Blackwood is a talented wordsmith is beyond question. There is a sense of taut workmanship and linguistic power in almost every line of the book. Yet, by the end of the volume, it’s hard not to believe that the novel is more about the writer’s prowess than it is about his story. The short, tight chapters reveal situations where causes have no earthly effects and effects reveal themselves without temporal causes. Characters circle around one another like so many clouds in a hot summer sky, occasionally touching, but insensible to one another’s presence. What’s wanted is a thunderhead, a climactic storm to bring everything together. The book is overworked, too “writerly” to make for anything more than a literary curiosity. One can hope that more fiction will emerge from Blackwood’s keyboard, but before he sets his hand to that, one can also hope that he will find a story to tell and will gather some sense of a place and the people who occupy it. Clay Reynolds is Professor of Arts & Humanities and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Dallas. A writer and scholar, his most recent work of fiction is Sandhill County Lines. A Writer’s Prowess Clay Reynolds We Agreed to Meet Just Here Scott Blackwood New Issues http://www.wmich.edu/newissues 164 pages; cloth, $26.00 Scott Blackwood’sAWPAward-winning novel, We Agreed to Meet Just Here, will disappoint readers who expect fiction to provide a plot or characterization or theme. Apparently subscribing to what any number of people have come to call “The NewYorker school” of fiction, a post-postmodernistic trend that seems, too often, to make the work greater than the sum of its parts, Blackwood dives into this slender story of American suburban life in medias res; he emerges on the other side more or less in the same place after having shown very little and told a great deal, most of which isn’t important. Nothing actually happens that is of much interest, and much of it isn’t real. Subscribing to another contemporary trend that virtually demands that fiction contain multiple dream sequences and illusions (what most American writers mistakenly think is “magic realism”), he weaves the fantastic with the actual so tightly that in many places, they can’t be separated. Probably nothing is more dangerous for a writer to include in a novel than a dream or hallucination detailed at length. If it’s more compelling than the main story, then the return tends to be a letdown; if it’s less interesting, then it’s a tedious departure, since it’s not part of the novel’s fictional reality. Too often, it’s merely authorial self-indulgence, and it must be handled with care. Charles Dickens pulled it off with panache—once. In lesser works, it almost always falls flat, sends the reader hurrying along, skimming to get back to the main plot. Of course, if there is no main plot, that’s another problem. What Blackwood’s novel does accomplish very well is an in-depth commentary on middle-class angst, most of which is internalized. The reader is exposed to all flavors of personal guilt: parental, spousal, professional. But there is no atonement, or at least none that occurs on the page. In the course of the story...

Das Ende der Boden-Credit-Anstalt 1929 und die Rolle Rudolf Siegharts

In 1929 the second biggest Austrian bank, the Boden-Credit-Anstalt (BCA), became insolvent and was taken over by the Creditanstalt. The bank had chosen a business strategy of expansion in the 1920s, a strategy that proved to be illusory in view of the numerous problems Austrian banks were confronted with after 1918: the breakdown of the Habsburg Monarchy, the loss of influence in affiliated enterprises in the successor states, inflation, lack of domestic capital and the early signs of the world depression. But the failure of the BCA was not only due to external and objective factors. It was the bank’s president, Rudolf Sieghart, who played a decisive role for what had happened. Sieghart was a dominant and influential figure in Austrian banking with close connections to politics and press. Using these networks extensively, he became the target of many attacks and rumours. The story of the BCA impressively shows internal problems of monitoring and the lack of control. Finally, the BCA case stands exemplary for the question of personal guilt and responsibility of bankers. It has to be stressed that the BCA was by far not the only bank where such practices were used, the take-over of the BCA was not the last one in the Austrian process of banking concentration. But directed by a controversial figure like Sieghart, the BCA story is both unique and exceptional.

The Secret Fidel Castro: Deconstructing the Symbol (review)

Reviewed by: The Secret Fidel Castro: Deconstructing the Symbol Antoni Kapcia Servando González . The Secret Fidel Castro: Deconstructing the Symbol. Oakland, Calif.: InteliBooks, 2001. 491 pp. The book's title awakens the fear of superficiality and sensationalism, a fear regrettably borne out by this study that succeeds neither at establishing what exactly "the symbol" is or at any feats of analytical deconstruction. Nor does the volume reveal anything "secret." Since Castro defies conventional analysis and fools everyone, the volume argues, he has never been understood either by biographers (pace Georgie Anne Geyer, perhaps) or by historians. Part I aims to "deconstruct," but the methodology is simply to amass the familiar: street rumors (from Havana and Miami), anecdotes (from biographies and memoirs), and a string of conspiracy [End Page 165] theories. Rejecting notions of "charisma," the book nonetheless takes us through an account of Castro's powers of fascination and virtual clairvoyance. In the process, several old chestnuts are reheated (often repeatedly), but never with proof beyond suggestion, circumstantial evidence, and hearsay: Castro's implication in Kennedy's assassination, the childhood roots of both his alleged madness (in brain damage), and his hatred of the United States (in Roosevelt's neglect of his letter), his status as "professional gangster" (112), his personal guilt in several murders, his repressed homosexuality, and his corruption from the outset. Indeed, the allegations become bizarre: Castro's eagerness for nuclear confrontation both in 1962 and now, his desire to attack and take over the United States, his murder not just of Che and Camilo (familiar enough accusations) but also of Jorge Mas Canosa, Virgilio Piñera, and Allende's daughters. The author even implicates Castro (in a long afterword) in the attack on the World Trade Center. Part II supposedly answers Theodore Draper's question: "Who is Fidel Castro? What is he?" with the simple rejoinder, "he is a monster, and he is evil" (309), but takes us there by various routes. Disproving his "Communism" (and criticizing the Miami exiles for perpetuating that notion), he argues a case for Castro as a fascist, but largely through association, symptomatic comparison and, seemingly, the logic that, since Castro is a liar, we should believe the opposite. He even suggests that Che's foco theory was a "thinly disguised fascist scheme" (291). He argues that Castroism is a religious cult, again through its symptoms rather than structural or doctrinal analysis, and, although arguing the tenable case for associations with santería, again relies on anecdotal and suggestive evidence. However, in relation to religion, a clear theme emerges: the Catholic Church is repeatedly criticized for supporting rather than opposing Castro, and in the process readers are usefully reminded to go beyond the rhetoric of opposition and to contemplate the consequences of uncritical cooperation. The Jesuits become the real villains of the piece for creating, shaping, encouraging, and protecting Castro (and, incidentally, he suggests, in eliminating Pope John Paul I). The book's form is problematic. Apart from the suspect methodology (to amass anecdotes and innuendos until some might have a chance at passing for fact), its structural flaws weaken it considerably: it tends to be repetitive (sometimes the same story will appear three times), contradictory and rambling in its delivery. However, the main flaw lies in its deliberate and open partiality. Although at times the author dips into "scientific" method (e.g., his supposed use of intelligence-gathering methods and his "documentary" equation of Castro's psychosis and the Columbine killers), the terminology used is often that of diatribe (e.g., the repeated references to "tyrant" and "evil," and to "the Castroist gutter elite" (303), with even serious observers being dismissed as "Castro-friendly"), to the extent that, although he often equally targets the [End Page 166] exiles and Washington, the book is difficult to take seriously as adding to our understanding or knowledge. Antoni Kapcia University of Nottingham Copyright © 2005 University of Pittsburgh Press

Guilt‐ and shame‐proneness and the grief of perinatal bereavement

This longitudinal cohort study explored the relationship of guilt- and shame-proneness to grief in women (N = 86) and men (N = 72) 1 month ('early') and 13 months ('late') after a stillbirth or neonatal death. Hierarchical regression showed that shame-proneness explained a small but statistically significant proportion of the variance in early grief in women (9%) and men (19%), whereas guilt-proneness did not contribute further to the variance in early grief. Conversely, shame-proneness explained a statistically significant and substantial proportion of the variance in late grief in women (27%) and men (56%), and guilt-proneness made a significant further contribution to the variance in women (21%) and men (11%). Overall, shame- and guilt-proneness explained 45% of the variance in late grief in women and 63% of the variance in men. Moreover, early shame-proneness predicted late grief in men. Personality guilt- and shame-proneness showed important relationships with late grief in both women and men, but there were notable sex differences.

Addition of "near-miss" cases enhances a quality improvement conference.

Medical error is a prominent public issue today. Surgeons, for many decades, have conducted regular and meaningful reviews of most untoward events, which deserve improvement. "Near-miss" is a useful focus for such a conference, in that it avoids a focus on ultimate personal guilt and minimizes exposure to litigation (ie, a nonevent).

Culpa y responsabilidad como vertientes de la conciencia moral

If I am not mistaken, our cultural baggage leads us almost automatically to associate guilt with a religious concept. To be more precise this has Judean-Christian roots. At the same time it also tends to lead to the identification of responsibility with strictly legal matters. Guilt is presented in close association with religion or, at most, with psychoanalysis, given that responsibility is usually restricted to criminal law or is associated in terms of protocol with polities. Nevertheless, although the words «guilt» and «responsibility » do not occur very often in dictionaries of ethics, they are key concepts in moral thought. My purpose here is to present them as dimensions or complementary aspects of our moral sense. It is of course possible for anyone to accept a specific responsibility without feeling guilty while, on the other hand, some people will always prefer to wallow in feelings of guilt without feeling responsible for the cause of the same. However, it is correct for both notions to work together with one accord. Guilt should therefore be a symptom of responsibility, while attending to our own responsibilities should be enough to ensure a complete lack of personal guilt.

Jefferson, Morality, and the Problem of Slavery

tH TOW could Thomas Jefferson, advocate of equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, have justified his ownership of human beings? How, in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, could he have accused King George III and the British nation of imposing slavery on the American colonies? Jefferson never thought that slavery was morally justifiable. In order to grasp his understanding of the issue of personal guilt, we need to historicize Jefferson's moral thought. Much of modern moral understanding begins with the autonomous individual and his rights. We consider all people first and foremost as individuals, fellow claimants to dignity and respect whose inherent and irreducible rights constitute the foundation of modern morality. Our language, borrowed directly from the Declaration, is Jeffersonian. Yet, while the individual is important in his moral thought, Jefferson constantly made judgments about individuals on the basis of his exalted standard of virtuous behavior, recognizing that their capacity to act morally differed widely. In Jefferson's view, men were to be judged according to the manifestation of their moral dispositions. Slaves were beyond-or beneath-such judgments. As long as they were enslaved, they were by definition unable to exercise free will or to enforce claims to rights, inalienable or otherwise, and therefore could not be held morally accountable for their actions. But if slaves were beyond the pale of moral judgment, the institution of slavery nonetheless raised profound moral problems for the new republic. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be Jefferson wrote in his Autobiography, nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government.1

White Guilt and Racial Compensation: The Benefits and Limits of Self-Focus

In two studies, the authors investigated guilt as a response to group-based advantage. Consistent with its conceptualization as a self-focused emotion, White guilt was based in self-focused beliefs in racial inequality. Thus, guilt was associated with belief in White privilege (Study 1) and resulted from seeing European Americans as perpetrators of racial discrimination (Study 2). Just as personal guilt is associated with efforts at restitution, White guilt was predictive of support for affirmative action programs aimed at compensating African Americans. White guilt was not, however, predictive of support for noncompensatory efforts at promoting equality, such as affirmative action programs that increase opportunities (Study 2). In contrast, the other-focused emotion of group-based sympathy was a more general predictor of support for different affirmative action policies. Our findings demonstrate the benefits and limits of group-based guilt as a basis of support for social equality and highlight the value of understanding the specific emotions elicited in intergroup contexts.

Alfred Bentz – Erdölgeologe in schwieriger Zeit, 1938–1947

Alfred Bentz was the leading oil geologist in Germany during the Third Reich, the World War II and thereafter. His relevant activities are treated here mainly on the base of documents in the Geologenarchiv Freiburg. In spite of his prominent position during the Nazi Regime he can obviously not be blamed for personal guilt. As a loyal civil servant he was embedded in the tragic German fate in these years.

Rebellion and revenge: the meaning of suicide of women in rural China

The current literature on suicide in China shows that the female suicide rate is extraordinarily higher than the rate for males. Many studies have been conducted on the prevalence and perpetrating factors for suicidal incidents. Few have attempted to understand women’s suicide acts. In this article, the ethnographic data are used to explore the special meaning of the suicide act in a Chinese family and its impact on the other family members. Research has shown that suicide may have a different meaning in the Chinese context, especially for women with an inferior status within the family. Suicide is taken as an act of revenge in a moral and spiritual sense. The act of suicide is very powerful; it grants the woman so much power that she may achieve what she could not during her lifetime. The suicide event remains in the collective memory of the relatives and other people who knew the person. Its powerful meaning is related to the memory of the transgressive event of taking one’s own life as well as to the collective and personal guilt connected with the event.

The Laughter of Foxes: A Study of Ted Hughes by Keith Sagar (review)

approaches. While our critical practice reveals something of a developing critical hierarchy,itssignificanceis a questionleftlargelyforfurtherdebate. UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE, CANADA CRAIG MONK The Laughterof Foxes. A Studyof TedHughes. By KEITHSAGAR. (Liverpool English Texts and Studies, 38) Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. 2000. xxxiv + 196 pp. k727.50 (paperbound I14.95). It is a sad comment on the state of Hughes criticismthat many readers,on picking up thisbook, will turnfirstto the Acknowledgementspage. There theywill findthat it contains material from unpublished sources 'by kind permission of Ted Hughes and the Ted Hughes Estate'. The Hughes/Plath Estate is not notorious for its kindnessto critics,so one anticipatesa respectfulbook. It is, in fact,a ferventeulogy. Keith Sagar's version of Hughes is perfectly coherent, which in itself is an achievement. The first of his four chapters describes the 'healing power' of the poet's 'mythic imagination', which offersthe best hope for 'the health of the race', 'at the threshold of a new and dark millennium'. Sagar's final chapter traces the redemptive movement in Hughes's poetry from the 'world made of blood' of his first two volumes, to a 'world made of light'. Central here is the mythic quest of Crow (continued in Cave Birdsand beyond) to cast off his mistaken'singlevision' of a world of opposites (predator/prey; man/woman). He suffers'dire punishments for his errors,failuresand crimes',and learnsat last 'to get into a rightrelationwith the female, who is also Nature and his own true demon' (p. I25). Hughes's protagonistthus achieves a fourfold,holisticvision, 'correctingboth his own errors and those of Western Man'. The culmination is an 'alchemical marriage, or coniunctio': 'not only a marriageof male and female but of all the polarized elements of the divided self. [.. .] The goblin is the offspring.The couple must not attemptto kill or tame or disown the goblin' (p. I43). It is fitting that this vision, which 'redeems Nature', should be achieved most convincingly in River,since, as Hughes has said: 'Any kind of fishing provides [a] connection with the whole living world.' Sagar's story is told with conviction, and is supported by references to unpublished letters from Hughes to the critic himself. Nothing he says, however, will speak to those readers who find Hughes disturbingly lacking in self-irony, or who distrust his didactic insights into 'Nature' (Sagar uses this word with the same confident freedom as the Pope). The real strength of Hughes, for such readers, lies in the intense pathos of his personal guilt and suffering, painfully dressed up as shamanic messianism and bookish anthropology. In this reading, the achievement in Riverof the 'alchemical marriage', which acknowledges the goblin, is a coded expression of Hughes's relief that his second wife, unlike his first, was willing to indulge his passion for hunting and fishing. Some will feel that Hughes's relations with women are best understood in these less highfalutin terms of sexual politics, and secular jealousies and satisfactions. Sagar contemptuously dismisses such readings: 'The media kept to their own agenda, in which sex, suicide and guilt are far more interesting than poetry, so that the general impression [. . .] remained intact, that Hughes' greatest claim to fame was as the husband of Sylvia Plath' (p. x). It is, indeed, irresistible to speculate how many copies BirthdayLetterswould have sold had it not been about Plath. Sagar's second chapter deals, fascinatingly, with different mythic interpretations of their relationship. Hughes began by seeing himself as Prospero, but soon began to feel more like Caliban. In the end he cast himself as Orpheus. All three versions (though Sagar does not say so) place man-as-artist centre-stage. Eurydice has no lyre. Elsewhere Sagar quotes Hughes's comment on a poetic exercise of Plath's of approaches. While our critical practice reveals something of a developing critical hierarchy,itssignificanceis a questionleftlargelyforfurtherdebate. UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE, CANADA CRAIG MONK The Laughterof Foxes. A Studyof TedHughes. By KEITHSAGAR. (Liverpool English Texts and Studies, 38) Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. 2000. xxxiv + 196 pp. k727.50 (paperbound I14.95). It is a sad comment on the state of Hughes criticismthat many readers,on picking up thisbook, will turnfirstto the Acknowledgementspage. There theywill findthat it contains material from unpublished...

Collective Guilt and Collective Guilt Feelings

Can collectives feel guilt with respect to what they have done? It hasbeen claimed that they cannot. Yet in everyday discourse collectives areoften held to feel guilt, criticized because they do not, and so on.Among other things, this paper considers what such so-called collectiveguilt feelings amount to. If collective guilt feelings are sometimesappropriate, it must be the case that collectives can indeed beguilty. The paper begins with an account of what it is for a collectiveto intend to do something and to act in light of that intention.According to this account, and in senses that are explained, there is acollective that intends to do something if and only if the members of agiven population are jointly committed to intend as a body to do thatthing. A related account of collective belief is also presented. It isthen argued that, depending on the circumstances, a group's action canbe free as opposed to coerced, and that the idea that a collective assuch can be guilty of performing a wrongful act makes sense. The ideathat a group might feel guilt may be rejected because it is assumed thatto feel guilt is to experience a ``pang'' or ``twinge'' of guilt –nothing more and nothing less. Presumably, though, there must becognitions and perhaps behavior involved. In addition, the primacy, eventhe necessity, of ``feeling-sensations'' to feeling guilt in theindividual case has been questioned. Without the presumption that it isalready clear what feeling guilt amounts to, three proposals as to thenature of collective guilt feelings are considered. A ``feeling ofpersonal guilt'' is defined as a feeling of guilt over one's own action.It is argued that it is implausible to construe collective guiltfeelings in terms of members' feelings of personal guilt. ``Membershipguilt feelings'' involve a group member's feeling of guilt over what hisor her group has done. It is argued that such feelings are intelligibleif the member is party to the joint commitment that lies at the base ofthe relevant collective intention and action. However, an account ofcollective guilt in terms of membership guilt feelings is found wanting.Finally, a ``plural subject'' account of collective guilt feelings isarticulated, such that they involve a joint commitment to feel guilt asa body. The parties to a joint commitment of the kind in question may asa result find themselves experiencing ``pangs'' of the kind associatedwith personal and membership guilt feelings. Since these pangs, byhypothesis, arise as a result of the joint commitment to feel guilt as abody, they might be thought of as providing a kind of phenomenology forcollective guilt. Be that as it may, it is argued the plural subjectaccount has much to be said for it.

The Dead Wives in the Dead House: Narrative Inconsistency and Genre Confusion in Dostoevskii's Autobiographical Prison Novel

InNotes from the Dead House, fictional narrator Aleksandr Petrovich Gorianchikov appears as wife murderer in the preface and as a political prisoner in the memoirs. In the preface, Gorianchikov experiences moral anguish over his crime. But the memoirs actively employ social analysis to shift the burden of guilt from convicts onto the social structure. This authoritarian structure, which divides society into an underclass of ignorant “children” ruled by violent “fathers,” notably excludes women. The murder of a second wife in an inset tale brutally enacts this exclusion: while Gorianchikov's social analysis helps him understand many of the prisoners, it cannot account for the convict Shishkin's murder of his wife Akulka. Gorianchikov's personal guilt for murdering his wife constitutes a response to—and a repetition of—the moral bewilderment that emerges out of Akulka's death. Seen in this light, the formal tensions between preface, memoir, and inset tale are motivated by and demonstrate a conflict between social analysis and individual responsibility.