The Innocent
On Guilt, Responsibility, and the Moral Fever of Our Time
Prologue:
The West appears to have been swept up by a wave of engagement. Under various names and around a variety of themes — climate, race, gender, social justice and migration — a moral fervour has emerged that presents itself as necessary, urgent and unavoidable. Much is at stake, the message goes, and time is of the essence.
This engagement has a collective label, though it is not entirely clear whether it is a badge of honour chosen by those engaged or a disparaging term used by critics: ‘woke’, meaning awake, aware and alert to injustice and abuse of power. In this sense, to be woke does not mean to be indifferent, but rather to be morally vigilant. It presupposes a sharp eye for what is structurally amiss and a willingness to highlight it, especially when doing so is uncomfortable.
At the same time, however, this engagement is far from innocuous. It speaks in absolute terms, tolerates little dissent, and is accompanied by a pronounced sense of moral superiority. While it may appear aggressive on the streets and on social media, in institutional form, it manifests as pleas for states of emergency and the suspension of hard-won achievements such as open debate, civil liberties and democratic procedures. Opposition is often reduced to psychology: those who hesitate are said to suffer from a phobia or to remain unaware.
In progressive circles, this approach finds a receptive audience. Perhaps this is because it evokes memories of earlier emancipatory movements and a time when social commitment and moral seriousness were considered self-evident. After decades of neoliberal sobriety and technocratic management, there appears to be room once again for passion, meaning and a shared ideal. It is as though history itself has regained direction — provided we are prepared to push through.
Critics tend to find themselves on the defensive, often confining themselves to matters of style — too moralistic, too virtuous, too politically correct. But what is wrong with virtue? With striving for justice, equality, and caring for the planet? Moreover, criticism often comes from populist quarters, which makes it seem dubious from the outset. And yet, something feels amiss. The inclination towards exclusion, moral absolutism and the readiness to erase, cancel and condemn all raise the question of whether we are really dealing with enlightenment here.
How, then, should we understand this engagement? Is it the vanguard of a new consciousness that will draw the rest along, as earlier emancipatory movements once did? Or is it a symptom of something else: a deeper confusion or restlessness that disguises itself in moral terms? If we widen our perspective further, what if this phenomenon tells us more about the consciousness from which that change is demanded than about the world that supposedly needs to be changed?
To answer this question, we must begin not with positions, but with the air we breathe and the water we swim in: the spirit of the age in which this engagement arises and thrives. This is a dimension of life that has become so self-evident that it scarcely registers at all.
- On the Unseen Zeitgeist
Anyone seeking to understand a pervasive phenomenon such as contemporary engagement cannot limit themselves to analysing viewpoints or intentions. What is manifesting here is not just an opinion, but an expression of the zeitgeist in which we live. It is precisely this dimension that is difficult to access.
The zeitgeist is something we breathe without noticing. It shapes the framework of our thinking, feeling and judging that we take for granted. Just as a fish does not perceive the water in which it swims or a bird the air that carries it, so too are human beings largely unaware of their own zeitgeist. What we identify with, we cannot see.
This makes any attempt to diagnose the zeitgeist vulnerable, not because it is necessarily mistaken, but because it touches on what we are most deeply identified with. Questioning the spirit of the age implicitly questions one’s moral compass, assumptions and sense of clarity and progress. This tends to provoke resistance, often before the argument has even been heard.
And yet this detour is unavoidable. As long as we judge phenomena exclusively within the framework they produce, we remain trapped within it. It is only when we are prepared to examine that framework itself that what would otherwise remain invisible begins to appear — not in order to rise above it, but to gain a measure of distance.
What follows is an attempt at this. It is neither a moral judgement nor a historical survey, but rather a reflection on the consciousness that produces our time — and which, by virtue of its self-evidence, is harder to recognise than any ideology.
- The Liberation That Changed Everything
When individual liberation broke through collectively in the 1960s, an unprecedented reservoir of energy was released. What had previously been demonstrated by exceptional individuals in art, science, and philosophy over previous centuries now took on a societal form. Human beings freed themselves from the authority of hierarchy, tradition and institutions that had been taken for granted. The church and the fatherland lost their sacred status and became the subject of ridicule. We began to shape our own lives, rather than those of our parents or priests, and set out to improve the world.
This liberation unleashed an explosion of creativity, vitality and ambition. Modern life acquired an impressive expressive force in terms of lifestyle, gastronomy, fashion, art and science. The world seemed malleable, not only in a technical sense, but also as a space for personal development. Freedom was fought for and lived visibly and tangibly, sometimes exuberantly.
This was a historic moment of emancipation, the significance of which cannot be overstated. The individual emerged as a bearer of meaning, accompanied by the conviction that a world of free individuals would inevitably lead to a fairer and more humane society. Surely modernity would fulfil its promise?
- The Unintended Downside
But was this liberation sustainable? What has become of the freedom enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Decades later, an uncomfortable balance sheet emerges. Despite unprecedented prosperity and freedom of choice, large sections of society are struggling. In the Netherlands, more than half a million households live in poverty. Burnout has become the number one public health concern. Manuals for diagnosing mental disorders have doubled in size, and the number of therapists has increased accordingly — yet waiting lists continue to grow.
Collectively, things are creaking too. The Sustainable Development Goals exude ambition, but also urgency and despair. Thanks to washing machines, vacuum cleaners and countless cleaning products, our homes are cleaner than ever, yet the environment bears unmistakable signs of exhaustion. And while life becomes ever more efficiently organised, the sense of fulfilment appears to diminish rather than increase.
The idea that individual freedom and self-realisation naturally lead to happiness and progress no longer withstands closer scrutiny. Even after experiencing all the freedom we could, we were still not happy, and the world was far from complete. The promise of modernity has not only failed, but has also overlooked something essential.
- The Core of Modernity: Ambivalence
This is not freedom itself, but rather the psychological structure through which freedom is experienced. The essence of modernity is not individual development — growth naturally follows when barriers are removed — but the ambivalence that accompanies it. Modern consciousness is dominated by the ‘I’, or the ego, which is ambivalent by nature.
The ego is not happy because it is free — freedom increasingly proves to be a burden — but because it is affirmed. It seeks recognition, validation and confirmation, and becomes destabilised when these are lacking. The ego identifies with thoughts, opinions, and outward forms, deriving its sense of legitimacy from comparison with others. In a culture of permanent visibility and feedback, this dependence is only intensified.
Thus, a sense of inner conflict emerges: although human beings are freer than ever before, they experience themselves as fragile, insecure and incomplete. Modernity has liberated the individual, but has also left them alone with themselves. The psychological core of our time lies in the tension between autonomy and dependence, and between self-determination and the need for recognition.
This ambivalence creates a breeding ground for a deeper problem that will manifest not only individually, but also collectively.
- The Ego as Psychological Centre
At the beginning of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud described the human personality as a field of tension between three forces: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id represents instinctual drives; the superego, conscience and internalised moral authority; and the ego occupies a mediating position, attempting to reconcile the demands of the id with those of the superego and the constraints of reality.
While the ego is not unique to modernity, in the modern age, it has become the dominant identity. ‘I am’ and ‘I want’ have come to function as guiding principles. The ego identifies with thoughts, convictions and outward characteristics, and experiences itself not as intrinsically acceptable, but as conditional; it only feels OK when it is affirmed. This affirmation comes from outside, through success, recognition, and comparison with others.
Although virtually all spiritual traditions relativise this ego dynamic, it has become deeply entrenched in the Western psyche. The ego is a mental construct that exists in constant relation to others and finds it hard to detach itself from external validation. Consequently, it becomes vulnerable, restless and fundamentally insecure.
Eckhart Tolle refers to this dimension of the ego as the ‘pain-body’: the aspect of the ego in which unresolved trauma lies dormant. The pain-body feeds on mental activity, such as judgements and negative thoughts. When we identify with these thoughts, we see ourselves as foolish and unattractive failures. By continually paying attention to this inner turmoil, our negative self-image is reinforced. The pain-body remains alive and can even grow.
Contemporary psychological distress cannot be understood without taking this dominant ego, or pain-body, into account.
- Neurosis as Absolute Consciousness
It is no coincidence that the period in which the ego assumed its central position also saw the rise of neurosis. Stress, burnout, depression and aggression are not marginal phenomena, but rather structural symptoms of the modern psyche. Neuroses of every kind can be seen as the mental pandemic of modernity, with their chronology running strikingly parallel to that of modern consciousness itself.
The Jungian psychologist and philosopher Wolfgang Giegerich offers a particularly illuminating perspective on this. According to Giegerich, neurosis can be recognised by its absolute nature. The characteristic questions of the modern ego — ‘Who should I be?’ How should the world be?’ are no longer approached within a framework of relativity, but rather as though there were only one correct answer.
A remarkable regression takes place here. Although modernity appeared to be the age of freedom and relativisation, within neurosis something old returns: the absolutes of group consciousness. Where everything was once judged in terms of heaven or hell, good or evil, a binary reality now re-emerges. That from which humanity believed it had taken its leave returns unnoticed, through the back door.
The neurotic psyche cannot tolerate ambiguity. Consider the compulsiveness of anorexia or bulimia, for example. It resists nuance, experience, and rationality with coercive conviction. Openness gives way to rigidity, and freedom to compulsion.
- Absolutism in an Age of Freedom
This absolutism is everywhere. Phrases such as ‘absolutely unacceptable’, ‘absolutely necessary’ and ‘there is no alternative’ dominate public discourse. Issues that once invited discussion are now presented as moral certainties, bolstered by scientific consensus if necessary. There is no room for proportion, doubt, or the uncomfortable middle ground.
The paradox is clear: in an age that considers itself free and individualistic, relativisation is disappearing. The awakened activist relativises nothing. Compromise, reasonableness and rationality are quickly dismissed as cowardly or outdated. Through the absolute, neurosis reveals its immunity to contradiction and clarification.
This irrationality manifests itself in striking inversions. In an attempt to prevent micro-aggressions, one becomes the aggressor. In the struggle against discrimination, discrimination is directed towards others instead. Bodies, which are said to be social constructs, require physical intervention to be altered. Nineteenth-century nature is sacred, while nineteenth-century rituals are damned.
The totem pole of this neurotic psyche is the belief in malleability. This represents the most fundamental synthesis of modernity. However, life is only partially malleable. When this illusion collapses, a reality remains that feels unbearable. In this sense, neurosis can be seen as a refusal to engage with the real world — a world of limitations, tragedy, good and evil, and suffering as an inherent part of human existence.
What unfolds at the individual level can also manifest collectively. Where will the simmering discontent and latent aggression of the ego go when they become intolerable for an ever-increasing number of people?
- The Disappearance of God and the Loneliness of Guilt
In the past, guilt was instilled in us from an early age. ‘Seht, wohin? Auf unsre Schuld”, as Bach taught us. But in those days, we could bring our guilt before God. He would forgive. Alternatively, one might carry original sin all the way to death in the hope of redemption in the Kingdom of God. There was also an alternative: guilt could be projected onto another group. If that collective projection grew large enough, it would result in a catharsis that we called war. Guilt was heavy and sometimes unbearable, but it belonged to a larger cosmic order in which reconciliation was possible.
In the modern era, however, this transcendent order has vanished. God has been declared dead, aggression has become morally questionable, and open conflict is considered barbaric, even at the most microscopic level. The modern ‘I’ stands alone. Guilt can no longer be endured, yet it cannot easily be expelled either. It remains.
The lonely bearer of guilt is one of the least recognised phenomena of modern consciousness and one of the most overlooked tensions in contemporary society.
- The Illusion of Malleability and the Burden of Self-Guilt
Modern freedom has a shadow side: it makes the individual ultimately responsible for their life. Not only for their actions, but also for their emotions, relationships, career, and happiness. Anything that goes wrong is ultimately one’s own fault. If something fails, it is because it has not been tried hard enough. When life falters, the self is to blame.
This radical individualisation of responsibility creates an untenable situation. Guilt becomes all-encompassing yet unbearable. It chafes, gnaws at you and undermines your sense of self. At the same time, guilt can no longer be transferred, forgiven or embedded in a larger whole.
The belief in malleability offers a pseudo-solution. If life is malleable, then so is guilt. It need not be endured, but can be eliminated through change — through correction, redesign or purification. Guilt becomes a technical problem.
However, malleability is an illusion. Life can only be steered to a limited extent, and it is precisely the recognition of this fact that makes modern guilt so unbearable. When the illusion collapses, an experience of inescapable failure remains.
So where is this guilt to go?
- The Birth of the Guilt Neurosis
When guilt can no longer be endured or projected onto a transcendent other, the only remaining direction is inward. Modern individuals internalise their guilt. They project it onto a part of themselves that they believe can be changed.
My History, culture, origin, gender, skin colour, the body, national identity — even the natural environment — become carriers of guilt. Anything deemed deficient must, by definition, be changed or abolished. Not because they are objectively wrong, but because they function as carriers of an unbearable inner deficiency.
In this process, guilt is transformed into dynamism. The feeling of failure is converted into activism. The paralysing burden of guilt gives way to moral energy. By struggling against one’s own nature, by problematising and reshaping the self, one regains innocence. One becomes good again. Pure. Morally acceptable.
Thus, guilt neurosis emerges as a collective phenomenon. Although it may appear liberating, it is in fact regressive. It offers no reconciliation, only postponement. There is no rest, only motion. Guilt is not merely carried; it is constantly reactivated.
What unfolds individually organises itself collectively. Guilt is shared, amplified and normalised. It acquires a moral language, symbolism, and an enemy image. It is precisely at this point that engagement emerges, which presents itself as inevitable and self-evident.
- The Self-Evident as a Moral Weapon
A striking feature of contemporary engagement is its emphasis on the self-evident. The causes appear beyond dispute: social justice, equality, anti-racism and sustainability. After all, who could be against such things? Engagement does not present itself as a position, but as self-evident truth.
This is precisely where its strength lies. By elevating the self-evident and reasonable to the level of the absolute, discussion quietly becomes redundant. What is not disputed no longer needs to be discussed. The discourse shifts from ‘What is appropriate or proportionate?’ to ‘Who is on the right side?’ Thus, a moral stance emerges that is beyond reproach.
Appealing to self-evident truths enables moral distinctions to be drawn without substantive debate. Those who agree are deemed virtuous. Those who hesitate, offer nuances or ask questions are viewed with suspicion. The focus of engagement shifts from the problem itself to the person who has not yet recognised the problem in the ‘correct’ way.
In this process, guilt is redistributed. Rather than being based on actions, it is now based on consciousness. Those who possess the right insight are regarded as morally advanced, while those who do not are seen as lagging behind or being obstructive. Thus, engagement acquires a hierarchical structure that stands in stark contrast to its emancipatory self-image.
- Cancel Culture and Moral Regression
Once this moral distinction has been established, the need for dialogue disappears. Conversation with the opponent is no longer necessary; realism is dismissed as old-fashioned and doubt as moral weakness. What remains is correction, exclusion and purification.
In this context, cancel culture emerges. Speakers, academics, artists, books, rituals and historical figures are removed from the public sphere, not because they have become irrelevant, but because they no longer meet the prevailing moral standard. The standard itself remains beyond question.
This unyielding stance reveals a regression. Rather than a new form of consciousness, what returns is the absolute of group consciousness. Those who deviate no longer belong. The moral community is closing ranks, just as it did in pre-modern times. The difference is that this exclusion is now presented as progress.
The direction of moral projection is revealing. It turns inwards, towards what is one’s own: one’s own history, culture, language, symbols, and institutions. By branding these things as ‘guilty’, the modern individual can externalise their inner discontent without truly having to confront it. Reverse the projection and the source becomes visible: the exhausted, ambivalent ego that can no longer tolerate itself.
- Woke as a Collective Guilt Neurosis
Against this background, the phenomenon known as ‘wokeness’ appears not as a moral vanguard, but as a symptom. Wokeness is not enlightenment, but rather a collective guilt neurosis — a neurotic sense of guilt that is spreading to ever wider layers of society.
It is the condensed meaninglessness, frustration, anxiety, and shame of a modernity that overestimated itself — a modernity that promised absolute freedom yet left individuals with an unbearable burden of responsibility. This neurosis gives direction to this impotence. It channels inner failure into outward struggle.
This longing is deeply human. The desire for meaning, for moral significance and for the feeling of standing on the right side of history is understandable. However, due to its neurotic nature, this movement is incapable of creation; it can only destroy. It draws its energy from rejection, not responsibility.
Through its collective nature, this self-destructive dynamic gains momentum. Under the banner of engagement, a storm of uprooted egos arises, convinced that they stand at the summit of consciousness and enlightenment. Those deemed unawakened are regarded with barely concealed contempt. This is not a sign of moral strength, but a direct reflection of an unconscious sense of inadequacy.
Thus, woke is not a new emancipatory impulse, but rather a morally charged attempt to escape the burden of guilt. It absolutises its own righteousness, excludes others and reverts to the group consciousness that modernity sought to transcend.
- The Childlike Consciousness of Innocence
In everyday language, guilt is a moral category. Psychologically and systemically, however, it refers to something else. In group consciousness — and in the child — guilt is primarily the feeling of no longer belonging. This sense of guilt signals a rupture in belonging and serves to restore innocence. Those who feel guilty long for rehabilitation and readmission to the group.
In this sense, guilt and innocence have little to do with good and evil. History shows that the greatest atrocities can be committed with a clear conscience so long as they fall within the group’s moral framework. Conversely, a person may feel deeply guilty about an action that is morally defensible but deviates from what is expected in their surroundings. This dynamic is vividly revealed in many family-systems constellations.
Feelings of guilt betray a childlike consciousness that clings to the need for innocence. They seek acquittal, not responsibility. This also explains the public sphere’s fascination with moral purity and childlike figures like Greta Thunberg: we, the adults, are guilty, the children are innocent and a source of inspiration.
- Responsibility as a Mature Response
Responsibility is fundamentally different from guilt. It belongs to mature consciousness and is not a moral judgement, but rather a response to something in life that has fallen out of balance. Responsibility is not ideological or idealistic, but appropriate to the concrete situation.
Those who take responsibility do not need to be innocent. On the contrary, responsibility presupposes the loss of innocence. It acknowledges that life is not pure and that failure, deficiency and tragedy are inseparable from human existence. Feelings of guilt do not disappear by being rejected; rather, they disappear when the desire to be innocent is relinquished.
Responsibility restores balance. It brings calm where guilt produces unrest. It leads to fulfilment, not moral agitation. This is where it differs fundamentally from the projection of guilt, which always requires a degree of self-righteousness and offers only temporary relief.
This distinction is evident in the language of engagement. When a public figure claims that ‘racism is deeply entrenched in white people’, they are creating culprits. However, if they were to say that racism is deeply entrenched in themselves, they would be taking responsibility. The same applies to the sociologist who declares that ‘masculinity is a major problem’. Speaking about my own masculinity shifts the focus from others to myself.
- What Responsibility Does Not Do
Responsibility does not need to persuade. It has no doctrine about others, does not feel morally superior, and has no desire to convert them. It does not speak in absolute terms or seek an enemy. While guilt polarises, responsibility depolarises.
Guilt, by contrast, demands ever greater self-assertion. Like an opiate, it initially brings relief through a surge of moral indignation, but soon requires repetition and escalation. The euphoria is superficial and short-lived, and the unrest returns. Genuine peace and contentment do not follow.
Responsibility, on the other hand, is quiet. It does not drag the past along endlessly and does not act from historical guilt, but responds in the present. It is not our ancestors who trouble us — at least no more than we trouble ourselves — but our inability to deal with what happened and what it evokes in us today.
While guilt rejects the self, responsibility restores the relationship with it. While self-rejection leads to destruction, responsibility opens the possibility of mature freedom.
Epilogue – Truly Waking Up
Children are innocent. And precisely for that reason, they cannot bear responsibility. When they nevertheless do so — often unconsciously, on behalf of their parents — it damages them. Adulthood, by contrast, presupposes the loss of innocence. Those who wish to be adults accept guilt and take responsibility for it.
The ambivalent modern individual confuses these two concepts. They believe that the opposite of guilt is innocence and thus remain trapped in a childlike state that yearns for exoneration. Much of contemporary engagement takes root in this longing—not as cynical power-seeking, but as an attempt to escape an unbearable inner burden.
What presents itself today as a new emancipatory movement appears, in this context, to be a regressive reaction. While the liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s opened what had previously been closed, the current movement is closing what has been opened once more out of fear of the unbearable openness of freedom and responsibility. The absolute of group consciousness returns, disguised as moral progress.
Wokeness is therefore not enlightenment, but a confusion of guilt and innocence, of a childlike longing for purity and an adult willingness to bear responsibility. It is an attempt by the exhausted ego to escape the fiction of self-guilt by morally purifying itself through the struggle against its own nature.
To truly wake up means something else entirely.
It means ceasing to want to be innocent.
It means taking responsibility — without ideology, without moral elevation and without an enemy.
Not to remake the world, but to respond to what is here and now.
——–
The West is being engulfed by a wave of engagement. There is an umbrella term for this engagement, although it is not entirely clear whether this is a self-styled slogan of the activists or a disparaging predicate of the critics: woke, referring to a higher state of clarity and insight. Despite this common denominator, this kind of engagement has many different faces: climate, race, gender, social justice, and migration. And all these different currents have their own follower base, their own language and symbolism, and their own outrage.
The engagement also exudes a strong sense of urgency and a certain enlightened absolutism. As street and Twitter activism, it is sometimes downright aggressive; more parliamentary versions advocate states of emergency and are ready to override democratic processes and fundamental rights. The engagement also has great determination and certain posturing because the time of divergent opinions and dissent is over. Opponents are characterised as mentally ill people with a phobia.
In progressive circles, these movements find much resonance, perhaps because they appeal to nostalgic feelings of excellence and emancipation. Perhaps they revive the social engagement of the 1970s. After all this neoliberal flatulence, there finally seems to be room for inspired action again and hope for the world. If we hurry.
Critics seem to be on the defensive. The most common objection is that this engagement rather ostentatiously flaunts its virtue. But what is wrong with virtue? What is wrong with correctness, political correctness in this case? Besides, the loudest critics are often representatives of populist groups and they don’t actually play a role in social discourse. Still, woke seems to have some sharp edges with her cancel culture of speakers, academics, books, rituals and old heroes.
How should we judge woke? As a blessing descending upon the West, or a curse? Are wokies our social vanguard, the trendsetters of a new view of how people relate to each other and to nature? And will the conservative and unconscious majority follow naturally, as happened with the emancipation movements of the 1970s? Will the populist movements evaporate because we can warm ourselves to the fire of an inspiring, new and collective challenge? Or is woke the symptom of modernity in confusion? And to add a systemic perspective: is there anything that is hidden from view by the drumbeat of woke?
To answer these questions, we need to examine the air we breathe, the water we swim in, in short, the zeitgeist in which we live. That dimension of our lives that we hardly perceive because of its obviousness and ubiquity. How would we characterise that zeitgeist?
Modern consciousness is ambivalent
When individual liberation collectively broke through in the 1960s, after, philosophers, artists and scientists showed us the way in the centuries before, a gigantic reservoir of unleashed individual creativity, energy and ambition was released. With this, we were able to make great social progress for decades and fully enjoy the newly acquired freedoms. Vitality and ambition splashed off the television screen. We broke the shackles of hierarchy. Church and homeland became objects of ridicule. We were going to live our own lives, and no longer those of dad, mum or the priest, and we would improve the world. Modern life, a consequence of the emancipation of the individual, got an incredible boost in the 1960s and 1970s. It was of an impressive reality and expression in lifestyle, gastronomy, fashion, art and science.
Was it sustainable, this liberation euphoria? What about our freedom now, one of the pillars of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948? And the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are they an expression of a successful worldview or a flight ahead, a sign of despair? And poverty, has it been somewhat eradicated? In Burundi and Mozambique perhaps not quite yet, but then perhaps in the Netherlands? More than half a million Dutch households live in poverty. If money is not bliss, have we at least become happier together? The DSM-5, the handbook of officially approved mental disorders has more than doubled in size. Burnout is social disease No 1. And although there have never been so many psychologists, there are many more clients. On a waiting list. Our homes are spotless because of washing machines, hoovers and all-purpose wipes, but is the same true for the environment?
What seemed obvious, that the essence of our modern consciousness was the freedom and unfolding of the individual, and that all those free individuals would create a perfect world, does not hold up on closer inspection. When all freedom had been lived, we still turned out to be unhappy, and the world was not yet perfect, on the contrary.
We bump into an important misunderstanding of modernity. Its essence is not individual freedom, it is ambivalence. Ambivalence because the I, the ego, is the dominant identity of modernity. And the ego is ambivalent. It is not happy because it is free – that freedom increasingly turns out to be a burden – it is happy when it gets external affirmation, and unhappy when it gets no likes. This ambivalence is the powerless, impotent impasse of the self.
What are the consequences of this ambivalence and this focus on the ego, and how is this related to the rise of neurosis?
Ego and neurosis
In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud divided the human personality into 3 parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the primitive and instinctive part of our brain, the superego is our conscience, our moral sense. The ego is the realistic, rational part of our personality that mediates between the instinctive desires of the id and the moral authority of the superego.
The ego is not the only dimension of our humanity, and the ego is not unique to modernity. But the I am and I want have become dominant in modernity. The ego identifies with thoughts and with appearance, and it is not intrinsically okay but only conditionally, namely only if it is affirmed. It is a mental construct, constantly comparing itself to others and depending on external validation. And although all spiritual traditions downplay the ego’s fumbling, for Westerners, it is an addictive and persistent conditioning.
Eckhart Tolle calls this ego dimension the “pain body”. The pain body is that aspect of the ego where all unprocessed trauma is dormant. The pain body feeds off everything that goes on in our heads, our judgements and negative thoughts. When we identify with these thoughts, we find ourselves stupid, ugly and failing. As we keep giving attention to that hellish grinding machine in our heads, this negative self-image is constantly reinforced. This is how the pain body stays alive and can even grow.
Thousands, probably millions of people torment themselves by identifying with the ego and thus feeding the pain body. Burnout, stress, impotence, aggression, you don’t have to be a psychologist to see and know that there is untold psychological suffering in the Western world. Neuroses of any kind are the mental pandemic of modernity. And the chronology of neurosis runs absolutely parallel to that of modernity.
Jungian psychologist and philosopher Wolfgang Giegerich has interesting reflections on our neuroses. According to Giegerich, we can recognise neurosis by its absolute nature. Neurosis arose at the moment when people started to consider and interpret the typical questions of modern consciousness, of the ego: “Whom should I be”, or “How should the world be”, from an absolute point of view. Although modernity seemed to be precisely the age of freedom and relativisation, there was a regression to the age of group consciousness, where everything was absolute: heaven or hell, God or devil, upstairs or downstairs. According to Giegerich, in neurosis, something old that man actually wanted to say goodbye to suddenly re-enters through the back door without anyone noticing, namely the absolute of group consciousness. In neurosis, reality is viewed only with the criteria of absoluteness.
Do you recognise these kinds of statements, in the world around you? The “absolutely unacceptable!”, the “absolutely necessary!” Although modernity brought us precisely individual freedom, and thus the relativisation of the absolute, the awakened activist relativises nothing. There is no compromise of reasonableness, measure and rationality there. It is the pure acting-out of the absolute. With the absolute, the neurosis shows that it resists concrete experiences or illuminating nuances with compelling conviction and is immune to rational insights. Although the neurotic psyche is irrational, it strongly clings to its irrationality: to avoid micro-aggressions, one becomes an aggressor; in the fight against discrimination one discriminates against others now than before; bodies claimed to be social constructs require physical interventions to change them, and to get rid of fossil fuels we burn trees.
The totem pole of the neurotic psyche is the idea of social engineering; it is our most fundamental modernity synthesis. But social malleability, real life teaches, is an illusion. And if we lose that illusion, we are helplessly lost. In general, you can say that neurosis is the refusal to enter the real world. The world of limited social malleability, of good and evil and fate, of intrinsic suffering as part of human existence. So where should it go, this collective meaninglessness, the ego’s latent disquiet and aggression? After all, the brewing discontent is becoming unbearable for more and more people.
Guilt
Our limitless freedom has a downside, it led to the pretence of the malleability of life. Nowadays we are responsible for our emotions, our relationships, our careers, and for our whole lives. Now it is also our “own” fault when things go wrong, and that starts to chafe.
Guilt used to be instilled in us at an early age. Seht, Wohin? Auf uns’re Schuld, we learned from Bach. But I used to be able to bring my guilt to God. He would forgive me. Or I dragged original sin with me to death if necessary, at least to be liberated in the kingdom of Heaven. There was also an alternative, I could project my guilt onto another group and when that collective projected guilt was big enough we called that catharsis “war”. But now that God is dead and we find conflict barbaric, and aggression unacceptable, even on a micro level, the modern I is lonely and alone. It can no longer bear its guilt, can no longer endure and is looking for a way out.
And there is. If salvation is no longer to be found with God, and we are no longer allowed to project our guilt onto others, there is only one direction left. I introjure my “guilt”; I project it onto myself. On a dimension of the self that I think I can change. Because over the self I think I have control. My dissatisfaction, my unconscious guilt I reject, transform and project onto a concrete object of the makeable ego and the makeable world. My history, my country, my (for) parents, my gender, my skin colour, our climate are no good! These need to be changed or abolished. And this change deletes my guilt. I become innocent again, like a child. Paralysing guilt is transformed into social malleability and liberation.
Thus, guilt neurosis was born as a collective social phenomenon.
The guilt neurosis can be recognised, among other things, by the advocacy of the obvious, of that which no one is against. Social justice ? Who is against that? Black lives matter? Obvious, it seems to me. Sustainability, and proper and balanced handling of our natural environment? Of course. It seems harmless, even sympathetic, but beware: by stating the obvious, by supporting the self-evident, the reasonable is transformed into the absolute. And a position is taken in this sense: I am worthy, but the others are no good. I advocate the obvious in order to be able to talk about the other. Via the guilt projection onto the self, I start to virtue, and via my virtuous rationalisations, I then arrive at the other after all. And vices must be fought, fiercely if need be. Our (self)despair shows: that the time for talking to the opponent is over. Realism is old-fashioned. The absolute from the days of group consciousness returns and shows itself in the implacability towards the ignorant in the cancel culture. And the direction of the projection reveals what the source is; turn the projection around and you see the culprit: the modernist, exhausted discontent of the ‘self’.
Woke is a guilt neurosis, a neurotic feeling of guilt that is becoming more and more collective. A consequence of the fragmentation of self-overestimating modernity. It is the bundled meaninglessness, frustration and aggression, fear and shame in search of a destination. In search of meaning and fulfilment. This is, of course, a deeply human desire. However, due to its self-destructive nature, it cannot create but only destroys. Because of its collective nature – under the banner of engagement – it gains momentum. The storm of collected, uprooted and frustrated egos is capable of every conceivable horror but cannot recognise it. Truly, one imagines oneself at the top of the pyramid of consciousness and enlightenment and regards the ignorant, the unawakened with barely concealed contempt. And this contempt is a direct resonance of (unconscious) disgust at the self.
Modern man’s pretence of social malleability causes his view of guilt. Man who pretends to mould his life to his will, and in its wake the world, can fail. He makes himself God, and God he had declared dead just a few decades earlier with Nietzsche as his mouthpiece. The price we pay for this autonomy fiction is guilt. And all are guilty. The winners are guilty because they won. Because they discriminate, against others than the losers, because they pollute the world through their wealth and imagine themselves as morally superior. The losers are guilty because they lost, because they discriminate against others than the winners, because they pollute by their poverty and because they are spiteful.
We also see the aforementioned ambivalence of modernity in the view of guilt. On the one hand, we make our ego needs absolute by demanding every conceivable personal choice and believe we should be taken boundlessly seriously in every personal hurt. On the other hand, and we fail to see the contradiction, the ego is bursting with shame, such as flight shame and child shame, and we are ashamed of our privileges of various kinds.
Guilt, and responsibility
Guilt is a common, everyday word. But for our social diagnosis, we also need to look at “guilt” from the perspective of the zeitgeist. In group consciousness and for a child, guilt is a symptom of feeling that one no longer belongs to the group. The feeling of guilt serves to regain one’s innocence and thus belong again. In guilt, there is always a child consciousness that holds on to the need for innocence.
Therefore, guilt or innocence have virtually nothing to do with right and wrong; the worst atrocities are sometimes committed with a clear conscience. We feel guilty about a good deed if it deviates from what others expect of us. This time of war makes that crystal clear again, if only because of our own moral superiority over what is true and false, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
Responsibility is something else. For mature consciousness, it is a “response” from yourself to something unbalanced in your life. It is not moralistic, nor idealistic but “only” an appropriate response to the situation that rebalances and neutralises emotionally and materially. This makes taking responsibility not an onerous duty but a mature act that leads to fulfilment, happiness and to real freedom. And it is therefore completely distinct from guilt projection.
The difference between blame and responsibility is expressed very simply in the statements of engaged people: the white Dutch celebrity who claims on the talk show that “racism is deeply rooted in white people” creates guilt. If he were to say “Racism is deeply rooted in me” he takes responsibility. The male sociologist who says in the national daily that “masculinity is a big problem” points his finger. If he were to say “My masculinity is a big problem” he takes responsibility.
Taking responsibility leads to balance and peace. Projecting out guilt requires posturing that can then lead to superficial euphoria and fictitious virtue. But like an opiate, it always needs more posturing but will never lead to true peace of mind and contentment.
Synthesis
Children are innocent, always. And that is why they cannot bear responsibility, although sometimes they do so unconsciously for their impotent parents, but that damages them.
A person cannot remain innocent if he wants to become an adult, even if only in the sense of virginity, and accepts guilt by taking responsibility.
The ambivalent adult, the modern engaged person thinks that the antithesis of guilt is innocence, forgetting that this is so only in the child consciousness. In his/her guilt lurks a child consciousness that clings to the need for innocence. Moreover, it also explains the fascination with child activists.
For an adult, this is an illusion; the step to adulthood is the loss of innocence. Guilt disappears when one faces this fact[1] and accepts the guilt. An adult then takes responsibility. Responsibility is not ideological, not dogmatic, is without pretence and is purely personal. Responsibility has no conception of the other, does not need convincing, does not feel morally superior. It is merely the “answer” to living in the here and now. Responsibility also means not constantly carrying the past with you and acting and living from there, but the opposite, to respond to life in the here and now. We can then see, for example, that it is not our ancestors who are flawed, at least no more or less than ourselves, but that it is our inability to deal with what happened at the time that explains our current dissatisfaction.
Ask any therapist where self-destructive feelings lead: to severe psychological problems, to ruined lives. The I that is not okay rejects the self, and everything naturally connected to it. Where the liberating movements of the 1960s and 1970s opened up what was closed, now, because of the intolerability of that openness, what is open is closed again. We call it woke, and assume it is a new emancipatory impulse. However, it is an attempt by the hapless ego to escape the fiction of self-blame. A regressive move by the shocked ego to do the right thing in the face of myriad choices and crushing responsibility. Woke is the neurotic projection of guilt onto the self. An introjection, because the guilt has nowhere else to go and only this seems to lead to reconciliation with unfathomable emptiness and agonising impotence.
With that, the phenomenon of woke is not the enlightenment it pretends to be but a confusion appearing as engagement about guilt and innocence, about the difference between child-like (un)guilt and adult responsibility with potentially dire consequences. It is a regressive movement because the absolute returns from group consciousness.
It is time to really wake up
[1] Group consciousness is the collective consciousness as it was dominant in pre-modern times (also in the West), i.e. approximately until the start of individualisation on a social scale in the 1960s. Just as the family is a safe haven for the child, the group was necessary for the adult for thousands of years, in all its forms (family, village, club, religion, nation), in order to belong and feel safe.
[2] Wilfried Nelles, Die Welt in der wir leben, p. 266 ff.