In Stage II guilt is first of all social, liberal, moral guilt—a guilt so general as to seem almost formal. It is we who are responsible, either by commission or—more generally—by omission, for everything from killing off the Tasmanians to burning the books at Alexandria. (You didn't do it? Then you should have stopped them from doing it. You never heard of it? Ignorant as well as evil, eh? You weren't born? You're guilty, I tell you—guilty.)


Freud to Paul: The Stages of Auden's Ideology, p. 169 - The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Randall Jarrell Quotes

In Stage II guilt is first of all social, liberal, moral guilt—a guilt so general as to seem almost formal. It is we who are responsible, either by ...

In Stage II guilt is first of all social, liberal, moral guilt—a guilt so general as to seem almost formal. It is we who are responsible, either by ...

In Stage II guilt is first of all social, liberal, moral guilt—a guilt so general as to seem almost formal. It is we who are responsible, either by ...

In Stage II guilt is first of all social, liberal, moral guilt—a guilt so general as to seem almost formal. It is we who are responsible, either by ...