Guilt is Power. What the **** does that mean?

[peter]

I just read in a review AATE that the theme of the first Chrons was 'Guilt is power'. The review was good, but I don't understand this comment. Is it true in respect of the 1st Chrons theme. is it true at all. I don't get it - why is guilt power - what has this to do with TC and his saving the Land. Sure he was guilty of lots of crap (rape, rudeness, stuborness, even murder of sorts) but what has this to do with his ability to weild power. I might agree more with the statement that 'Power is Guilt', but the other way around - Naaah, I don't get it; seems more like impotence to me.

[Fist and Faith]

Maybe it's like this...

Guilt drives people. They try to make up for what they did. Sometimes, someone thinks they can't make up for whatever it was they did, so they don't bother trying. They spiral downward. But others try. Some never thinking they've done enough yet to make up for it. So they keep trying and trying. Guilt is the motivation. That's pretty powerful.

[Vraith]

And it's the companion to 'innocence is impotence.'
Every choice to act, you are, one way or another, responsible for [guilty of] the results.
But I think he's making a stronger statement than If->Then...more an identity statement, "A IS A" [so the order of the sentence is irrelevant]. I think.

[Zarathustra]

The only people who are truly innocence are those who have made no choices, those who are powerless, impotent. In order to use power, you have to get your hands dirty. You have to make choices, and every choice places responsibility upon you. Even choices made with good intentions can have catastrophic effects. Just because you can't foresee every unintended consequence doesn't make you innocent of the damage. You are responsible for your choices, for your life. There is no life without death, no choice that doesn't in some form take from the world. In order to have power--to be alive and active, to exert your will upon the world--you must make choices that necessarily commit you an active participant in the life/death cycle. You can only use power by accepting the guilt of this participation in altering reality, using it and bending it according to your will. Guilt it power because you have to allow yourself the freedom to be guilty in order to start exerting power.

[lurch]

I just read in a review AATE that the theme of the first Chrons was 'Guilt is power'. The review was good, but I don't understand this comment. Is it true in respect of the 1st Chrons theme. is it true at all. I don't get it - why is guilt power - what has this to do with TC and his saving the Land. Sure he was guilty of lots of crap (rape, rudeness, stuborness, even murder of sorts) but what has this to do with his ability to weild power. I might agree more with the statement that 'Power is Guilt', but the other way around - Naaah, I don't get it; seems more like impotence to me.

Seems to me the idea,," Guilt is Power" as described well enough in the above posts, is only a stepping stone to a higher realization by TC in the first chrons. I mean to say..guilt isn't the Only human motivator. Love can and does motivate people. People make choices thru and by Love. Generally I'd say expressing Love is pretty guilt free. Remember, TC does not kill off Lord Foul in the 1st chrons. Yet, in AATE,

Spoiler

there is direct blood on TC's hands.

Fascinating change there.

Consider comparing a person who is guilt free,,to a person " owned" by guilt.
Apparently 90 percent of Phoenix'es rush hour drivers are guilt free. I mean, there is no apparent adherence to any Laws by these 90 percent drivers, so they must be guilt free. Point being, people,, common ordinary folks, f@#k over, intentionally, other folks with little regard to Guilt. Where is the Guilt in Capitalism? Bernie Madoff? Yet there is tons of Power for those with the Big Bucks. What I'm saying is...Guilt is Power,,is a parameter,, a box,,a slogan of predictability. Make somebody feel guilty,,and you just may have persuasion, power, on them. A good example of what I refer to is the Gay community. By coming out of the closet, announcing to the world that they are Gay..they have liberated themselves from Guilt, and thus, the Power exercised on them by the society they live in, is rendered feckless. Its the Power,, the exercising of that Power that is made possible by being " guilty" that Lord Foul corrupts. A Power sourced in other than Guilt,,is beyond Lord Fouls comprehension and thus ,, is always his down fall. TC rises above the Guilt of being a Leper in the 1st Chrons. TC rejected the Power over him that paid his telephone bill for him, so he wouldn't come to town.

To put it as analogy..guilt is Power,,is Newtonian Physics,,for every force there is an equal an opposite force, no two things can be in the same place at the same time, etc.,but today,,mankind is moving beyond Newtonian Physics for understanding our universe and is just beginning to grasp atomic and quantum physics..where there are dual states for particles and the ability for a particle to be in two different places at the same time, etc etc. Guilt Is Power sure can motivate a Person..and it sure does motivate those with no guilt, to exercise Power on those with Guilt. The trick is..to realize a Power sourced in Guilt is contained within the box of Guilt. In the first Chrons, TC eventually got out of the box of guilt...imho.

[Cambo]

Although I'd say Covenant didn't really escape from the "guilt box" until the end of the 2nd Chrons. One of the last lines, IIRC, was "he got what he always wanted. He made himself innocent." In the 1st Chrons, Covenant was driven by the guilt of his crimes to make atonement. Given the scale of his crimes, the only possible way was to defeat Lord Foul. But after he defeated Foul, he still felt some lingering guilt, both for being unable to save Foamfollower and for allowing Foul to live, which was necessary but made his return inevitable. His guilt was then fully re-opened during the Second Chrons, with Joan's return, his indirect responsibility for the Sunbane, the people he killed, etc. Only by becoming part of the Arch of Time, making himself a permanent guardian of the Earth, did he become innocent.

Oh, and you might want to spoiler tag.

[Zarathustra]

Only by becoming part of the Arch of Time, making himself a permanent guardian of the Earth, did he become innocent.

I thought it was only by making himself powerless that he made himself innocent. He quit using power. He gave up his ring. He sacrificed himself for Joan and the Land. He died. That's what made him innocent. He no longer had power (i.e. taking part in life).

[Vraith]

I don't think he ever became innocent in general, though he was/is innocent of specific things.
And I don't think the point is to be free of guilt, I think it is to accept the fact that, if you act, you are guilty...in fact, if you even have the potential to act, and choose not to, you are guilty [just guilty of a different thing]. Reaching/stretching a bit, it may even be the case that the [or at leas A] significant difference between good/evil is less determined by what you do than by whether you can/do feel guilt, or not.
You are just as guilty if an act is motivated by Love as by Hate...and whether the result of an act is "good" or "bad" does little to alter ones status as guilty or innocent.

One thing for sure, it has me rethinking the meaning of the title of TC's book "Or I will sell my soul for guilt."

[Cambo]

Z: duh. How'd I miss that one? If guilt is power, of course victory through surrender of power would bring innocence.

And I've wondered before at the title of Covenant's book. Berenford tells us the theme is that guilt is the only available power to do good, that innocence is defenceless. Looked through that framework, he really did sell his soul for guilt in the 1st Chrons, even if it was unwittingly. His conviction to face the Despiser would never have come about, had he not been continually confronted with the consequences of his rape. No Lena, no Power that Preserves. But in the Second Chrons, he eventually abdicates power, rendering himself defenceless, but triumphs anyway: victory through surrender, like Brinn.

[peter]

I am guilty of many transgressions - but I am not made powerful thereby. I am motivated to expiate the harm that I have done - but in the end I must accept the impossibility of undoing those things and that atonement in itself is but another form of selfishness (because I do it to make me feel better, not the one(s) who I have sinned against. Where is the power in this?

To those who say that 'Life itself is guilt' and that you cannot have 'Life without Guilt' I reply in the words of Milton:-

"Did I requst thee Maker from this clay to mould me Man,
Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?"

I have scanned the answers below and cannot help but feeling that most of them describe guilt as a consequence of power and not the other way around. These are just general thoughts - with you guys kind permission I will leave further comments on individual posts until I have a little more time to do them justice.

[Vraith]

hmmm...that quote is Adam, and IIRC, it comes when he is no longer innocent.
Do you think Adam had power before guilt/the fall? My immediate answer would be no...but it's probably more complicated/deserves more thought.
I think you can be alive and innocent. But guilt is a necessary condition for power/choice/action.

[peter]

The only people who are truly innocence are those who have made no choices, those who are powerless, impotent. In order to use power, you have to get your hands dirty. You have to make choices, and every choice places responsibility upon you. Even choices made with good intentions can have catastrophic effects. Just because you can't foresee every unintended consequence doesn't make you innocent of the damage. You are responsible for your choices, for your life. There is no life without death, no choice that doesn't in some form take from the world. In order to have power--to be alive and active, to exert your will upon the world--you must make choices that necessarily commit you an active participant in the life/death cycle. You can only use power by accepting the guilt of this participation in altering reality, using it and bending it according to your will. Guilt it power because you have to allow yourself the freedom to be guilty in order to start exerting power.

Well - there is power and there is power. In the usual sense it is power over other people; to effect their lives, to coerce them into obeying another's will (or society's) by levying authority (always backed by violence) over their heads. And then there is the looser type of power that is cited above - the power of action, even of the meanest kind, the long term 'cause and effect' ramifications of which cannot be known - ever.
I deem that there can be no guilt attached to unforseen consequences of this kind since if this were the case then the guilt would be transferable back (in the same way that cause can be looked back at from effect) until the very act of creation itself. (Put simply this would be like saying the parents of a murderer were guilty of the murder because they gave birth to the one that comitted the act.) This does not work for me. I carry guilt (or otherwise) for my actions alone. Once they have gone beyond my intentions, or indeed, knowledge then the guilt (or otherwise) must also move on to the next sentient being in the 'chain of action'. To refer back to my 'murderer' analogy, the parents are not guilty of anything. They produced a life, a thing of beauty by any standards in our Universe - there is not nor can ever be guilt attached to this. That the life they produced went on to do terrible things cannot be reason to transfer guilt back to them.

So where then is guilt to be found in the first type of 'power I cite. Certainly in the exercising of it, but once again as a consequence, not as an interchangable element. How would a philosoppher of Ethics view it in terms of 'sets'. Would one be a sus-set of the other, would they be equated in the way that I think Vraith was proposing, or would they be completely sepparated or just overlapping. Hmm......

[peter]

Consider comparing a person who is guilt free,,to a person " owned" by guilt.
Apparently 90 percent of Phoenix'es rush hour drivers are guilt free. I mean, there is no apparent adherence to any Laws by these 90 percent drivers, so they must be guilt free. Point being, people,, common ordinary folks, f@#k over, intentionally, other folks with little regard to Guilt. Where is the Guilt in Capitalism? Bernie Madoff? Yet there is tons of Power for those with the Big Bucks. What I'm saying is...Guilt is Power,,is a parameter,, a box,,a slogan of predictability. Make somebody feel guilty,,and you just may have persuasion, power, on them. A good example of what I refer to is the Gay community. By coming out of the closet, announcing to the world that they are Gay..they have liberated themselves from Guilt, and thus, the Power exercised on them by the society they live in, is rendered feckless. Its the Power,, the exercising of that Power that is made possible by being " guilty" that Lord Foul corrupts. A Power sourced in other than Guilt,,is beyond Lord Fouls comprehension and thus ,, is always his down fall. TC rises above the Guilt of being a Leper in the 1st Chrons. TC rejected the Power over him that paid his telephone bill for him, so he wouldn't come to town.

Now this does make sense to me. The establishment of guilt in a third party in order to render them viable to coercion; this is an explanation of the phrase 'Guilt is Power' that I can get my head around. Well done that man.

[peter]

Only by becoming part of the Arch of Time, making himself a permanent guardian of the Earth, did he become innocent.

Cambo....Cambo! If only it were that easy to extirpate guilt

[peter]

You are just as guilty if an act is motivated by Love as by Hate...and whether the result of an act is "good" or "bad" does little to alter ones status as guilty or innocent.

Can one be 'guilty' of carrying out an act of good?

[peter]

hmmm...that quote is Adam, and IIRC, it comes when he is no longer innocent.
Do you think Adam had power before guilt/the fall? My immediate answer would be no...but it's probably more complicated/deserves more thought.
I think you can be alive and innocent. But guilt is a necessary condition for power/choice/action.

Absolutely not (re Adams guilt before the fall - and quite possibly not even after It!) No animal has guilt for it's actions ever. It acts according to it's nature with no conception of right or wrong - and no requirement to answer for doing so. Only anthropomorphisation (Wow! ) by humans would have it any otherway. Guilt is the sole province of the 'elevated' human condition. As Solzhenitsyn wrote "The line between Good and Evil runs through every human heart".

Damn - I've just read your quote properly Vraith (re power not guilt) but I love my above answer so much I'm going to leave it in anyway

Did Adam have Power befor the fall. He had the power of existence. The power to act. The power to experience. But all these things only as a brute animal. Not as a concious sentient human has them. It was only in the raising of himself to the point where he could tell the difference between right and wrong that the price of guilt was levied from him. Thus the rise and the fall are simultaneous (Sorry Vraith - I know you know this stuff alrady but it helps me pull my thoughts together to state it explicitly). But power, I'm going with you on his one Vraith - I think no.

[Zarathustra]

Now this does make sense to me. The establishment of guilt in a third party in order to render them viable to coercion; this is an explanation of the phrase 'Guilt is Power' that I can get my head around. Well done that man.

It is interesting, and (I agree) easier to understand than what Donaldson means, but it's not what Donaldson means. He wasn't talking about power over other people, or controling people through guilt. (Seriously, when does Covenant ever do that??)

Let's go to the source:

Such "Covenant"-esque ideas as "innocence is impotence" and "only the guilty have power" are inferences drawn from the basic precepts of free will. They might be rephrased thus: only a person who has truly experienced the consequences of his/her own destructive actions is qualified to evaluate--is, indeed, capable of evaluating--his/her future actions in order to make meaningful choices between destruction and preservation. Hile Troy is an interesting example. He's "innocent" in a way that Covenant is not: he's never done anything even remotely comparable to the rape of Lena. As a result, he's bloody dangerous. He literally doesn't know what he's doing: he hasn't learned the kind of humility that comes from meeting his own inner Despiser face-to-face. Therefore, in spite of all his good intentions, he makes decisions which bear an ineluctable resemblence to Kevin's.

Do you doubt me? Look at Troy's "accomplishments." If Mhoram hadn't saved his bacon at the edge of Garroting Deep, his decisions would have effectively destroyed the Lords' ability to defend the Land. He's just too damn innocent. He hasn't learned the self-doubt, the humility, that makes Covenant hesitate, or that makes Mhoram wise.

Does this help? I hope so.

(07/13/2004)

Meeting your own inner Despiser assumes that we all have an inner Despiser. Knowing how to deal with your inner Despiser is part of life as a free agent. Freewill necessitates the potential (I'd even say the likelihood) of doing destructive things. The guilt that comes from experience in dealing with your own Despiser teaches you how to use your freewill wisely.

Now, this is one formulation given by Donaldson (one that doesn't entirely agree with my post above). I've seen him express it differently elsewhere. And if we analyze this particular expression, it has problems with circular logic. For instance, Troy is dangerous because he hasn't done anything dangerous yet. Okay. That's a contradiction. But worse: how exactly is that powerless? How is the potential for doing destructive things (through ignorance born of a lack of doing destructive things in the past) impotence? The ability to destroy isn't powerless.

That condundrum can be resolved by remembering that "power" means freewill. "Power" for Donaldson is always about activie choices--as opposed to passivity, denial, paralysis. Earthpower and Wild Magic are symbols for this. They are always an expression of the person, specifically the person's will.Troy isn't equipped to choose wisely, to make the same choices as Covenant, because he doesn't have the experience (i.e. guilt).

[peter]

By this token Covenants raping Lena was an absolutely necessary act in order to provide him with the guilt from which his 'power' to act in the Land would derive. (Not a million miles different to Judas's betrayal of Christ). On the contrary, to me Covenants actions were a betrayal of the power that his white gold, his half hand and the resulting awe in which the people of the Land held him, gave him. It was only that power which saved him from Atiaren, Triock and Trell's justified thirst for redress. The knowledge that there was bigger things afoot in which it was necessary for the Unbeleiver to play his role.
re The 'controlling through guilt' idea. Wouldn't that be more a case of Foul controlling TC by his guilt than TC doing the controlling?

[lurch]

Well Pete,, you are getting at the point about this " Guilt is Power" being the end point. Seems to me it isn't. Yes,,Guilt is Power..but its not the only power that motivates people. There are parameters, limitations.. to even the kind of Power that is sourced in Guilt.

To the 3rd party point...is not our own Despair a 3rd party? Our Despair has no guilt. In that sense..Despair can corrupt our humanity..can corrupt our self doubt. Self doubt is a good thing if it isn't turned into self defeatism.

Shame, for one..isn't quite dealt with realistically in the Land...basically too much forgiveness,,look the other way by the folks of the Land concerning TC's rape of Lena. Sure, TC's dealing with it is one thing..but for some intimate with the experience,,the guilt or lack of guilt,shame, et al, was a turn off..This " criticism" of LFB,,drives me to, again..seeing Guilt is Power as not the end point. The first Chrons ,,do not end with Hile Troys story. TC never looses guilt,,yet rises above it.

[rdhopeca]

You are just as guilty if an act is motivated by Love as by Hate...and whether the result of an act is "good" or "bad" does little to alter ones status as guilty or innocent.

Can one be 'guilty' of carrying out an act of good?

Certainly. A doctor in triage...saves one person while losing another...and feels guilt over losing the other...