Collective guilt?

The concept of “collective guilt” seems to be very widely accepted as an aspect of human existence that can be invoked validly In a variety of actual circumstances, as explanation and also to serve as a basis for action.

Thus “America” is often held to be guilty, if not of slavery then of racism, not merely widespread but “systemic” — to be expiated or compensated for through “affirmative action”, reparations, and the like.

Turkey and Turks are often held to be guilty of genocide with respect to Armenians or Kurds, and at least apology if not compensation is called for.

Jews have been judged collectively guilty with respect to the death of Christ.

Recently and currently, “Germany” and thereby (all!) Germans are commonly judged guilty for World War II, and particularly for the Holocaust.

What I might wish to be the last word on the absurdity of the notion of collective guilt has been cogently expressed in the words of Bernie Gunther, the detective protagonist of Philip Kerr’s series of mystery novels so aptly described by a reviewer [1] as “morally complex” thrillers:

“I blame the Communists for calling a general strike in November 1932, which forced an election. I blame von Hindenburg for being too old to tell Hitler where to get off. I blame six million unemployed — a third of the workforce — for wanting a job at any price, even if it meant Hitler’s price. I blame the army for not putting an end to the street violence during the Weimar Republic and for backing Hitler in 1933. I blame the French. I blame von Schleicher. I blame the British. I blame Goebbels and I blame all those rich businessmen who bankrolled the Nazis. I blame von Papen and Rathenau and Ebert and Scheidemann and Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. I blame the Spartakists and I blame the Freikorps. I blame the Great War for taking away the value of human life. I blame the inflation and the Bauhaus and Dada and Max Reinhardt. I blame Himmler and Goering and Hitler and the SS and Weimar and the whores and the pimps. But most of all I blame myself. I blame myself for doing nothing. Which was less than I ought to have done. Which was all that was required for Nazism to succeed. I share the guilt. I put my survival ahead of all other considerations. That is self-evident. If I was truly innocent, then I’d be dead, Anna. And I’m not.

For the last five years, I’ve been letting myself off the hook. I had to come to Argentina and see myself in the eyes of these other ex-SS men to understand that. I was a part of it. I tried not to be and failed. I was there. I wore the uniform. I share the responsibility” [2].

Which also reminded me of what I had used as the “motto” of the Virginia Scholar:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.
As with so many wonderful insights, it cannot be safely attributed to any single known individual [3].

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[1]    Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer, cited in a jacket blurb

[2]    P. 322 in A Quiet Flame, 2008

[3]    “a quote falsely attributed to Edmund Burke”, https://www.openculture.com/2016/03/edmund-burkeon-in-action.html.
For a book-length report of innumerable mis-attributions of a popular saying,
see Robert Merton’s On the Shoulders of Giants”, Free Press, 1965