How Neurotic are Americans? Part II

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 10:22

Guilt and Anger

Part I of this pair of articles revolved around the neurosis of anxiety and worry , depression and self doubt. These are rampant personal experiences of westerners and Americans in particular. Neurotic guilt feelings too are a paramount characteristic in the culture. People end up blaming themselves or others for whatever reason concerning the issues permeating their lives. It is tough to cope. “Life is so awful, it is full of reality.” Their inner self does not match their social self. What did I do wrong, why don’t they like me? I’m a wonderful person. Is it me or others? Self accusations have given way to the blame game of the media. White liberal guilt is current, as well as self righteous anger imposed upon others. And so, whether one is guilty or not, the subconscious feeling of guilt is joined by an excessive defense against it. You can’t tell them anything without a verbal and often times violent reaction. And they continue to blame others for not being their idealized self. Neurotics also fear disapproval. They want to be liked, they want to be loved. God forbid they annoy others, or disagree with an opinion. Guilt can also bring about aggression and hostility in the form of anger, envy and the desire to humiliate.   

Alcoholism often is rooted in guilt and anger. They may drink to tell somebody off, to gain power over their foe. It can erupt into violence. But guilt and anger have its manifestations also in contempt, sarcasm, snobbishness, distrust, jealousy, or all of the above. Drug use often is rooted in not facing up to responsibility. It can evolve into passivity or its opposite, aggression; anything to cover that guilt of sloth. 

Deviance and Envy

Anne Henderschott [2003, 2020] has elaborated on the current politics of deviance and envy that exacerbates our personal tendencies toward anger. I call this institutionalized neuroticism. It gets its help from the administrative state and the democratic left. Promote deviance as opposed to the moral order. Eliminate the concept of deviance and eliminate guilt. Yet, create an alternate morality and impose guilt feelings upon its opponents.

Promote anger against the moral majority and its foundation, Christianity. Demoralize everybody and bring us all down to a lower level. What else can result but more neuroticism.  So in terms of deviance, to what are we referring? Well here is a list of modern decadent behaviors that somehow are labeled not as normal but as diseases and not immoral behaviors. They eliminate personal responsibility.

Here is a stunning  example of the left’s attempt to remove our anxiety and guilt. Toward the end of his reign, Saint Pope John Paul II referred to the philosophy of the darling of the left Herbert Marcuse as ‘the culture of death’. It was Marcuse who tried to enlighten us on the inconvenience of the reality of death. We must be emancipated from the anxiety, worry and fear of death by more rationality and understanding of death’s meaning. Why should we allow our loved ones to die and at the same time experience such misery? Let us give them the opportunity to die at a time of their own choosing and not experience the misery – ie. Euthanasia, assisted suicide. That’s the solution. Anxiety, worry, fear of death now removed. 

Anne Henderschott’s Politics of Envy [2020] is a treatise of institutionalized neuroticism. Resentment of success, hatred of the rich, envy of the so called privileged is promoted so as to somehow enhance social justice. Further, competition and resentment of our successful friends can be the deadly sin fomenting neuroticism. To create envy is to foment a movement toward equality or in today’s terminology wokeness and equity. All are to be the same regardless of merit and only equity can be moral. Only the administrative state can make it that way. Christianity of course views it quite differently. To the Christian it is up to the individual and his relationship to God, his laws and his guidance. Relying on social and governmental structure has its latent dysfunctions, negative consequences. Summarily,  these dysfunctions are lack of freedom, more control, leftist ideological wokeness, and anti Christianity at the least since Christianity opposes such a perspective. Repent, follow Jesus, obey God’s commandments. That is the only thing that can truly eliminate guilt and neuroticism.

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” (Psalm 32:1)