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Over in Slate, Ron Rosenbaum writes in praise of liberal guilt, and wonders not only how it became a derided emotion, but why there's so little "conservative guilt":
Was not the century of institutionalized racism and segregation that followed the end of slavery a perpetuation of "flawed values" that the nation should feel an enduring guilt over? For those conservatives who are forever speaking of the way they value history and memory more than liberals: Should we abolish the history and memory of slavery and racism just because they're no longer legally institutionalized?[...]What I don't understand is why there doesn't seem to be any conservative guilt over racism. Contemporary conservatives could learn from their revered godfather William F. Buckley Jr., who, early in his career at the National Review, wrote a pro-Jim Crow lead editorial—little remembered in liberal and other encomia to the man—titled "Why the South Must Prevail," in which he argued that segregation should persist even by illegal means because "the White community … for the time being … is the advanced race."It's actually been an impressive sleight-of-hand. People don't like to feel guilt, particularly over actions they didn't directly commit. But rather than simply deny culpability, conservatives have managed to recast feeling guilt as a character flaw, as political weakness, as soft-headed emotionalism. This serves a lot of people's purposes, of course, particularly folks who come from a political movement that opposed desegregation as recently as 45 years ago, but it doesn't actually make any sense.
