Guilt is the feeling that one has done wrong as defined by some moral or ethical standard. In order to feel guilt, at the outset one has to have some moral standards which can be violated. What the government did is that guilt has made the transition from being based on one's personal behavior to one based on the behavior of some group to which some belong or is classified. At bottom, this collective guilt based on the illogical notion that groups, or collectives, act as some kind of unit, and therefore one member of the unit should feel responsible and guilty about the transgressions of other members of the same group.
Some individuals act badly, but then others, imbued with the collectivist mind set, and because of some perceived commonness with the actor, feel guilty about what someone else has done. Collective guilt has replaced individual guilt and responsibility. Indeed, a good deal of political activity derives its popular clout from the ability to successfully promote group guilt—to hang guilt trips on others. Take the entrepreneurs of the holocaust and racial discrimination.
In its callous disregard of individual innocence, terrorism's logic is that of collective guilt and indiscriminate slaughter. The people who crowded the floors of the cellars were not terrorists, thousands of individuals with individual lives, but instead a single target of hatred. Blaming Palestinian freedom fighters or Muslims in general, they relegate entire populations to the enemy's ranks.
The challenge now facing the United States is not to allow such attitudes to infect either our foreign or domestic policies. How we choose to react to these events must be consonant with our country's core values......
