Theoretical Background

In this book I draw on early Frankfurt School critical theory, in particular Theodor W. Adorno, in combination with psychoanalytic theory, in particular Anna Freud, to show that individuals and nations must deal with individual and collective feelings of guilt to arrive at what I term embodied reflective judgments, which means that both thinking and feeling are important for making critical judgments. In this I challenge the prevailing idea that judgment is merely connected to thinking and rationality and has nothing to do with feelings. When I say that both thinking and feeling are important for critical judgments, though, I do not mean to imply that they are separate and distinct entities. Rather, the idea of embodied reflective judgment is based on the insight that thinking and feeling are not only connected, but deeply entangled with each other. The way in which we think about something can prompt an emotional response, and that response can prompt further reflection necessary for critical judgment.

The main aim of this book is to foreground feelings of guilt as a specific issue that individuals and political collectives must deal with to make embodied reflective judgment a possibility. I show that if peoples and nations use defense mechanisms to evade their individual and collective feelings of guilt, then their capacity to think critically is diminished and as a result embodied reflective judgment remains diminished or altogether absent. I do not argue, however, that feelings trump judgment in my understanding of embodied reflective judgment. Rather, if feelings of guilt are evaded via defense mechanisms, then they cloud our ability to make embodied reflective judgments.

Moreover, if individual and collective feelings of guilt remain undealt with, they can be reactivated to continue the cycle of violence.