“They blame me for their guilt”
I heard someone speaking on nature conservation. After he spoke someone in the audience described how people who promote conservation in words but don’t practice it in deed often call people who also practice it pushing too hard, too self-righteous, or the like.
The speaker responded: “Yes, they blame me for their guilt.”
The statement rang true. People acting against their own values feel guilty not because others who act according to those values speak, but because of their own consciences. It’s facile, though spurious, to conclude that because someone else’s words made feelings of guilt (or shame, helplessness, hopelessness, despair, etc) enter their consciousness that that person caused those feelings, or intended to cause those feelings.
Only a person’s own conscience can make them feel guilt, shame, etc.
I’ll try out using his line: “they blame me for their guilt.” It’s short and pithy, like words I use from podcast guest Michael Moss‘s: “that was the addiction speaking.”
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