RSA - The Tyranny of Guilt

The Tyranny of Guilt

19th Apr 2010; 13:00

(full recording including audience Q&A)
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RSA Keynote

Fascism, communism, genocide, slavery, racism, imperialism - the West has no shortage of reasons for guilt. And, indeed, since the Holocaust and the end of World War II, Europeans in particular have been consumed by remorse.

But Pascal Bruckner argues that guilt has now gone too far. It has become a pathology, and even an obstacle to fighting today's atrocities.

Bruckner, one of France's leading writers and public intellectuals, visits the RSA to argue that obsessive guilt has obscured important realities. The West has no monopoly on evil, and has destroyed monsters as well as created them - leading in the abolition of slavery, renouncing colonialism, building peaceful and prosperous communities, and establishing rules and institutions that are models for the world. The West should be proud - and ready to defend itself and its values.

Lamenting the vice of anti-Americanism that grips so many European intellectuals, Bruckner urges a renewed transatlantic alliance, and advises Americans not to let recent foreign-policy misadventures sap their own confidence.

Speaker: Pascal Bruckner is the award-winning author of eighteen books of fiction and nonfiction, including the novel Bitter Moon, which was made into a film by Roman Polanski.

Chair: Nick Cohen, columnist for the Observer and New Statesman.

Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #rsaguilt