The Persistent Power Of Guilt

Nietzsche argued that with the death of God (i.e., the power of religion in society), notions of sin and guilt and expiation would fade away. In the industrialized West, that just hasn't happened: the ideas of guilt ("liberal guilt," if one likes) and expiation have driven the movements for human rights, environmentalism, animal welfare, international war crimes tribunals, and (more obviously and controversially) for reparations for colonialism and slavery. Wilfred McClay looks at these movement