Kollektivschuld • noun • (kuh-lec-tiv shulld)
Definition: A collective guilt and debt attributed to a country or a people for perpetrating an atrocity
Origin: German
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In 1945, Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote an essay about the concept that German people held a collective guilt or “Kollektivschuld” for the atrocities that they inflicted during World War II.
Jung introduced new language to describe the cultural and psychological impact of inflicting genocide, which allowed Germany to start the discourse for confronting the atrocity they had committed.
Just a year earlier in 1944, Raphael Lemkin coined the word “genocide” to describe the Holocaust and the mass extermination or the forced removal of people. Prior to Lemkin inventing this word, the crime of genocide had been without a name and its namelessness allowed people to perpetuate it because its severity could not be fully articulated or comprehended. An absence of language contributed to creating a culture of barbarism.
Normally, once the language to describe the crime has been created, a plethora of new language will become necessary because we will need language for describing how a society’s previously unnamed criminality harms both the victims and the perpetrators in multiple ways.
We need language pertaining to the victims so that they can heal and recover from the trauma inflicted upon them, and we need language related to the perpetrators so that they can recognize the harm they have caused. Additionally, creating new language, philosophies, and practices can help prevent the return of this previous criminality.
Kollektivschuld is a relatively new word that has helped Germany address their history, and the work of SCL follows a similar principle. The United States and the colonized world have suffered from the atrocity of ethnocide in addition to genocide, so we need to name this crime without a name in order to recover. This recovery will require new language which we hope this newsletter will help provide.
Schuld: Guilt and Debt
Many Germanic words have a nuance that can be difficult to directly translate, and Schuld is one of those words. Schuld means “guilt,” “blame,” or “fault,” but it also means “debt” and this is significant. Guilt, blame, and fault do not express an overt obligation to pay back or make amends for your crime, but debt does. People understand the necessity of paying off their debts so that they can have a free and liberating existence. A life of inescapable debt is akin to an absence of freedom, and throughout history, people have been thrown in prison for not paying their debts.
Schuld has a nuance similar to Geist in that it changes the entire meaning of our English translation. With Geist, we understand that one’s soul is also their mind and intelligence, and now English speakers can more clearly understand that intelligence cannot truly be measured through quantitative testing. Our spirit or soul also shapes our intelligence.
With Schuld, we can see how guilt, blame, or fault merely identify the culprit but do not speak to any productive and healing actions. Once people accept their guilt they need to know how to make amends and debt speaks to this essential need. The guilty need to pay back their debt to society to help make themselves, their victims, and their society whole again.
As a capitalist society, America talks about debt all the time, but our ethnocidal culture corrupts both our understanding of debt and guilt. Much of white America still professes an absence of guilt regarding the genocide against Indigenous peoples and the ethnocide against African people that are foundational to American society. Additionally, American financial institutions have a long history of burdening communities of color with insurmountable debt to sustain ethnocidal division and enrich white communities.
America has attempted to erect a society where guilt and debt cannot exist within the white community, and this dynamic cultivates a breeding ground for domestic atrocities and the Banality of American Evil. This dynamic was on full display during the Derek Chauvin trial.
Chauvin murdered George Floyd surrounded by a crowd of onlookers while being recorded. America and the world witnessed Chauvin force out the breath from Floyd’s lungs. We watched his soul and his Geist leave his body. We witnessed an atrocity, but we still doubted America’s capacity to find Chauvin guilty. Much of the country was nervous that Chauvin’s whiteness would absolve him from guilt, thus denying the need to repay any debt. Another faction of America hoped that he would be found not guilty so that ethnocidal terror could continue unabated.
When Chavin was found guilty of all three charges, America rejoiced because we proved capable of fulfilling one facet of Schuld. Now we must engage in the seismic conversation about how to repay the debt of centuries of terror, as we continue to acknowledge the guilt of America’s hereditary sin. Repaying this debt includes reparations, investing in minority-owned businesses, empowering communities of color, and challenging every facet of the status quo in order to make a more free and equitable society. This is America’s Kollektivschuld.
Kollectiv vs. American Individualism
One way that America attempts to avoid guilt and debt is through American Individualism. America’s emphasis on individualism empowers people to believe that every bad action derives from a bad individual. “So and so is a bad apple,” but this “bad apple” is never the inevitable byproduct of a bad system. The tree is never the problem. Instead, each rotten apple from the tree is singularly responsible for itself. When the guilt resides with the individual then there is no need for a collective solution. Instead, our society will profess that the best solution is to exterminate that toxic individual.
America’s individualism relies on scapegoats to mask our collective problems. America’s culture of individualism impairs our capacity to have Kollektivschuld.
Additionally, America’s ethnocidal society is built upon always identifying an other who can become a perpetual repository for guilt, blame, and debt. American colonizers have a long history of blaming Indigenous peoples for their own genocide. American slave traders have blamed Africans for their own enslavement. During the Derek Chauvin trial, Chauvin’s defense team attempted to blame Floyd for his own death claiming that suspected drug use and not Chauvin’s knee on his neck caused his death.
America has attempted to live as a society devoid of a collective people, so that white America can exist without guilt or debt. America is waking up to the horrors of this reality, and like the Germans, America needs a Kollektivschuld to heal from our domestic atrocity.
In my book, The Crime Without A Name I write about these concepts in more detail. You can pre-order my book here.