The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Critical Inquiry.http://www.jstor.orgA Short History of Liberal Guilt Author(s): Julie Ellison Source:Critical Inquiry, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Winter, 1996), pp. 344-371Published by:The University of Chicago PressStable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343975Accessed: 17-05-2015 07:05 UTCREFERENCESLinked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343975?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contentsYou may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspJSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsAShort History ofLiberalGuilt Julie Ellison Allofthiscomes accompanied by large dosesofliberal guilt about whichIdonotknowwhatto begin to say, butI'msure you under- stand whatthe problem is. -GAYATRISPIVAK,interviewwith Terry Threadgold andFrances Bartkowski (1988) Inthefall of1993,an editorialcartoon appeared inthe New YorkObserver during the mayoral racethatDavidN. Dinkins,theAfrican American Democraticincumbent,lost to Rudolph W. Giuliani, anItalian American Republicanrunning onananticrime platform. Thecartoonwasthen reprinted intheWeekinReviewsectionofthe Sunday New YorkTimes (fig.1). Itfeaturesa manona psychiatrist's couch, wearing asweatshirt thatreads, "I VOTEDFORRUDY." Thefemale psychiatristsitting be- hindhim,whosemouthis agape, is inthe process of dropping hernotes and pencil. The captionreads,"You what?!"A heading at the top ofthe picture labelsthescene,"Neo-WhiteLiberal Guilt." Through theoffice windowsone glimpses the shop ontheothersideofthestreet:Zabar's, Ireceived copious and helpful advicefromtwo groups ofreadersas I workedonthis material: the fondly rememberedFellows' Seminarat the University of Michigan Institute for theHumanitiesin1993-94and my writing groupcomprised of Ruth Behar, Anne Rug- gles Gere, JoanneLeonard,and Patricia Yaeger. Later, still at an unwieldystage of the essay, LaurenBerlant's readinghelped extricatemesomewhatfromtheserial flow of liberal guilt stories.An array of livelysuggestionsemanating from my audienceattheCenterfor Twentieth-Century Studiesin September 1994 gave memoretoworkwiththanIcould possibly include.And,finally, thanks to Tobin Siebers for existentialemail. Critical Inquiry 22(Winter1996) ?1996 by The University of Chicago.0093-1896/96/2202-0004$01.00.All rights reserved. 344 This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996345 the upscale West Side apotheosis ofthe Jewish deli.Thecartoonrefers not only to NewYork City Jews who voted against theliberal black candi- datebutalsotothe ongoing conflictbetweentheHasidicandAfrican American communitiesin the Crown Heightsneighborhood of Brooklyn. The1991Crown Heights riotshadbeen provokedby themurderofa Hasidandthetrial of a young black man, whowas acquitted of thecrime in1992.And, finally, inthefemale psychiatrist withherhairina bun, thereisanallusiontothe guilt induced-andhence personified-by Jewish mothersor by mothersin general. Here therapy isa mutually sadomasochistic relationship. The patient's admissiontormentsthe therapist-qua-mother, whoisan old-style liberal.Atthesame time, her presence forcesthemanonthecouchto panic andconfess.Inthiscar- toon,liberal guilt refers specifically towhitemale guilt inthecontextof post-civilrights racial politics. Liberal guilt isaboutrace,andit always was. White guilt andliberal guiltemerged as synonymous terms during thecivil rights movement.Theterm designates a position ofwishfulin- sufficiency relative to the genuinely radical. TheNew York liberal is guilty becauseheis no longerbehavingliberally; hehas voted Republican out offearofracialviolence.Guiltisno longer themotivefor support of thosemoreradical thanhimself,as it was construedto bein thesixties or early seventies, whenliberal guilt was mockedas a fund-raisingopportu- nity forradical groups. Ratherit is themark ofthe apostate liberal who has cast his votewithconservatives.Inthecartoon,sensationsof sympa- thy andidentificationarewhatmaketheex-liberalmalefeel guilty, for he dramatizes to himself the suffering of othersthat a conservative victory will cost, andthis driveshiminto therapy. Liberal guilt is thoroughlysymptomatic, anembarrassed position nobody wantsto occupy. Itis persistently eitherdeniedor ignoredby writerswhodefendliberalismorits recent, grimmersequel, neoliberal- ism.1 The prefix leadsus to raise thetwo questionstogether: what is neo- liberalism, andwhat is neo-whiteliberal guilt? Michael OmiandHoward Winantconcludethesecondeditionof their Racial Formationin the United 1.SeeMichaelOmiandHowardWinant,Racial Formationin the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s,rev. ed. (NewYork, 1994),pp. 147-59. Julie Ellisonis finishing Cato'sTears, a bookon early modernliberal guilt andothervicariousrelationsin eighteenth-centuryEnglish and BritishNorthAmericancultures.She anticipates thathernext project, Burnout, will explore the question of how, historically, public life cameto be thought ofas personallyexhausting,especially forartists and poets. This question leadsto speculations ontheeconomiesof energyimplicit in our ideas of "the movement"and of radical activism-speculations that arise outofthis essay andthat will occupy herfor sometimeto come. Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt R. J.Matson The NewYork Observer "You what?"' States from the 1960sto the 1990swithasectioncalled"Neoliberalismand Race." "Theracial project of neoliberalism,"they write,"seeks to rearticu- late the neoconservativeandnew right racial projects of the Reagan-Bush years in a centrist framework of moderateredistributionand cultural uni- versalism." The representational or signifyingpractice ofneoliberalism, OmiandWinant posit, is a desiretoavoidthe subject ofrace altogether, relegating racial issuestothedomainof euphemism or code: Neoliberals argue that addressing social policy or political discourse overtly tomattersofrace simply servesto distract, orevenhinder, thekindsofreformswhichcouldmost directly benefit racially de- finedminorities.Tofocustoomuchattentiononracetendstofuel demagogy and separatism.... To speak ofrace istoenteraterrain whereracismis hardto avoid. 346Julie Ellison This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996347 Theauthorsconcludethe bookwith a pithy imperative aimedat the per- ception of race as an unspeakablesubject: "To Oppose RacismOne Must No- tice Race."2 Although liberal guilt doesnot necessarilyoppose racism, it doesmake race noticeable.Themanonthecouchis silent; his sweatshirt hasto speak forhim.Liberalism,thecartoon implies,operates asare- pressedyouthful cathexisthat requirespsychiatric help to work through. "I wasliberalonce,"he mighteventuallysay, able,aftersomesessions ofthe talkingcure, tonamehismalaise:"NowIsufferfromneo-white liberal guilt." Insofaras neo marks a historical recurrenceof memoriesof themost recenteraofliberalandradical initiative,bothterms-neoandliberal- are bound up withLaurenBerlant's reading, inthese pages, of "'68, or Something." "What doesit meanto be accusedof being '68 in the1990s?" sheasks, with '68 standing for "the risk of political embarrassment"asso- ciatedwith utopian tactics. What are"the political risks of becoming mi- nor"?Berlant's essaypursues embarrassmentsotherthanliberal guilt, though with strong affinitiestoit.Shefocusesonacademic adaptations to conservativesuccess andsets against them"a left/feminismthat refuses to lose its impulse toward a revolutionaryutopian historicity."3I share Ber- lant's fascinationwiththe way embarrassmentand utopianlanguage co- incide.But,since liberal guilt arises precisely when people are convinced that utopianprojects are failing,my accountofthe politicalmalleability ofliberal guilt andits relationship to earlierformsof cross-racial sympa- thy isa study in comparative embarrassments.Thediscourseofliberal guilt can "notice race" from the position of the minor, that is, in the mode of critique. Or, as in the Observercartoon,it can admit the charge of politi- cal apostasy evenas it confirmsthe pragmatic valueofa shift fromideal- ismtofear. Although the point ofthisarticleis notto recuperate liberal guilt fortheleft,oneof my intentionsis toshowhowliberal guilt can be foldedintoa productive antiracistculturalor politicalposition. Inthe courseofthelast decade,the pangs ofliberal guilt havebeen subjected toinventiverevisions bypractitioners ofsubaltern studies, critical legal theory, andfeminismin an internationalframe.Themost significantpo- litical change inthecultureofliberal guilt takes place whentheOther becomestheauthor,a phenomenon thatisalmostasoldasthe thing itself, although I will not beable to present that history here.The adapt- 2.Ibid.,pp.147, 148.SeealsoDavidR. Roediger, "TheRacialCrisisofAmerican Liberalism," Towardsthe Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics,and Working Class History (London,1994), pp. 121-26.A debateoverthe shiftingground of liberalism onrace issues was played outin1992inthe pages ofReconstruction2,no.1 (1992). SeePeter Erickson, "MulticulturalismandtheProblemofLiberalism," pp.77-101;StephenSteinberg, "Et tu Brute: TheLiberal Betrayal of theBlack Liberation Struggle" and"ANoteonthePolitics of Rhetoric," pp.32-34,37-38;andRandall Kennedy, "How toMake EnemiesandInfluence NoOne,"pp. 35-36. 3.LaurenBerlant,"'68, or Something," Critical Inquiry 21(Autumn1994):125,128, 132,137. Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions348Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt ability of liberal guilt, in its complex translations across gender andracial differences,showshowserviceablethe nerve-wracking moodsof sympa- thy can be. Butevenasthis appropriation ofliberal guilt forthe purposes of academically situatedcultural critique unfolds,liberal guilt retainsits negativemeanings innational political discourse.Liberalisminitscur- rent abject modeand liberal guilt in particular signify sentimentalindeci- sivenessover politicalidentity, afailureof tough-mindedness. As my invocationhereofa conventionallygenderedvocabulary("sentimental," "tough-mindedness")suggests, liberalismandits attendantanxietiesin- volve ongoing crisesof masculinity. SinceI firmly believethatsecond- wavefeminist politics andtheincreasedeconomic visibility ofwomen overthelast thirty years havehada significantimpact onthe politics of emotionin thenineties, it may seem paradoxical to insist onthe constitu- tiveroleofmasculine sensibility intheformationsofliberal guilt. But, whileliberal guilt is notandhasnot historically been assigned anexclu- sively masculine gender, it namesa form of discomfortthat matters politi- cally whenmensufferfromit. I point toanothercartoon published in1993,thistimefromThe New Yorker (fig.2). A well-to-do,innocuous-looking mansits inatasteful suburban living room.The caption reads,"InteriorwithWhite-Liberal Myth." The relationship betweenthe caption andthe image is cryptic. "Interior" seemstohavea double meaning,referring bothto thehouse- hold setting andtotheruminationsofthe solitary man.The signs of financial success (spacious house,yard, martini, bow tie) are accompanied by somecultural trimmings(book,introspection).Why "White-Liberal Myth"? It is fairly clear howthis person embodiesa certain style of white- ness, that of the complacent, well-off, well-educatedsuburbanite enjoying his leisure.But in what respect doesthis personembody a notionof liber- alism? Is the mythic liberal onewhoturnshis back onthe city, visiblein thehintofanurban skyline inthedistance?Onewhose"interior" life is serene,decontextualized,andobsolete?Hereliberalism, sans guilt, is about privileged male subjectivity, withallitscomfortsanddevoidofa social cause. The popularity of ninetiesSNAGs-SensitiveNew AgeGuys-in ad- vertisementswhereshirtlessmenwithstandoutabs get offtheSoloflex machineand bathetheir infants has coincidedwith the renewed popular- ity ofthenotionthat liberalismis effeminatebecauseit involves impulse buying atthefederallevel. Disciplining thefederaldeficithasbecome thetestofmanlinessfortheneoliberal.BillClintonisinthe peculiarly embarrassed position of performing masculine sensibility while having to disavowthe policies of sympathy. Whetherornotthesensitivemalewill continueto bemarketable inthe lengthening wake ofthe Congressional electionsofNovember1994remainstobeseen.WithDemocratsnow the minorityparty, liberal oppositionmay beable tocultivatea stance of This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996349 combative masculinity inthe political theater.Orit may retreatto per- sonalmemoriesentertainedin privateliving rooms.It is toosoonto say just what will foster or discourage the commodificationof male sensibility andthe accompanyingdenigration of feminist anger that marked the late eighties and early nineties. Inthethroesofliberal guilt, allactionbecomes gesture,expressive ofadesiretoeffect change oroffer help thatisneversufficienttothe scaleofthe problem. Actionsarecarriedoutinsorrow.Oneis sorry in advancefor the social consequences of one'sacts. Underthese conditions, itisnot surprising thatthe dynamics of sympathy andthe prestige of performance havearrivedontheintellectualscene together. Perfor- mancehasbecomea highly valuedtermintheoriesof postmodernism, gender, and popular culture.As Saidiya V. Hartmanshows decisively in her book, PerformingBlackness, race is mediated by performance.4 In racist cultures, performancepractices sustainandresist powerrelations, in- 4.See Saidiya V. Hartman, Performing Blackness: Staging Subjection and Resistancein Ante- bellumCulture (forthcoming). I am grateful toProfessorHartmanfor giving methechance to readandciteher manuscript in advanceof publication. Critical Inquiry interior w-aith White-Liberal Myth I^ This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions350Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt cludingethnographic observationandthediscoursesof charity, pity, and victimhood.Hartman's analysis applies with special pertinence to the case ofliberal guilt, whichinvolvesthesocial display of cross-racial sympathy inoneorbothdirections.ButHartman's interestin performance, while it establishesthehistoricalroleofslave performance inantebellumcon- structionsof race, also arises outof thetheoreticalinvestmentinthe idea of performanceby academicsofthenineties. Performance is critical short- handfor public culturesinwhich politicalknowledgedepends onaudi- ences.Since,asOmiandWinantnote,weliveinanerawhennot just liberal guilt butthewhole topic of race relationsis generallyregarded as embarrassing,itisnot surprising thatantiracistintellectualsoften defy silencewitha commitmenttotheideaof performance. For the persons who perform them,crises of liberalism take the form of identity crisesbecause sympathy-therelationship of "identifying with" others-makesthe identity ofthe person whoextendsthat vicari- ous support tentativeoruncertainand,hence, nonviolent.Liberals are thought tofeel particularly malleable,always in danger of having their too-readysympathy absorbed by someoneelse's agenda, or they areat least thought to worry moreaboutthis potential. Liberal guilt,then,is bound up withthe feeling of beingimplicated in systems ofdomination andwith the subsequent awarenessof theemotional instability produced by this ambivalent position.5 Experiences of liberal guilt, one might think, wouldbeinevitableformiddle-class persons inindustrializedsocieties: weare knowinglyimplicated in systems like global marketsfromwhose successwe consciously benefit; wehaveaccesstoinformationabout peoplesuffering far away fromthe consequences ofthose verysystems; we put a highpriority on personal states of feeling; werewardthe pub- lic performance ofcareorofadiffusebut quintessentially American niceness. Whatis liberalaboutliberal guilt,however, hastodonot only with its epistemological structurebutalsowithits specificallyperformative qualities, realor imagined.During thecivil rights movementthe newly coinedtermwas synonymous with"white guilt."6 ShelbySteele, whode- spises white guilt, understandsitintermsofmoral epistemology. It springs, he suggests, "from a knowledge of ill-gottenadvantage....If, as Kierkegaardwrites,'innocenceis ignorance,' then guilt must always in- 5."Guilt is engenderedby seeingsystematic connections"(DanielBorn,"Private Gar- dens,Public Swamps: HowardsEnd andtheRevaluationof Liberal Guilt," Novel 25[Winter 1992]:158). 6.Thenotionofracial guilt had emerged earlierinahistoricalcontextandwas only subsequentlyapplied to presentpolitics. The "guilt thesis"insouthern historiography, which refers to the purported ambivalenceof slave owners during theCivil War, was articu- lated in the fifties, in the early stages of the civil rights movement.Thedefeat of the Confed- eracy, as historians Bell Wiley andC. Vann Woodward suggest, can be partially attributed to a distinctiveSouthern guilt. SeeGainesM. Foster, "Guilt Over Slavery: A Historiographical Analysis,"Journal of Southern History 55(Nov.1990): 670-71, 674-75. This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996351 volve knowledge. WhiteAmericansknow thattheirhistorical advantage comesfromthe subjugation ofanentire people."7 Steeledescribesthe sensationof livingthrough theshift from black deferenceinthefifties to black power inthesixties,a change hedescribesintermsofthere- arrangement of guilt. Whiteindividualswhoconfrontedhimwith segre- gationistpolicies oncemadehimfeel guilty: "Iftherewas guilt, itwas mine....I canremember feeling a certain sympathy for such people, as if I was victimizing them by drawing themoutof an innocent anonymity intotheunaskedforroleofracial policemen." Adecadelater, "this ab- sorption ofanother'scowardicewasno longernecessary....Suddenly, this hugevulnerability had openedup in whites and, as a black, you had the power to step right into it" ("WG,"p. 497). This perception that guilty feelings involveasensationof transferring "moral power" is challenged by the manyepisodes inthe longhistory ofliberal sensibility thatare accompaniedby no rearrangement of authority whatsoever. Nonetheless itmattersthatSteele's disgust forthe economy of guilt arisesfromthe senseof beingimplicated initasonewhoinflicts,ratherthansuffers, liberal guilt. Hehates the knowinglyperformative or scenic quality of the whole dynamic onceheis able to useit against others.Steele experiences guilt tothesecond power,guilt overhis epistemologicallysophisticated participation in guilt inducement.Thecrucial sceneof his assent is bound up witha betrayal of black fatherhood. Steele'saccountof white guilt focusesonhis story of a performance. The performance, aconfidencetrickinthisinstance,involvedanedu- cated black man, a successful white businessman,and the figure of a hotel rest roomattendant,all threewatchedand commentedon by Steelehim- self.The manipulative blackmaninthistale,afriendofSteele'swhose "'race experiments"' embarrassedhim,reliesontwo spectacles thatare insidiously linked:therestroomattendanttreatedasa representative figure ofa racial past andthe story of hisownfather. Theattendantwas "a frail, elderly, and very dark manina starchedwhitesmockthat made theskin onhis neck and face lookas leathery as a turtle's. Hesat listlessly, pathetically, ona straight-backed chair nextto a small table onwhichsat astack ofhandtowelsandasilver plate for tips" ("WG," pp. 499,500). Steele'sfriend eventually convincesthewhitebusinessmantoleavea tip of twenty dollarsinsteadofonedollar.Inorderto accomplish thisthe friendhasto rely not only onanemotionalor"sentimental" interpreta- tionoftheattendantbutalsoon autobiographical revelationthat stages African Americanfatherhoodwith maximum pathos. Hetells the story of hisfather'slife,says Steele, ina way thatentails "using-against all that 7. ShelbySteele,"White Guilt," AmericanScholar59 (Autumn1990): 499;hereafterab- breviated"WG."For a renunciationof guilt and a defenseof anger from a directly opposing position, see AudreLorde,SisterOutsider: Essays and Speeches(Trumansburg, N.Y.,1984). See alsoBrent Staples, Parallel Time: GrowingUp in Black and White (NewYork, 1994). Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions352Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt was honorablein him-hisown profound racial pain to extracta flash of guilt froma whitemanhedidn'tevenknow" ("WG,"p.500). Theludiccoercivenessofthis"race experiment," its purposeful in- sincerity, distinguishes it fromothertales inthe genre of liberal guilt sto- ries.Butit is more typical thannot,bothinits choreography of fraught homosocial relationships andinits preoccupation withthe gaze. Liberal guilt, whichfromthe very beginning is bound up withself-consciousra- cial difference,is repeatedlystagedthrough stories of cross-racial specta- torship. Itreliesonvisual practices of seeingpain and being seentobe afflicted by it.Liberal guilt thushascertainaffinitieswithsurveillance, whichis onereasonconservativeslovetohateit.Insofaras thestate has becomeidentifiedas theforcethat "legitimated grouprights, established affirmativeactionmandates,and spentmoney ona range ofsocial pro- grams" that requireddiligent bean counting,opposition tothese pro- grams hastakentheformof "eliminatingrecord-keeping," ofthedesire nottoknow.8 Steelewantstoendaffirmative action programs butcrimi- nalizecivil rights violations.9 Legislatingsympathy insultshim,but puni- tive antiracism, consistentwithmasculine aggressivity, doesnot.Thereis noinherentreason, of course,why socialwelfareandforceful judicial approaches toracism couldnotbe pursuedsimultaneously, as they have beeninthe past-no reasonotherthanthenarrative logic of per- formed masculinity. According to Steele'sdrama, discipline curesembar- rassment,and applying anticrimerhetorictoracismsavesusfromthe intimatevisual contestsof guilt. Unlikeconservatives, recentliberal philosophershardly evertalk aboutliberal guilt. Inthemost self-avowedly liberal philosophical discus- sions, theemotionsofliberal guilt are firmlysuppressed or disciplined, despite the conceptualcentrality of pain. In OrdinaryVices,Judith Shklar puts forwardherdefinitionofliberalismas "puttingcruelty first." 10 Lib- eralism is the set of values producedby the fear and loathing of cruelty. In Shklar's hands, this"liberalism offear" becomesanordealof temperate manliness exemplifiedby Montaigne(0V, p. 237). Shklar foregrounds the problematicknowledge ofthevictimandevensetsinto play thevisual theaterof victimhood.She definesthe liberal as reactingagainst the sight of the victim, but doing so in a mannerthat is tough-minded,unhopeful, withoutillusion,and certainly not guilty. The"we" towhomsherefers whenshetalks about"our ordinary vices" isliberal societyimagined as an ideally homosocial graduate seminar. This dialogue is created by those Shklar characterizesas "people whoarefamiliar withthe politicalprac- tices oftheUnitedStates andwhoshowtheiradherencetothem by dis- 8.OmiandWinant,Racial Formationin the United States from the 1960sto the 1990s,pp. 117,134. 9.SeeSteele,"AffirmativeActionMust Go," New York Times, 1 Mar. 1995,p. A19. 10. Judith N.Shklar, Ordinary Vices (Cambridge,Mass., 1984), p.237; hereafterabbrevi- atedOV. This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996353 cussing them critically, indeed relentlessly," invoking a common"fund of historical and literary memorieson which we can draw as we contemplate ruling and being ruled" (0V, pp.226-27). Shklarisnervousaboutthe particularexperience ofthosein pain. Thisreinforceshersenseofliberalismas revulsioninthefaceof cruelty. "Who indeedknowshowbesttothinkaboutvictims?" sheasks rhetori- cally (0V, p.17). The questionimplies that it is impossible to contemplate victims withoutembarrassmentandthereforethat suchsentimentalrela- tionships aretobeavoided:"Victimhood may havebecomean inescap- able category of political thought, but it remains an intractable notion.... We donotknowhowtothinkaboutvictimhood.Almost everything one mightsay wouldbe unfair, self-serving,undignified,untrue, self- deluding,contradictory, or dangerous"(0V, pp. 17,22-23).Precisely, I say. Speaking about"victimhood" whenonestands in a vicarious relation to it is embarrassing-andinteresting-precisely becauseit doesnot pro- duce high-leveldialogue. Liberal guiltsignifies a loss ofcontrol.Increas- ingly, too,it signifies a lossof money, as though thedonorindividualor classcannotaffordto giveanythingaway without impoverishing itself. Shklar, therefore, labors to separate liberalism fromsentiment.Themost powerful moodinShklar's political universeis fear, "the underlyingpsy- chological andmoralmediumthatmakesviceall butunavoidable" (0V, p.242).Against fear-a "medium," notan emotion-oneutilizesstrate- gies of limitation,notof feeling. Liberalism is for Shklar a defense against feeling, nota structure of feeling. Richard Rorty is the exception totheevasionofliberal guiltby phi- losophers ofliberalism.Hecraftsa "utopia" populatedby intellectuals who keep their deconstructive insightsprivate while participating in pub- lic modesof liberal hope. In this fashion,hefinds a place for themalaises ofliberal guilt. For Rorty thevalueof descriptive discourseslike literary criticism and ethnography liesintheir power toincreasetheliberal iro- nist's sensitivity towardsufferers.Fiction,for instance,gives us"details aboutkindsof sufferingbeing endured by people to whomwehad pre- viously notattended."Crucial to Rorty's ironic community is the feeling ofmoral uncertainty, a temperate embarrassment closely relatedtolib- eral guilt: "the self-doubtwhichhas gradually, over the last few centuries, beeninculcatedintoinhabitantsofthedemocraticstates-doubtabout theirown sensitivity tothe pain andhumiliationof others,doubtthat present institutional arrangements are adequate todealwiththis pain andhumiliation."Doubtsabout"institutional arrangements" fadefrom hisdiscussion,butself-doubtbecomes"the characteristicmark" offirst- worldethics." Rorty isoneofthefewwritersin anycentury who posi- tively delights in the experience of the liberal ironist whodoubts boththe emotionaland pragmaticefficacy of his or her knowledge of pain. But he 11. Richard Rorty, Contingency,Irony, and Solidarity(Cambridge,1989), pp. xvi, 198. Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions354Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt splits offa public commitmenttoliberalismfromthe private theoretical speculation of theironist,withtheresultthat,as Nancy Fraser observes, theoryproceeds ononeleveland politics onanother.12 Fraser maps out"needs talk" as central to the politics of welfare-state societies,incontrastto Rorty, who privatizes ambivalenceordefinesit throughgeopoliticalsequestration. Sheworksoutamodelofsocialdis- coursethat "foregrounds the. . . contestedcharacterofneedstalk" (UP, p.164). Fraser never talks about emotion.But she does establish a theoreti- cal framework for the political meanings of complaint, ambivalence,guilt, and confession-space for noticingcomplex articulationsof degrees of discomfort.She accomplishes this by asking the followingquestions: Whatarethevocabulariesavailable for interpreting andcommuni- cating one'sneeds?. . .Howareconflictsoverthe interpretation of needsresolved?... [What arethe operative] modesof subjectifica- tion; the ways inwhichvariousdiscourses position the people to whom they areaddressedas specific sorts of subjects endowedwith specific sortsof capacities foraction;for example, as"normal" or "deviant," as causally conditionedor freely self-determining,as vic- tims or as potential activists, as unique individualsoras membersof social groups?[UP, pp.164-65] Fraser calls attentiontothe way needstalk canbreakoutofits previous classificationsas"'domestic'" or"'economic"' tobecome designated as a politicalproblem. Sheintroducesthenotionof "'leaky' or 'runaway' needs: they are needsthat havebrokenout" of the family or themarket. "Now, wheredo runaway needsrunto when they break outofdomestic orofficialeconomicenclaves?" sheasks. Theygo into"'the social,"' the arenainwhich "politicized runaway needs get translatedintoclaims for governmentprovision," where "unequally endowed groupscompete to shape theformal policyagenda"(UP, pp.169-70).13 Sensibility is wholly bound up withsocialwelfare, astherecordsof eighteenth-century de- batesover poor lawreform,theabolitionoftheslave trade,missionary activity, and philanthropy demonstrate.Fraser points outthat as welfare became feminized-making womenits clientsandworkers-someofits aspects were uneasily removedfromwhatweunderstandas politics. Needsnowtendtoreintrudeonthe politicalspherethrough the genres 12. For Rorty,Nancy Fraserelaborates,"radical theory ... gets inflected as a sphere apart from collectivelife. ...a preserve where strivings for transcendenceare quarantined, rendered safe....There can be no ... genuinelypoliticalstruggle for cultural hegemony" (Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power,Discourse, and Genderin Contemporary Social Theory[Min- neapolis, 1989], p. 103; hereafterabbreviated UP). 13. For an example of the politics of "needs talk"in the post-Civil War period, see Laura Wexler,"TenderViolence: LiteraryEavesdropping, Domestic Fiction, and Educa- tionalReform," inThe Culture of Sentiment:Race, Gender, and Sentimentality inNineteenth- CenturyAmerica,ed. Shirley Samuels (Ithaca,N.Y., 1992), pp. 9-38. This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996355 ofthe personal orthe bodily. For example, the practices ofrecentCon- gressionalhearingspoint to the interdependency of personal stories and political representation. Thecitizen's tears matter to thestate, andmedia coverage takes personal stories toldin governmentbuildings to the view- ingpublic. Then, intheend,thereis nohealthcare program. Wecansituatethe experience ofliberal guilt inFraser's region of "the social," whereneedshave shifty identitiesas figures that recently led a private lifebutnow engage in politicalcontests, orviceversa.Thisis precisely thevenueofliberal guilt. At this point, wecanrelateShklar's cruelty toFraser's needstalk. Needstalk definesthesocial realm, where conflicts and negotiations occur over what countsas cruelty and how pub- lic policy should respond toit. Cruelty, too,isdiscursive.Itmaterializes sociallythroughspoken or picturedpain,resentment,andaccusation. Liberal guilt,therefore, grounded inthe perception of cruelty, iscon- nectedtoneeds talk, including theliteratureof sympathy andits atten- tionto the figures andvoicesofsufferers. Narratedscenesof pain andliberal guilt dwell in symbiotic intimacy. And it is in the microanalysis of such events,as HomiBhabha argues, that "the social theory of pain and suffering" begins.14 Bhabha'streatmentof guilt andmelancholiaisa bitingresponse to Rorty's territorial barriers, whichdividethe"reflective acumen" of theWest fromthe"raw courage" neededelsewhere (quoted in "PA," p.62). "From thelimits ofliberalism emerges thesubaltern perspective," Bhabhadeclares ("PA,"p.63). Heis right, but only becauseheandothersshowthat liberalism is foldedinto, not alienated from,oppositional or minor writing. Bhabha is exasperated by the "figure ofthe'white body in pain' ...atthe bleeding heartof [Rorty's] ... languages of solidarity and community." Heconcludesbit- terly: "We mustforce [Rorty] to dialogue inorderto teachhimthesocial theory of pain and suffering"("PA," pp. 62,63). Fundamentaltothis perspective is a shift from the visual constructionof liberal guilt as a spec- tacletoa performative onethatdrawsontheemotive qualities oflan- guage to resist "'symbols ofsocial order"' (Fanon,quoted in "PA," p.65). Once again,agency and performance enterthe argumenttogether, as they havein my own argument. Bhabhafinds agency in performance, in an "exorbitant" marginality wherethe "ambiguities of rebel politics" find utteranceinaffectiveor "bodily" writing as opposed tostaticscenesof the body observed.This position is played outina literary versionof Fraser's social realmwhereneedshaveno "proper" place.15 14.HomiK. Bhabha,"Postcolonial Authority andPostmodernGuilt," in Cultural Stud- ies, ed.Lawrence Grossberg,Cary Nelson,andPaula A. Treichler (NewYork, 1992), p. 62; hereafterabbreviated"PA." 15. Specific states of feeling-oppositionalguilt,melancholia,and doubt-are contigu- ousto but carefully differentiatedfrom the positions Bhabha fendsoff, thoseof liberal guilt, imperialcertainty, anda Freudianview of guilt. Hemakes a powerful case for therelation- ship betweenknowledgeandmood:"In the colonialcondition,thedictates of theLaw, and Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions356Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt Intellectuals currentlymoving backandforthonthe"left-liberal spectrum" areobsessedwiththe subject ofemotional implication, as the riseinemotionstudiesoverthelastfive years indicates.16Thecurrent revival of feeling so pronounced inour political and popular culturesas wellas inacademicfieldswas made possibleby the postwarlegitimation of the first-person voice.Performances of subjectivity in Alcoholics Anon- ymous, in confessional poetry, and in therapy madeemotion public while maintaining its intenselypersonal character.Nowanadditionalturn seemsto be taking place. We are seeing a generaldeprivatization of emo- tion, a widely sharedreorientationtothesocial importance of feeling. Thismarks a complementary-perhapscompensatory-reversal, onthe levelofaffect,of Reagan-Bush economic policies of privatization. The publicperformance of individual pain characterizesnot only the Oprah/ Donahue/Geraldoboombutalso appears in political initiatives, of which the judicial movementfor"victims' rights" isone example. Thesecivic therapies claim to befor the good of the suffering individualandfor the good of the spectator-nation. But the substitutionof whites for blacks and ofmenfor womenas objects of pity indicatesthat antiliberalismmimeti- cally invertsthe very choreographies of liberal guilt. In referring to narratives of sympathy, I emphasize the genericqual- itiesofliberal guilt or, more pretentiously, thevisualizedor performed economy of inequality. Whenthosewhosuffer gaze back at thosewhodo not, guilt isthe consequence.And,despite thefamiliardistinctionsbe- tween guilt andshame,the performative or interactive qualities of liberal the authority ofthe superego ...become [for the colonized]formsofcultural knowledge constitutedof guilt anddoubt."The"'native's guilt,"' inFanon's phrase,operates as"'a kindofcurse"' in"a symbolicspace ofculturalsurvival-amelancholiainrevolt" (ibid.). Bhabha aligns liberal guilt with epistemologyperse,withits constructionsof subject and object, andbinds hybridity toserialenunciationsor rewritings ofsuch guilt inwhichthe subject-object relationis collapsed: The epistemological distancebetween subject and object, insideandoutside,thatis part oftheculturalbinarismthat emerges fromrelativismisnow replacedby asocial process ofenunciation.....Ifthe epistemological tendstowarda "representation" of itsreferent. ..theenunciative attemptsrepeatedly to"reinscribe" andrelocatethat claim to cultural and anthropologicalpriority ...in the act of revising and hybridizing thesettled,sententioushierarchies,thelocaleandthelocutionsofthecultural. ["PA," p.57] By looking at guilt in its enunciativeforms,as experiencedby thosewhohaveinternalized it in colonialor postcolonial cultural situations,Bhabha bothresists liberal guilt andtestifies to its pervasiveness. Bhabha's theory of hybridity becomesthe antiknowledge of liberal epis- temology. Andthis perhaps isthemotiveforthenotorious "difficulty" ofhistheoretical writings. In providing a countercultureforthe assumptions ofliberal politics and philoso- phy, it becomes important to showhowthe tangled involutionsof liberalism itself generate opposition. 16. "Left-liberal spectrum" is Erickson's term;seehis"Multiculturalism andtheProb- lemof Liberalism," p. 97. This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996357 guilt are considerably illuminated by discussionsthat expose the contigu- ity between guilt andshame.Inthe dynamics of guilt, BernardWilliams argues inShameand Necessity, "I ...feelthatvictimshavea claimonme andthattheir anger and suffering lookstowardsme." "Modern morality" foregrounds "the primacy of guilt, its significance in turning ustoward victims,andits rationalrestrictiontothe voluntary" withtheresultthat guilt "isunderconsiderablestrainin insisting onallthese things at once."17 Guilt, inother words, is forcedtoconstitutethe subject, theob- ject, andthemoral importance oftheir relation-exactly thecaseI have been making for the significance of liberal guilt. Thisisnotsoremotefromtheexistential interpretation ofshame developedby Sartre in Being and Nothingness, wherethe specifically ocular crisis ofshamemarksthe subject's alienated entry intothesocial world underthe gaze ofanotherhuman being. I am looked-atin a worldwhichis looked-at.... Anyonemay recog- nizeinthisabstract description thatimmediateand burningpres- enceof the Other's look which has so oftenfilled him with shame.... Shameis ...the originalfeeling of havingmy beingoutside,engaged in another being andas such without any defense....Pure shameis nota feeling of being this or that guilty object but in general of being an object; thatis, of recognizingmyself inthis degraded,fixed, and dependentbeing whichIamfortheOther.Shameis the feeling of an originalfall, not becauseof the fact that I may have committedthis or that particular fault but simply thatI have"fallen" intotheworld ...and...IneedthemediationoftheOtherinordertobewhat I am.18 This example showstheextenttowhichencountersbetween unequally painful situations in nonphilosophicalgenres are played out in the paral- leluniverseof similarly embarrassed philosophicalsubject-object rela- tions.Liberal guilt, viewedthis way, isa highlypoliticized versionof subjectivity perse, an application of being-in-the-world to racist societies. Liberal guilt is similarly bound up withthenotionofvicarious experi- ence.Thewordvicarious hasshiftedfromits earlier dignity asa sign of authority(in the religious senseofvicar orthe political senseof regent) toname experiences felt imaginativelythrough another person or agency. Itsmorerecent psychological and performativemeanings em- phasize the taking onof guilt,pain, or pleasure(vicariousgratification) through identificationwith another person. Theselast meaningssignal a culture, notof identity, butof identifying-with. For Sartre, objectivity- andhenceshame-isa derivedor vicariousrelation.TheOther's objec- 17.BernardWilliams, Shameand Necessity(Berkeley,1993),p.94;my emphasis. 18. Jean-PaulSartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on PhenomenologicalOntology, trans. HazelE. Barnes (NewYork, 1956),pp.269,271,288-89. Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions358Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt tive presence confers a second-order,humiliated objectivity on the subject ofthe gaze. Likewise,theembarrassmentsofliberal guilt arisefromthe authenticity ofa moreabsolute pain discovered by thewhiteintellectual inthe gaze of theracial Other. As this brief philosophicaldigressionsuggests, narratives of compas- sionandtheirscenic accompaniments wereconventional long before therubric of liberal guiltemerged inthe1960s.I meanconventionalhere inthe strong, formalsenseoftheword, designatingrepeated cultural or literary formsandsocial rituals.I will set forthina highly condensed formsomehistorical examples of early modernliberal guilt. Thismin- iaturized synopsis ofaworkin progress onvicariousrelationsin eighteenth-centuryAnglo-American culturedoeslittle morethan gesture toward a crucial early momentin the history of liberal guilt. Nonetheless, this gesture mattersto currentaffectiveand political dilemmas precisely becausehistorical work of thekindI am doing onthe politics of emotion is itself a product ofthedecade1985-95.Theentire eighteenthcentury is being transformedfromtherational Enlightenment intothe heyday of sensibility underthe pressure ofourneedtounderstandthe viability of social emotionintheU.S. today. Themoralembarrassmentofthesensitiveintellectual crystallized as a reading ofthreehistorical factors: first, theracial politics ofmercantile andlatercolonial power relations;second, a concept of nation,empire, economy, or someother system that was understoodto producesuffering forsomeand privilege for others; andthird,cultural opportunities for the display of sympatheticmasculinity. 9 The aptly namedif underexam- ined Age of Sensibility was fundamentalin shaping our presentlanguage of vicarious suffering.2?0 This period ofliberal sentimenthas convention- ally beendefinedas occurring after theneoclassical heyday of theearlier eighteenthcentury andbeforetheonsetofromanticismin1789.I have madethe case elsewherefor expanding, even exploding, the chronologi- cal and geographicalscope ofthis age.21 ButIdonotwantto downplay 19. ThomasHaskell argues that "the crucible of market transactions" brought about"a change inthe perception ofcausal connectionand consequently a shift intheconventions ofmoral responsibility." Haskell's emphasis on "cognitivestyle" hasa programmatically antimaterialistbentthatI disavow;hisaccountofthemarket vastlyoveremphasizes the benevolenceof this constructin eighteenth-centurywritings.Nonetheless, I share Haskell's interestinmoralevaluationas itis shapedby culturalconventions ("recipes forinterven- tion")(Thomas L.Haskell,"Capitalism andthe Origins oftheHumanitarian Sensibility, Part I," AmericanHistoricalReview90 [Apr. 1985]: 342,360). I have also benefitedfrom Joyce Appleby's work onthe emerging notionof markets andothereconomic systems inthesev- enteenth century in her Liberalismand Republicanism in the Historical Imagination(Cambridge, Mass., 1992). 20. Surveyed in JanetTodd,Sensibility: An Introduction (NewYork, 1986); seealsoG. J. Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Chi- cago,1992). 21.See JulieEllison,"Race and Sensibility inthe Early Republic," AmericanLiterature 65 (Sept.1993): 445-74.Seealso Ellison, "ThePolitics of Fancy inthe Age of Sensibility," This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996359 thecultural importance of thebrief period to whichtherubric was origi- nally applied. If we go back to oneof the constitutivetextsof liberal emotion,Adam Smith's The Theoryof Moral Sentiments, we find that it confirmsthe affective idealsof republican discourse.Smith is already working in a fully formed tradition.Overthecourseofthe previouscentury, the figures ofCato, Brutus,andotherRomanshadstarredinscenesinwhichemotionalre- serve andsentimental display, ranging from ambivalent sensibility to out- righthysteria, became mutuallylegitimating rolesinscenes among men. Such philosophical "characters" were vehicles by which a certain segment of Britishculture renegotiatedinequality as earlier formsof dependence and clientage were breaking downandas a globalarray ofracial differ- enceswas creating whiteness.22For Smith,theidealmanifestationof moral sentimentinvolvesa dignifiedupper-class sufferer whose very self- control provokes his friendsto vicarioustears.23 The Theoryof Moral Sentiments sendsmixed signals abouthowthe spectator is implicated inthe sympathetic relation.Smith stages moral sentimentas a bondbetweenelitemales deeply but reticently involvedin oneanother's triumphs of self-discipline andoneanother's humiliations, large andsmall.24 Meanwhile, inhiscelebrated"illustrations," he keeps alive the pathos extended by the privileged observertoward sufferers of a lower social station.It is while fending off the temptations of downwardly directed sympathy that hefixeshis eye on early modernliberal guilt and tries to dismiss it outof hand,as part of the erroneous teaching of certain in Re-Visioning Romanticism:British WomenWriters,1776-1837,ed.CarolShinerWilsonand Joel Haefner (Philadelphia,1994)and,particularly inrelationto AdamSmith's staging of Cato inThe Theoryof Moral Sentiments,"Cato's Tears" (forthcoming in ELH). 22.Thesecharacters are bothdramatic characters in theusualsenseand philosophical characters as defined by Alasdair Maclntyre: Charactersare. ..themoral representatives oftheircultureand they areso because ofthe way inwhichmoraland metaphysical ideasandtheoriesassume through them anembodiedexistenceinthesocialworld.Charactersarethemasksworn by moral philosophies.... Bothindividualsandrolescan,anddo,like characters,embody moral beliefs,doctrines,andtheories,buteachdoessoinits own way. Andthe way in which charactersdosocan only besketched by contrastwiththese. [Alasdair Maclntyre,After Virtue:A Study in Moral Theory(NotreDame,Ind.,1981),p.27] 23.See Adam Smith,The Theoryof Moral Sentiments,ed.D.D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (1759, rev.1761;Indianapolis,1982); hereafterabbreviatedTMS. Compare theintroduc- tion,pp. 10-13and"Of Licentious Systems" (onMandeville),pp. 306-14.SeealsoMac- Intyre's extendedaccount,in After Virtue,ofhowHume,Smith,andother major figures of theScottish Enlightenmentnegotiatedquestions of sympathy and morality. Smithisar- guing,along with Hume,against Mandeville's equation between private viceand public good inThe Fable of the Bees. 24.William IanMiller's project doesnotaddress genderdirectly. Nonethelessit can be read as a study of homosocial performances of humiliation.See William Ian Miller, Humilia- tion: And Other Essays on Honor, Social Discomfort, and Violence (Ithaca,N.Y.,1993). Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions360Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt "philosophers" who"have labouredtoincreaseour sensibility tothein- terestsof others": those whining and melancholy moralists,whoare perpetually re- proaching us with our happiness, whileso many of our brethrenare in misery, who regard as impious the natural joy of prosperity, which doesnotthink of the many wretchesthat are at every instant labour- ing underallsortsofcalamities,inthe languor of poverty, inthe agony ofdisease,inthehorrorsofdeath,undertheinsultsand op- pression oftheirenemies.Commiserationforthosemiserieswhich we neversaw, which we neverheardof, but which we may be assured areatalltimes infesting suchnumbersofourfellow-creatures, ought,they think, to damp the pleasures ofthefortunate,andto renderacertain melancholydejection habitualtoallmen. [TMS, p.139] TheScottish philosopherrejectsfeeling atadistanceinfavorofsocial contiguity. Hedoesnot hesitate,however, to invokethe"whole earth" as a statistical measureinthenext phrase. This suggests boththat statistical inclusioncanbeinvoked against emotionalinclusionandthatthelan- guage of humanconnectedness-termslike earth or humanity-is difficult to avoidwhen addressing the question of benevolence: Take thewholeearthat an average, for oneman whosuffers pain or misery, you will find twenty in prosperity and joy, or at least in tolera- blecircumstances.Noreason...canbe assignedwhy weshould rather weep withtheonethan rejoice with the twenty. Thisartificial commiseration,besides, . . .seems altogether unattainable;and thosewhoaffect this character have commonlynothing but a certain affectedandsentimentalsadness,which,without reaching the heart, serves only torenderthecountenanceandconversation imperti- nently dismal and disagreeable.... Whateverinterestwe take inthe fortuneofthose. . . whoare placedaltogether outofthe sphere of our activity, can produceonly anxiety to ourselves,without any man- nerof advantage tothem.To what purpose shouldwetroubleour- selvesabouttheworldinthemoon?All men, eventhoseatthe greatest distance,arenodoubtentitledtoour good wishes....But if,notwithstanding,they shouldbeunfortunate,to give ourselves anyanxietyupon that account, seemstobeno part ofour duty. [TMS, p.140] Smithrevivestherhetoricofanti-Puritanismtocharacterizethe guilty liberal, the personoverimplicated in others, as asour killjoy and melancholic, incapable of feeling "the natural joy of prosperity." Actually, these "whining . . .moralists" withtheir overflowingfeelings of"senti- mentalsadness"are fulfilling theSmithian program toexcess: they are using their imaginations to "change persons and characters" with the suf- This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996361 feringparty, even though thevictim is outoftheirdirectsocial ormoral reach (TMS, p.317).25 Smithtellsusthatwedon'tneedtosufferfrom sympathy for those"out ofthe sphere of our activity," people who might as wellinhabit"the worldinthemoon,""those at the greatest distance" fromus.His spatial metaphors raise issuesofsocial andcultural geogra- phy andalso of thecurrentintellectualchic attachedto spatial disciplines suchas geography. Butsuch metaphors also imply the potential for distancesto be tech- nologically overcome.If we obtain detailed knowledge of the suffering of persons onanothercontinent, if"miseries whichweneversaw, . . . [or] heardof"cometo beheardofandseen-thatis, cometo be reproduc- ible-what happens thentotheoverzealous sympathizer? Howfast shouldour sympathies outrunour agency? Will liberal guiltproliferate under expandedrepresentational conditions?Doesour changing under- standing ofourroleina globalsystem of interdependence increasethe legitimaterange of duty? Arethe Age of Sensibility andthe Age ofMe- chanical Reproduction thesame thing? Whereasfor the guilty liberal be- ing consciously includedin systematic formationsis the basis for the sense of implication or responsibility, forSmith (at leastinthis passage) the productive virtueinherentinthe system freesits knowingparticipants from having toshare everyone else's unhappiness. Adecadeafterthe publication ofThe Theory of MoralSentiments, Henry Mackenzie gave this period its title character in that classic of mas- culine sensibility, The Man of Feeling. Appearing in1771,itfalls between the treaty of 1765,whichfollowedClive's defeatoftheFrenchand gave the British East India Company administrativecontrol of Bengal, andthe Regulating Actof1773,through whichtheBritish government inter- venedtomakethe appointment ofa governorgeneralsubject tostate control.More active governmentoversight wouldcomewith theEast In- 25.In a later era, but one directly relatedto the liberal1770s and1780s, the abolitionist WilliamKnibb wouldsetforthasceneofwhitevicarioussentimentinwhichthe"natural joy of prosperity" is overcome by theChristian joy inmoralintervention: Thereis nothing more delightful and interesting than to plead the cause of the injured, the degraded andthe oppressed.This,under anycircumstances,is peculiarly de- lightful; butit is especially so whenthe speaker findshimselfsurrounded by so large a numberofhisfellow-Christians,whohefeelsassuredneverhearof misery but they endeavourtoremoveit;whoneverhearofsorrow,but they areanxiousto dry the mourner'stears;andwhoneverhearof oppression, but everyfeeling oftheirheart rises up in just and holyindignationagainst the person whoinflictsit. [Quoted in CatherineHall,White,Male, and Middle Class: Explorations in Feminismand History (Lon- don,1988),p.213] "Whitenessat thismoment,"remarksHall,"meant pity andcareforlesser peoples,[and] the authority throughpublic campaigns to exercisethat concern" (ibid.). Knibb's missionary agenda was also articulated during the abolition campaigns of the1780s, in Smith's lifetime. ThetensionsbetweenSmith'sandKnibb's shiftingpositions revealthe way racial identity, sentimental masculinity, andthesocial politics of religiousdifference-including charitable strategies-aresimultaneouslynegotiated. Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions362Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt dia Act of1784, although directrulewas notassumeduntilaftertheIn- dian Mutiny of1857-58.This text,like manypoems andnovelsofthe period, includesmininarratives involvingsympathy extendeddownward onthesocial scale andoutwardto imperial venues. Even here,however, needy malesare distinguishedby theiremo- tional self-discipline. In a roadside encounter, Harley, the genteel Man of Feeling whoends updead,ona sofa,meets Edwards, a wornbutstoical tenantfarmer hehadknownas a youth. Once Harley andEdwards have recognized each another,Edwardstellshis story, a generic taleofrural dispossession that wouldreceiveamemorablelaterrenditioninWords- worth's"Michael." A newly richlandlordhiresa "London-attorney" for his steward.26Thetenantis turnedoutof his farm ontoa lesser holding, wherehis son, after an encounterwith the justice'sgamekeeper, falls prey toa press-gang onChristmasEve.Thefatherbribesthe sergeant tolet him go inhisson's place andends up withBritish troops inIndia.This provides the setting for yet anothertalewithinatale centering on yet anotherstoical sufferer, a narrative that carries the dynamics of sympathy fromthe economy oftheBritish countryside intocolonial relationships. "Amongst our prisoners was anold Indian,whomsomeofouroffi- cers supposed tohaveatreasurehiddensomewhere....Hede- clared hehad none; but that wouldnot satisfy them, so they ordered himto be tiedto a stake, andsuffer fifty lashes everymorning, till he shouldlearn to speak out,as they said. Oh! Mr. Harley, had you seen him,as I did,with his hands boundbehindhim, suffering in silence, whilethe bigdrops trickleddownhisshrivelled cheeks,andwethis grey beard,whichsomeoftheinhumansoldiers plucked inscorn!I couldnotbearit...andone morning, whentherestofthe guard wereoutofthe way, I foundmeansto lethim escape. I was tried by a court-martialfor negligence on mypost, and ordered, in compas- sionof myage, and havinggot thiswoundin myarm,andthatin my leg, in the service, only to suffer 300 lashes, and be turnedoutof the regiment; but my sentencewas mitigated as tothe lashes,andI had only 200.WhenIhadsuffered these, Iwasturnedoutofthe camp, and had betwixt threeand four hundredmiles to travel before Icouldreacha sea-port.... Isetout however,resolvedtowalk as far as I could, andthento lay myself downanddie.ButI hadscarce gone amilewhenIwasmet by theIndianwhomIhaddelivered. He pressed mein his arms, andkissed themarks of thelashes on my back athousand times;heledmetoa little hut,wheresomefriend of his dwelt,andafterI was recoveredof my woundsconductedme sofar on my journeyhimself, andsentanotherIndianto guide me through therest.Whenwe parted he pulled outa purse withtwo hundred pieces of gold in it.'Take this,' said he, 'my dear preserver, 26. Henry Mackenzie, TheMan of Feeling, ed.Brian Vickers (Oxford,1987), p. 87; here- after abbreviated ME This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996363 itisallIhavebeenableto procure.' I begged himnotto bring himselfto poverty for my sake, whoshould probably havenoneed ofit long; butheinsisted....Heembracedme:-'Youarean Englishman,' said he,'but theGreat Spirit has givenyou anIndian heart."' [MF, pp.93-94]27 Themost striking aspect of this story is the way that Harley's response to the mercifulIndianis mediated by Edwards, the white laborer who is also thenarrator. WhenEdwardsandtheIndiantaketurns caring forone another,victimhoodseemslesslike somethingpermanent oressential- lesslikeracial orclass inevitability-and morelikea contingentquality. At thesame time,however, thesedisfranchisedindividuals, while granted considerable agency relativetoone another, are placed ataclearsocial distancebelow Harley. EdwardsandtheoldIndian weeptogether in mutually self- sacrificingabjection thatculminatesinamomentofreverseorientalism (anEnglishman withan"Indian heart"). ThesceneconfirmsBhabha's observationthat"the shadow... guilt casts onthe 'object' ofidentifica- tion...is the origin of melancholia" ("PA,"p. 65). The question is, melan- cholia in whom?28 Harley, a classic melancholic, weeps with Edwards over the memory oftheearlierscene.This spectacle oftheinfinite regress of sentimental implication carriesthe privilegedspectator toward general- izationsabout foreignpolicy. Emotioncauses Harley tobecome acutely awareofthetensionbetweentheBritish"native" and"the man" within himself,showing howcentral sympathy is tothe unending formationof the national/international subject, which emergeshistorically as a single relational phenomenon: "Edwards," said [Harley], "I have a properregard for the prosperity of my country:every nativeof it appropriates to himselfsomeshare of the power, or the fame, which,as a nation, it acquires; but I cannot 27.For a similarly chargedhandling ofthe suffering oftheracial Other,seethe story ofInkleandYarico by RichardSteeleinthe Spectator, discussedat length inPeter Hulme's Colonial Encounters: Europe andthe NativeCaribbean, 1492-1797 (NewYork,1986),pp. 225-63; seealso Felicity Nussbaum,"Introduction:ThePolitics ofDifference,"Eighteenth- Century Studies23(Summer1990): 375-86.Paul Gilroy offers onemodelfor the eighteenth century's semiconsciousnessof systematic interrelatedness.He posits "theblackAtlantic world" as "a webbednetwork," a worldof "complicity and syncretic interdependency," and of "stereophonic,bilingual, or bifocal culturalforms," a structure shapedby "intercultural positionality" (Paul Gilroy, The BlackAtlantic: Modernity and DoubleConsciousness [Cambridge, Mass.,1993],pp.29,31,3,6). Seealso Arjun Appadurai on"translocal processes," "ecu- menes,""complex and overlapping ...Euro-colonialworlds," and "dialectically generated nationalisms"inhis "Disjuncture andDifferenceintheGlobal Cultural Economy," inThe PhantomPublic Sphere, ed.BruceRobbins (Minneapolis,1993),pp.269,270. 28. JulianaSchiesari, The Genderingof Melancholia: Feminism,Psychoanalysis, and the Sym- bolics of Loss in RenaissanceLiterature (Ithaca,N.Y.,1992),makes the point that the history of melancholialinks it to culturallyprestigious formsofmasculine subjectivity. Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions364Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt throwoffthemansomuch,as to rejoice at our conquests inIndia. You tellmeofimmenseterritories subject tothe English: Icannot think of their possessions, without being ledto inquire,by what right theypossess them. They camethereastraders,bartering thecom- modities they brought for others which their purchasers could spare; andhowever great their profitswere,they werethen equitable. But whattitlehavethe subjects ofanother kingdom toestablishanem- pire inIndia?to give lawstoa country wheretheinhabitantsre- ceivedthemonthetermsof friendly commerce?...You describe the victories they have gained;they are sullied by the causein which theyfought:you enumeratethe spoils ofthosevictories; they are coveredwiththebloodof the vanquished!"[MF, pp.102-3] Spoils "covered with the bloodof the vanquished": this is how liberal guilt is imagined in eighteenth-century Britain. Harley's orationaddressesthe perceived tensionsbetweenmercantileand imperial interactions, the contiguity ofwealthandwar, andthedesireto keep tradedistinctfrom conquest. Expressions ofbadconscience,therefore,start veryearly inBritish cultural responses; wecould go back two hundred years beforeSmithto findevidenceof this, although a widespreadsurge of distaste for colonial implication wouldnotcomeuntiltheabolitionist campaigns ofthe 1780s.29 The passage Ihavecitedis typical of many such responses be- causeofthe problems it poses forthereader.We readMackenzie's con- cludingparagraph on Englishimperialism intwo ways: first, as pure ideology, inwhichtradeand conquest are distinguished fromonean- otherinorderto give amoral patina totheiractual interdependence, making economictransactionsseem benign andforce reprehensible wheninfact they are part ofa singleprocess of European domina- tion;or,second, as knowledge of ideology, an epistemological mom- entinwhichthelinkbetweenviolenceandmaterial gain is exposed through the figure ofthevictim.This episode bothobfuscatesand admitstothe understanding thatBritishwealthis implicated inBritish torture. These eighteenth-centuryexamples are directly pertinent to the pol- itics ofthe1990s.Thisisthecase despite thefactthatthe meanings of bothliberal and guilt are anachronisticwhen applied tothe Age ofSensi- bility, just as sensibility isananachronismforus.Liberal guilt feelstous like politicalfailure, or delegitimation;sensibility, I believe, though itis reckless to generalize about a century or moreof its cultural variants, was 29.EdwardW. Said, Cultureand Imperialism(NewYork,1993), pp. 240-41,discusses thedifferencebetweenanticolonialismand anti-imperialism withreferenceto eighteenth- centurywritings. For a fine collectionof essays addressing the relationship of race to nation- alismand gender intheRenaissance,see Women,"Race," and Writing in the Early Modern Period, ed. Margo HendricksandPatricia Parker (NewYork, 1994). This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996365 amodeof politicallegitimation. Whilethetwo syndromes differ, they are bound,not by remote parallelisms that are magically or mysteriously produced, but by intricatehistories capable of beingspecified. Iusedto thinkthat sensibility andliberal guilt were materially different.Iamno longer convinced by thatdistinctionbecausethe history ofEurocentric vicariousemotionsin response to globalexposures ofracialdifference seems bigger than,andinclusiveof,both. Putting a large framearound thesetwocultural phenomena, however,doesnotexonerateusfrom mapping thetensions among the multiple usesto whichvicarious pain is put evenina single historical moment. Thecritical potential that permeates someversionsof sensibility as- sumes its most recent form in theoretical work on colonialism, postcolonial- ism,andrace.Wecandiscoverembarrassmentintheworkofthe intellectual who actively seeks out such ambivalences as the stuff of antirac- ist culturalstudiesandtheoreticalrevision.Patricia Williams shareswith Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak a senseof being both the subject and object of liberal guilt. This understanding lets her criticize but not escape the culture offirst-world implication. InThe Alchemyof Race and Rights, ina chapter entitled"GildedLiliesandLiberal Guilt," Williamsnarratesaseriesof guilt-related ordealsthat werewritten,she says, inorderto provide evi- denceof thediscursive productivity of liberal guilt, the way it emerges as digression, anecdote,andscene.The encapsulated narratives constitutea series of episodes in which she is forced to hear the confessionsand denials ofothers' guilt orelseshesuffersthe pathos ofremote sympathy her- self. Twining through the writerly memoiris a gradually elaborated argu- mentaboutthehistorical relationship ofcontractlawto slavery, to the economicconstructionof the individual, and to the ways in which pub- lic lifeissacrificedtonotionsof personalprivacy as thesearebound up with assumptions about privateproperty. The legalargumentprovides a unifying threadforinstancesofthe manyways inwhichliberal guilt arises from our embarrassmentsin public relative to oneanother'sneedi- ness.Williams uses this argument to explorewhy the private character of wealthresults in staged but highlypersonalized dramas of sympathy and cruelty. TheconversationsthatWilliams narrateszeroinondistinctionsbe- tweenanimaland human, onaccusationandtheclaims of kinship. The stockbrokerwithwhomshetalksinanAmtrak dining cartellsher, "'I never givemoney when peoplebeg fromme....I tell themI havenoth- ing. ButI alwaysstop tochat.... Finding outalittleaboutwho they are,' he explains,'helps merememberthat they're not just animals."' A littlelateron,shetellsthe story ofthestudentwho interrupts herclass preparation ina rage because"shehasbeenmadetofeel guilty ... thatheruncleis,asshedescribeshim,'aslumlord."'Williamsanswers back sarcastically, thenbroodsoverthe way therichareassumedto Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions366Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt beentitledto privacy whilethe"have-notsmustbeoutinthe open- scrutinized."30 To critique the practices of scrutiny, Williams narrates thestories she tells inherclasses of episodes in publicsettings shehas observedor par- ticipated in.Hermotiveis publicity, the exposure of the "commonplaces of our economically rationalizednotionsof humanity." One vignette fea- tures the "pretty little girl of about six" who exclaims,"'Oh, daddy, there's someonewhoneedsour help,"' whenshesees"an old beggar woman huddled against a pillar": "Thechildwas...led... by her. ..father who patientlyexplained that givingmoney tothewoman directly was 'not the way we do things.' Thenhe launchedinto a lecture on theUnited Way" (ARR, p.27). Thisanecdote supports Fraser's accountof needsdis- courseas an idiomwhereinstitutional responsescompete with personal, sentimentalones. Confronting the relationship between property and sympathy, Williamsvaluesthedirect expression of tragic emotionand theunmediatedofferof personalhelp inexcessofthe legal,economic, andsocial reformsshe promotes. She verges onCharlesLamb's dictum inhis essay, "A Complaint ofthe Decay of Beggars inthe Metropolis," whichcloses byacknowledging the possibility thatthe beggar isa phony-or, in essence, anactor-andtheninsiststhat theatricality and poverty are compatible:"give, and ask no questions."31 Thenext episode, not part ofthe summary ofherclass lecturesbut a personalexperience told directly tothereader,makesWilliamsthe agent ofthe cruelty ofthe pityinggaze. Shefeelsherselfreturnedtothe sceneof beggary taken upaesthetically in the eighteenthcentury, though sheherselfdoesnot put it intheseterms.Sheseesa homelessman lying ona benchwith his eyes fixed half-open:"They werethe eyes, I thought, of a deadman.ThenI rationalized,no, hecouldn'tbe." Williams herself is afflicted by a classic case of liberal guilt: ThenI lookedat theface of anothermanwhohadseenwhatI saw, bothofusstill walking, never stopping.... Itriedtoflash worry at him.Buthewas seeking reassurance,whichhetookfrom my face despitemyself. Icouldseehimrationalizehisconcern away, inthe flickerofan eye. Wewalkedbehindeachother upstairs andthree blocksdown Broadway beforeIlosthimandthe conspiracy ofour solidarity. Thusthemanonthe subway benchdiedtwice:in body andinthe spirit I hadmurdered. [ARR, p.27] 30.Patricia J.Williams,The Alchemyof Race and Rights (Cambridge,Mass., 1991),pp. 17, 21,22; hereafterabbreviated ARR. 31.CharlesLamb, "A Complaint ofthe Decay of Beggars inthe Metropolis," Elia (1823;Oxford,1991),p. 274.Iamindebtedto Chip Tuckerfor directing metothis passage. This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996367 Not surprisingly, after this narrative of eyes-livingeyes, dead eyes, and eye contact-thenext paragraphbegins,"Deepinside, I ammadeinse- cure by the wanderinggazes of my students" (ARR, p.28). Williams posi- tionsherselfinthevicarious society of eye contactoutsideofwhichno oneis permitted to reside.Heradmonitions ring trueas thevoiceofthe liberal superego thattreatsthemediationsofthe gaze asviolentand equatessincerity with directaction beyond thevisual encounter.Butcan she meanthe overwrought bit about soul murder? Thismomentof excess is a confessionbutalso a complaint.32 The complaint is "a performativeplea," "an aesthetic 'witnessing' of injury," asBerlanthas argued. The complaint takes shape as opposition thatdoesnot overtlypose a "threat tothe reigning order." Berlant's"fe- male complaint," is the "witnessing mechanism. . . [that] gradually incorpo- rate[s] an ever-wideningrange of feminist' issues intothesentimental-critical gaze" inorder"toconstructsome leverage forthe speaking woman." To resistthe co-optivepower ofthe complaint, its self-limiting dramaof identificationacrossmaterialdifferencesin position, Berlantconcludes thatfeministsmustresistconfessional bonding andaccentuate"our dif- ferencesfrom eachother"; we must "perform, theorize,constantly inten- sify the rupture ofthe private" in a female publicsphere.33 Williams's soul-murder story treats the gaze, ina state of hyperbolic connection, as violent; the multiple identificationshere-withthedead man, withtheman"whohadseenwhatIsaw"-defend,accuse,and confess simultaneously. Thisis precisely thesourceofembarrassmentin the complaint: thereis no position outsideof it. But Williams's accusatory confessionshowshowthesensationsofidentificationworkintwodirec- tions.Sheidentifieswiththevictimandwiththe specularimage, inthe manwhose eyes shemeets, of herowndetachment.Williams dramatizes thesensations producedby understanding the spectacles of needhistori- cally in terms of commodified persons and personifiedproperty. Williams defendstheattainmentof understanding sufficientto experience such implicatedfeelings evenas she wishes to embarrass the knowing intersub- jectivity thatfailstoact.Andthisis why, intheend,attempts tocure 32.Thestockbrokerwho gives talk, not money,clearly shouldfeel guilty, inBerenice Fisher's terms, bothfor failing to give and for a form of idealismthat is entirelyself-serving. Thestudentwhoseuncleis a slumlordis being toldinnouncertaintermsthat heis guilty andthat sheshouldbeashamedof him.Williams wants thefatherwho prefers theUnited Way to admithis historically implicated condition by joining his daughter ina direct gift of money tothe begging woman.The history ofeconomicselfhood surveyedby Williams shouldmakethis manfeelboth guilt(for his assentto habitualnotionsof privateproperty) andshame(for reinforcing the gap betweenneedandtheavailable meansof help, that is, theUnited Way). SeeBereniceFisher, "Guilt andShameintheWomen'sMovement:The Radical Idealof Action andIts Meaning for Feminist Intellectuals," FeministStudies 10 (Sum- mer1984):185-212. 33.Berlant,"TheFemale Complaint," Social Text, no.19/20(Fall 1988):243,245,253. Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions368Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt feministantiracist politics of diffuse guilt feelings in favor of more precise apportionments of guilt andshamecannotaccountforWilliams's guilty surplus.34 A historical understanding of racism as a systematic phenome- nonisa morally inclusive strategy that puts theburdenofawareness squarely onthe analyst herself. Liberal guilt isoneof sentimentality's affiliatedterms, notleast be- causeofthetheatrical quality ofsentimentalcultures."It wouldbehard to overestimatethe importance of vicariousnessin defining thesentimen- tal," Eve Sedgwickargues.Relating the spectator toherowntheoretical position,Sedgwick concludesthat describing cultural relationships as "sentimental" sentimentalizesthe critic in turn: "Themselves descriptions of relationsof vicariousness, theattributive careerof eachof these adjec- tives [sentimental andits affiliated terms] is again a vicariating one."35 In otherwords,to call something sentimentalis to place oneselfin the chain ofsentimentalrelations.What happens,then,to thescholar "interested" inthe politics ofemotion?Whatisthe epistemology ofliberal guilt for the"emotioncritic" of thenineties? By writingthis, amI defendingmy- self against the dynamics of liberal guilt or perpetuating them?Or both? Or neither? The present alliance betweenthecultural history ofracism andthe study ofsocialemotionmakesforan experimentalrelationship, inthe university, between theory andembarrassment.Thiscan leadto a strong desirefor immediacy, as itdoesforWilliams. Justastheantiessentialist legal theorist equatesspectatorship withsoulmurderandwants hersto- ries to change herstudents'social practice, so Spivak, thedeconstructive subalternfeministtheorist, proposes that knowledge arisesfromhard work andmakes a social difference.She addressesthe laborious economy ofcross-racial guilt. Like Williams,Spivak focusesonthetransferential dynamics oftheclassroom.Shefocusesmore explicitly onthe question of knowledge, butshe discriminates, as Williams does,betweenthe guilt producedby toolittle knowledge andthe guilt thatresultsfromtoo much. Spivakengages twoversionsofliberal guilt, thatofherwhite, 34.Fisher, analyzing the dynamics of liberal guiltamong whitewomenaccusedof rac- ismatfeministconferences,justifiesguilt asan appropriateresponse to specific actsof wrongdoing anddefendsshameasa response to particular idealsunrealized.SeeFisher, "Guilt andShameintheWomen's Movement." 35.Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemologyof the Closet (Berkeley,1993),pp.150,152. The process by which eighteenth- and nineteenth-century viewers sympathized with suffering- "the bourgeoisweeping overthe spectacle of poverty . . . themanswooningoverthe spec- tacle of femalevirtueunder siege"-in turn generated embarrassmentor skepticism about theviewer's position,Sedgwickargues: For a spectator to misrepresent the quality or locusof herorhis implicit participation ina scene...wouldbeto enact...theworst meaning ofthe epithet[sentimental].... The prurient; themorbid;thewishful; thesnobbish;the knowing; thearch: thesede- note subcategories ofthesentimental,totheextentthat eachinvolvesa covertreason for...identification through a spectatorial route. [P. 151] This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996369 middle-classstudentsrelativeto herselfas a postcolonialsubject, andher own uneaserelative to womenin India who form no part of her audience. For herstudents,she emphasizes the necessary attainmentof knowledge; for herself,its forgetting. Her response to herstudents' guilt is unexpect- edlyprotestant. Sherecommendsworkas a way of transforming liberal embarrassment,whichshe refers to as a "benevolent" or wishful position, into something moreefficacious."Theholdersof hegemonic discourse should...themselveslearnhowto occupy the subjectposition ofthe other," sheadvises,"rather than simplysay, 'O.K., sorry, weare justvery good white people, thereforewedonot speak for the blacks.'"36 Subject- positions can belearned, she implies ina burst of pedagogicaloptimism. Butthen Spivak isasked by anintervieweraboutherown subject- position: "How is it possible to avoid a politics of representation,speaking fororonbehalfofother women,retaining their specificity, theirdiffer- ence, whilenot givingup ourown?" Spivak isnotsonaiveas to believe that "a politics of representation" can be avoided;rather, she proposes an endless process ofself-criticism or self-delegitimation."My project," she replies, "is ... un-learning our privilege as ourloss,"37 "unlearning one's privileged discoursesothat. ..onecan beheard by people whoarenot withinthe academy."38 Workmattersbecauseitcarriesoutthedouble task of unlearning one'sowndominance by acquiringspecific knowledge about others,andthen,using this knowledge,continuouslyundoinggen- eralizationsabouttheOther. "Unlearning,"therefore, isalsowhather students'hard work entails. Thereis somethingsurprisinglysimple about thiscommitmenttoeducational agency. To herself,toother feminists, andtoherstudentsin American universities, she assigns theintellectual labor of learning the"immense heterogeneity"39 of persons"elsewhere," stressing its effortfulness:"it hasto bechartedout verycarefullystepby step."40 Youmust "[do] your homework"sothat you willhaveearned, throughyour intellectualwork,the right totalkabout oppressedper- sons: Iwill haveinan undergraduateclass, let's say, a young, whitemale student, politically-correct, who will say: "I am only a bourgeois white male, Ican't speak." ...I say tothem: "Why not develop a certain 36. Terry Threadgold andFrances Bartkowski, "The InterventionInterview," interview with Gayatri ChakravortySpivak, inThe Post-ColonialCritic: Interviews,Strategies,Dialogues, ed.Sarah Harasym(NewYork, 1990),p. 121. 37.Elizabeth Grosz,"Criticism, Feminism,andtheInstitution,"interviewwith Spivak, inThe Post-ColonialCritic, p. 9. 38.Walter Adamson,"TheProblemofCultural Self-Representation," interviewwith Spivak, inThe Post-ColonialCritic, p. 57. 39. Spivak, "FrenchFeminisminanInternationalFrame," InOther Worlds: Essays in CulturalPolitics (NewYork, 1987),p. 136. 40.Grosz, "Criticism, Feminism,andthe Institution,"p. 9. Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions370Julie EllisonA Short Historyof LiberalGuilt degree of rageagainst the history thathaswrittensuchan abject script for you that you aresilenced?" Then youbegin to investigate whatitisthatsilences you, ratherthantakethis very deterministic position-sincemy skin colouristhis,since my sexis this,I cannot speak.41 She puts herstudentsinthe paradoxical situationof having to choosebetweenliberal guilt andcurativelabor, as though a littleknowl- edge oftheworld producesguilt buta great dealof knowledge leadsto the process of unlearning that resultsina changed subject-position. Ex- cept when-likethestudentswho try her patience-she is saying she doesn'tknowwhatto say(seeepigraph),Spivak takesherown pangs ofliberal guilt as spurs tohistorical study andtheoreticalrevision-the laborious entry feethat the privileged intellectual pays in orderto partici- pate infeministorsubalternstudies."The strategicobjective of being 'outside'isnottobeoutside theory buttobeitsexorbitant object," Bhabharemarks in a similar vein,"to overcomethe pedagogicalpredict- ability of thesententious professor" ("PA,"p.57). Guilt spawnstheory. Asthe structuring of painfully interrelatedin- formation,theory induces guilt. And,theseacademic ethnographers of liberal guiltpropose, sucha symbioticrelationshipmight be productive. Giventhe apparentuniversality of racially inflectedembarrassmentin theU.S., Williams and Spivak publicize the hope for agency intheweb of powerinequitiesknowinglyexperiencedpublicly andacross racial dif- ferences.Liberalismof anyvariety is perceived nowassuicidalinthe domainofelectoral politics,partly becauseitis equated withthe abject dynamics of liberal guilt. Meanwhile, liberal guiltgains legitimacy inuni- versity seminars,notasasocial program, butasa significantobject of study. Its status as a worthyobject is enhanced by our participation init. It is aboutourselvesas well as everyone else, particularly thoseof us who rememberthe period of its emergence,probably whenwe ourselveswere in college. The flourishinggenre ofacademic autobiography aimedat connecting memoirandsocial history findsliberal guilt not only central to ourcollective politicalmemory butalsoan appealing blendof politics andsensation.Another significant shifthasbeentheturnfromdecon- structingsubjectivity to promotingagency. Larry Grossberg deplores the politics ofthe eighties as "political po- sitions [that] existas entirely affectiveinvestments,separated from any ability to act." If the right "depoliticizes politics, it also repoliticizesevery- day life" bysetting intomotion"affective epidemics" of"moral panic" that occupypernicious "structures ofidentificationand belonging." But Grossberg triesto imagine formsof "agency" that permit a returntoac- tion by theleft,andthusherecommendssocial feeling asthebasisfor 41. Sneja Gunew,"Questions ofMulti-culturalism," interviewwith Spivak, inThe Post- ColonialCritic, p. 62. This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWinter1996371 positivechange. Hecalls for an endto identitypolitics in favor of a prag- maticcallforcoalition, constituting a"we" that emerges fromawide- spread senseof"affective subjectivity" anda willingness ontheleftto speak with "authority."42Grossberg thusdefendshimself sentimentally against an oversentimentalized society. He fights one strategy of inappro- priatefeeling with counterfeelings thatarevicariousinadifferent way. Hiswork exemplifies thecurrent dialogue betweenleftist critique and transvaluationsof feeling. Academicscannowtalk openly aboutembar- rassmentsthatmembersofmostother professions mustcensor,elected officials mostof all. Buteventheseacademicconversationsare fueled by institutional settings that reproduceguilty silences.The dynamics oflib- eral guilt testifiedto by Williams and Spivak areoneofthe primary or- ganizing forces in thelate twentieth-centuryclassroom,inseparable from thecontroversiesover political correctness.Thereareno settings, in otherwords, in whichantiracist positions can evade apology. 42. Grossberg, WeGottaGet Out of This Place: Popular Conservatismand PostmodernCulture (NewYork, 1992),pp.281,284,377,380. Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 129.49.250.35 on Sun, 17 May 2015 07:05:41 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions