Guilt-edged view of history

 

Guilt, guilt, guilt. Guilt, guilt, guilt. (Can be sung to the tune of 70s band Sailor’s “Girls” if you are in that space.)

Everywhere you look listen or read, more guilt being  heaped upon us for a misspent life before wokeness, hot yoga, gender pronouns, etc

The recent one is the inquity of body-shaming programmes, even those which did not directly set out with a shaming mission, such as America’s Top Model. This, hosted by Tyra Banks, features a parade of lovely young hopefuls trying to ascend the ladder of catwalk success in their six-inch heels. Even the boys. Or those who identify as ... whatever. It started in 2003 and is now in its twenty-somethingth season. My daughter as a teenager absolutely loved it, and I didn’t mind sitting down with her sometimes to reflect on how different life might have been if I’d had cheekbones like geometry (copyright Lloyd Cole) and a figure like, er, trigonometry.

But I was wrong, I was bad, negligent, a cruel mother, I hear them saying on the radio. How could I have left my young filly watch all these high-stepping thoroughbreds and see their 34-22-34 shapes and endless legs and enormous eyes set the standard for female beauty? It does strike me that if you follow this argument to its logical conclusion then the Venus de Milo will be permanently shrouded in dust sheets and various reclining nudes and Botticelli angels should no longer be on display. 

However … guilt is not a particularly positive emotion, and “experts confirm” this. “Excessive guilt is one of the biggest destroyers of self-esteem, individuality, creativity,” declares  PsychCentral, and he/she/it should know.

Yet it often seems these days that there is a global crusade for new causes of guilt, to make us all regret just about everything that happened in the world before, say, last year. Statues to slavers? Shame. Ads promoting cigarette smoking? Horror. Exhortations to “housewives” to be ready with his slippers and a whisky when hubby comes home? Mirthless disgust.

But, one thing the global jury of human behaviour does not take into consideration is context. Times change. In a trivial example, classic mullet hairstyles are no longer cool; but they were once. We can chuckle as we look at the 1970s footage of the Bay City Rollers, but nobody is having a conniption and declaring that they should have all had fluffy Ed Sheeran or smooth Mark Ronson hair. Different standards prevailed.

Likewise in offices, where a bit of male slap and tickle with the female secretaries was once considered a perk of the job, we have, mercifully, arrived at a place in social development where the oppression and subjection inherent in this is clear. In schools, children are no longer given a slap when they misbehave.

This is not to say that any of the above should come back. They should stay firmly buried in the past. But don’t crush yourself with guilt that they ever happened. Pace Einstein, but time’s arrow currently goes in only one direction.