I recently stumbled upon an advertisement featuring a young woman with her eyes covered by a Kraft Dinner box. She is licking her lips, and the caption reads "a guilty pleasure." Beside this slogan is a box of macaroni and cheese. For some reason this advertisement shocked and offended me. It took me a while to decipher the root of my angst. I finally got it: it gets me mad that the term "guilty pleasure" even exists, because you should never feel guilty for being happy (unless you get happy from twisted and possibly illegal things, in which case you should seek help).
My only conclusion from this strange commercial is that we live in a society in which it is deemed normal, and even necessary, to feel guilty for doing anything that is remotely pleasurable. This is most obvious in food and diet advertising. Their message is that you should eat lots of cheap junk food, feel guilty and remorseful for doing so, and then sweat out your tears at an expensive gym, then repeat. Some commercials don't even try to hide their "guilty pleasure" messaging. For example, I remember this one TV commercial in which a delivery man brings pizza to a party, and along with it a bottle of Pepto Bismol. There! Now you can devour guilt and pleasure at the same time.
The term "guilty pleasure" also stems from religion. Coming from a Catholic background, I have become used to the mentality that things should be consumed in strict moderation. And there is a limit to what these "things" can be. Maybe I'm reading the message wrong, but this idea has become so embedded in me that I often feel guilty for things that are normal or even beyond my control. Take the seven deadly sins, for example. Gluttony is one of them. But isn't gluttony an "over-enjoyment" of wealth and food? Isn't lust a desire for sexual pleasure, and pride a feeling of confidence? Couldn't all of these things considered "guilty pleasures"? And don't we all as humans succumb to them from time to time? As German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out, the very concept of Christianity is founded on guilt (refer to: On the Genealogy of Morality).
Now to deal with the term "guilt," which I notice is one that comes up very frequently on this blog. We feel guilty for doing things that we consider immoral. You steal a shirt from a store, and you feel guilty about it afterwards (but not in all cases, as everyone has different morals). Sometimes, you can feel guilty for being responsible for someone else's emotions. For example, you dump your boyfriend of x number of years, and although it's not morally wrong, it still makes you feel like you've done something wrong. The third type of guilt is one that stems purely from your thoughts. This guilt is the most difficult to handle because it is sometimes tricky to pinpoint the root of the problem. An example of this is "mind reading" or feeling responsible for things that are beyond your control. You can feel guilty for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and while you may be forgiven, you do not forgive yourself, in which case the guilt grows and then lingers like a pest.
In my opinion, all forms of guilt begin in the mind. The guilt then spreads its fingers across your skull and works its way down to your throat, suffocating you, before it is swallowed like a rock. Guilt sits in your stomach like a boulder and it cannot be dissolved. It is the most bitter emotion, and it is one that dominates our society. We have reached a point where the courts get away with injustice, and the innocent suffer an internal battle, because it is usually the most innocent that carry the most guilt (as if they were lugging the rocks for both the criminals and the victims, which means that the innocent ones are the strongest). Why don't the guilty ones feel remorse for what they do? Because they are diseased, like alcoholics A true alcoholic will never admit that he is one, until he seeks help. A truly guilty person will never admit that he is guilty, until he acknowledges that he has done wrong.
Guilt and anxiety work arm in arm, and they lure the weakest into their jaws. Society teaches you to make rash decisions, then feel guilty for making them, and then worry about being guilty, which leaves everyone in the same ship... the "what is wrong with me?" ship. Unfortunately, this dismal ship cannot set sail because it would drown at sea, as its whole fleet consists of innocent people who have rocks in their stomachs and who are drunk on pity. Is that why the "nice ones finish last"? Because the truly guilty people feel no remorse at all, and they can set sail and venture the ocean, whilst not being truly strong at all?
The Kraft Dinner lady feels guilty for eating pasta with powdered cheese and 2% milk. It will add roughly one size to her waistline. She feels guilty for breaking her diet, and she feels guilty for her husband not loving her anymore. And so she sets foot on the "what is wrong with me?" ship, and joins her fellow rejects on a journey to nowhere. The failed-diet ladies and anxious bachelors come to a dead end, all for the sake of indulging in a "guilty pleasure"- an illusion created as a cheap marketing scheme. An illusion created by the guilty mind of the innocent.
My only conclusion from this strange commercial is that we live in a society in which it is deemed normal, and even necessary, to feel guilty for doing anything that is remotely pleasurable. This is most obvious in food and diet advertising. Their message is that you should eat lots of cheap junk food, feel guilty and remorseful for doing so, and then sweat out your tears at an expensive gym, then repeat. Some commercials don't even try to hide their "guilty pleasure" messaging. For example, I remember this one TV commercial in which a delivery man brings pizza to a party, and along with it a bottle of Pepto Bismol. There! Now you can devour guilt and pleasure at the same time.
The term "guilty pleasure" also stems from religion. Coming from a Catholic background, I have become used to the mentality that things should be consumed in strict moderation. And there is a limit to what these "things" can be. Maybe I'm reading the message wrong, but this idea has become so embedded in me that I often feel guilty for things that are normal or even beyond my control. Take the seven deadly sins, for example. Gluttony is one of them. But isn't gluttony an "over-enjoyment" of wealth and food? Isn't lust a desire for sexual pleasure, and pride a feeling of confidence? Couldn't all of these things considered "guilty pleasures"? And don't we all as humans succumb to them from time to time? As German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out, the very concept of Christianity is founded on guilt (refer to: On the Genealogy of Morality).
Now to deal with the term "guilt," which I notice is one that comes up very frequently on this blog. We feel guilty for doing things that we consider immoral. You steal a shirt from a store, and you feel guilty about it afterwards (but not in all cases, as everyone has different morals). Sometimes, you can feel guilty for being responsible for someone else's emotions. For example, you dump your boyfriend of x number of years, and although it's not morally wrong, it still makes you feel like you've done something wrong. The third type of guilt is one that stems purely from your thoughts. This guilt is the most difficult to handle because it is sometimes tricky to pinpoint the root of the problem. An example of this is "mind reading" or feeling responsible for things that are beyond your control. You can feel guilty for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and while you may be forgiven, you do not forgive yourself, in which case the guilt grows and then lingers like a pest.
In my opinion, all forms of guilt begin in the mind. The guilt then spreads its fingers across your skull and works its way down to your throat, suffocating you, before it is swallowed like a rock. Guilt sits in your stomach like a boulder and it cannot be dissolved. It is the most bitter emotion, and it is one that dominates our society. We have reached a point where the courts get away with injustice, and the innocent suffer an internal battle, because it is usually the most innocent that carry the most guilt (as if they were lugging the rocks for both the criminals and the victims, which means that the innocent ones are the strongest). Why don't the guilty ones feel remorse for what they do? Because they are diseased, like alcoholics A true alcoholic will never admit that he is one, until he seeks help. A truly guilty person will never admit that he is guilty, until he acknowledges that he has done wrong.
Guilt and anxiety work arm in arm, and they lure the weakest into their jaws. Society teaches you to make rash decisions, then feel guilty for making them, and then worry about being guilty, which leaves everyone in the same ship... the "what is wrong with me?" ship. Unfortunately, this dismal ship cannot set sail because it would drown at sea, as its whole fleet consists of innocent people who have rocks in their stomachs and who are drunk on pity. Is that why the "nice ones finish last"? Because the truly guilty people feel no remorse at all, and they can set sail and venture the ocean, whilst not being truly strong at all?
The Kraft Dinner lady feels guilty for eating pasta with powdered cheese and 2% milk. It will add roughly one size to her waistline. She feels guilty for breaking her diet, and she feels guilty for her husband not loving her anymore. And so she sets foot on the "what is wrong with me?" ship, and joins her fellow rejects on a journey to nowhere. The failed-diet ladies and anxious bachelors come to a dead end, all for the sake of indulging in a "guilty pleasure"- an illusion created as a cheap marketing scheme. An illusion created by the guilty mind of the innocent.
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