'Guilty pleasures are overrated'

Guilt is a Judeo-Christian device that pagans don’t really get. Like the ancient Greeks, it is the culture of shame that drives most of the world, guilt being a more sophisticated (read: covert) lever used by society on unsuspecting individuals. But research from the University of Nottingham is now out to tell all of us — pagans and Chosen Ones — that guilt is good. We can hear Gordon Gekko chuckle.

But let’s hear the study out before flagellating ourselves. Feeling guilty makes one more amenable to cooperation. The inability to feel guilty leads to non-cooperation movements, say the boffins from Nottingham, ironically, once the home of the most guiltless man in tights, Robin Hood. But instead of Freudian patricidal feelings or any of Dostoyevsky’s homicidal axe-wielding students, the study used a more boring set of parameters to come to guilty pleasures: energy usage.

Among those who had consumed more energy in the survey than others, there were two reactions: one, of anger, leading to even more consumption; two, of guilt, leading to moderation. Without guilt, apparently, we would have left the lights on even during the day — as most people reportedly do in energy-rich, energy-gobbling guiltless America. So what’s our take? To quote the ever-guilty Franz Kafka: do not despair that you do not despair. Yes, shameful, isn’t it?