Copyright 2001, Colin C. Tipping

Generational Guilt
Groups and even nationalities commonly repress ac-
cumulated generational guilt. Without doubt, this is the
case now with black and white Americans over slavery.
The racial problems we now experience in America all
stem from the unresolved and repressed guilt within
white people and unresolved and repressed rage in the
blacks.
The Dark Side
We also experience intense shame over aspects of our-
selves that we dislike and, therefore, disown. 
 
Carl Jung,
the famous Swiss psychiatrist, referred to this as our
shadow
, because it represents the dark side of our-
selves, the part that we do not want to see or to have
seen. This part of ourselves could kill another human
being, knows we could have taken part in the killing of
six million Jews had we been German during that time,
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knows we might have owned and brutalized slaves had
we been born white in the South before the Civil War,
could hurt or rape someone, is greedy or avaricious, is
rageful and vengeful, or is in some other way deviant
or unacceptable. Any such characteristic of ourselves,
or area of our lives that brings us feelings of shame,
we classify as our shadow and then repress it.
Sitting On a Volcano
Repressing this kind of energy is like sitting on a vol-
cano! We never know when our strength will give out,
thus allowing the lava (shadow) to spurt forth and wreak
havoc on our world. This explains why we need to bring
in a scapegoat on whom we can project all that shame.
That way we can be free of it, at least temporarily.
2. Projection
Even when we have repressed the feelings and/or
memories associated with a life event, we know, on an
unconscious level, that the shame, guilt, or self-criticism
associated with it remains with us. So we attempt to
rid ourselves of that pain by 
taking it out
of ourselves
and transferring it on to someone, or something, else
outside
of ourselves. This projection process allows
us to forget we ever possessed such feelings.
Fig. 7: 
Projecting Our Repressed Shame
Projecting
Self Righteous
Indignation,
Anger and
Judgment
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Once we project what we do not want to own onto some-
one else, we see them, rather than ourselves possess-
ing those qualities. So, if we repress our guilt and then
project it, we make that person the wrong one. If we
repress our anger and then project it, we see them as
the angry one. We can accuse them of all the things
we feared we would be accused of ourselves. No won-
der we feel so relieved when we project! In so doing,
we make someone else responsible for everything ter-
rible that happens to us or for what we see as negative
about ourselves. Then we can demand that they be
punished, so we can feel even more righteous and safe
from attack.
This explains why we love to watch the news on televi-
sion. The news provides us with an opportunity to
project all our guilt and shame on the murderers, rap-
ists, corrupt politicians, and other 
bad 
people we see
on the screen. After doing so, we can go to bed feeling
okay about ourselves. The news, and all the other tele-
vision programs that feature 
bad
people and situations,
endlessly provides us with convenient scapegoats upon
whom to project.