Introduction to the Industry of Guilt

There is a lot of money to be made from people feeling bad - from aggressive charity advertising campaigns (Brave Kirsty, anyone?) to the expectation attached to Valentines Day, it's one hell of a money-spinner.  Guilt manifests itself in so many elements of people's lives - imagine a suicide.  The average person wonders what they could have done to prevent it happening, oft not even thinking of how the person who died must have felt.  This guilt could be rectified slightly by a teaming floral tribute, or a donation in some way to redress the balance - or even at some greater emotional cost.  Consumerism and expenditure are great ways to alleviate those negative vibes.

There's a lot of scope here - many avenues to explore.  Family guilt (anyone who has forgotten Mothers Day will know exactly what I'm talking about - it's not the giving that makes you look good, it's the failing to deliver that makes you look bad) is a huge one.  It's not all about profit - it's about losing the senses as well.  The expecting mother who refuses treatment for her cancer in order to protect her unborn feotus - to wilfully harm the child would make her feel bad, so she instead risks her own life and also runs the risk of rendering her child motherless.  Guilt can make you behave irrationally.   How would you feel in Church if you ignore the collection plate and refuse to donate your money to God (or at least towards the renovation of the roof of God's house)?  It's guilt isn't it?  You cross someone in a big way - what better way to say sorry than with a big elaborate gift?

Guilt is all about compensation.  Emotional or consumerable.  You feel bad - you redress the balance.  People don't act rationally from guilt - it manifests itself in so many ways throughout our lives.  You and a colleague go for a promotion - you get it.  Dunno about you, but I've been there and I felt terrible for the other person.  Terrible to the extent that I wished she had got the job.  There's something amiss there isn't there? 

A car crash - boy there is guilt to be drained from that.  Driver survives - gonna buy a big ol' floral tribute to put on the central reservation.

That cat in a cage, saved by the RSPCA - for just 2 a month, you can feel good about yourself again.

You're a father of the family - you want a lovely sports car to accompany your mid-life crisis.  NAH - you want the car that seems the safest - otherwise you're putting your family at risk and how bad would you feel about that?

The threat of guilt is marketable as well.  Kids like cheese-strings - they don't like ASDA smart price chewy cheese (I may have to patent that one).  Do you want your child to be bullied for the type of cheese he or she eats?  Nope?  Then buy a big name brand! 

Am I on to something here?  By the end of the year I would like to have a collection of twelve stories on this theme - under the title of "The Industry of Guilt."  Not only will this give me the opportunity to play around with the way I write, I hope it will inspire other writers to join me in this task.  I don't want to write all of the stories - I want others to help me do it.  Give me your take on this - join in, help out - lets see what we can make here! 

The project now has a website ( http://industryofguilt.sytes.net ) where all of the Industry of Guilt stories can be found, and we have a plethora of writing talent on display now, with several more having signed up recently.   This myspace page is here to support the main website and to spread the word of the project, to enlist new people and to present a selection of the work written in the name of the Industry of Guilt.

It's an open remit - just read what we have here and on the site and do what you want to do.  The main goal is to get this work published eventually - and once we have a good enough proposal I intend to take this to the Arts Council and beg them for financial support.  We want writers, artists and photographers - WE WANT YOUR GUILT!

So welcome to the Industry of Guilt...