Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Denny's 7

Finally (for now), as I was writing the latest chapter of Fagin Dupree, I came across a situation I didn’t know if there was a term for. Is there some word or expression for collective guilt? What I mean is, say Homer Simpson did me wrong. I decide to take my revenge on Bart, not to hurt Homer vicariously, but because I feel that Bart, in the family, is guilty of the sin too. Sort of a “Dynastic Blood Guilt.” For much of history (and even today in many parts of the world) this was an established practice, so it seems like there has to be a word or term for it, but I don’t know what it is. 50 cool points for anyone who can give me the write answer, or in lieu of that, what SHOULD be the right answer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe the term you are looking for is 'Blood Feuds'.

Anonymous said...

only thing I can think of is "guilt by association" which is a Red Herring and not admissable in court.

Peter was assumed to be guilty because he knew Christ but he denied him thrice.

Anonymous said...

I believe in Italy they call that situation a Vendetta. You have it against a whole family. It is essentially a blood fued, I think that may even be the translation, but alas, I am too lazy to discover if this is true or not.