Eco-friendly Scapegoats

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates how collective guilt can be wielded to undermine the potential of and desire for collective action—how, paradoxically, collective guilt can be a powerful individualizing force. Through analysis of public relations campaigns and marketing, I illustrate how corporations have intentionally employed rhetorics of personal responsibility to contain political pressure and diffuse demands for more corporate accountability. The strategic dispersal of accountability into individual acts of “eco-friendly” consumerism both provoke and alleviate collective guilt for the individual, yet mitigate environmental damage in only the most minimal and marginal of ways. Collective guilt, I argue, calls for collective action.