Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on "Guilt"


California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

April 11 2007
Georgetown University
Newsweek


So someone the other day just showed me a cartoon that was of a car salesman in a showroom talking to this couple. And the car salesman pointed at the car and said, "This car runs on an ordinary gasoline-powered engine, and then when it feels a little guilt, when it senses guilt, it switches over to battery power." Now, that’s funny, it’s a cartoon. But let me tell you something; there’s a lot of truth to that. For too long the environmental movement had been powered by guilt. 



But I believe that this is about to switch over from being powered by guilt to being powered by something much more positive, much more dynamic, something much more capable of bringing about major change. You know the kind of guilt I’m talking about; the smokestacks belching pollution that are powering our Jacuzzis and our big-screen TVs, and in my case powering my private airplanes. So it is too bad, of course, that we can’t all live simple lives like the Buddhist monks in Tibet. But you know something? That’s not going to happen. 



So ladies and gentlemen, I don’t think that any movement has ever made it and has ever made much progress based on guilt. Guilt is passive, guilt is inhibiting, and guilt is defensive. You remember the commercials a number of years ago, the commercials specifically of a Native American who sees what we have done to the environment and then a tear runs down his cheek. You all remember that? Well, let me tell you something; that approach didn’t work, because successful movements are built on passion, they’re not built on guilt. They’re built on passion, they’re built on confidence, and they’re built on critical mass. And often, they’re built on an element of alarm that galvanizes action. 



The environmental movement is, to use a popular term, about the tipping point. It’s about to get to the tipping point. There’s a tipping point, and I believe the tipping point will be occurring when the environmental movement is no longer seen as a nag or as a scold, but as a positive force in people’s lives.