h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's two aspects to guilt, one is the sociocultural aspect, the other is the ontological.
I state that guilt is a "made" feeling, this means, it is not a feeling such as hunger or lust, which are inscribed into our genetic code, but it is a sociocultural phenomenon. Once feeling them there is no difference noticeable between one or the other. One can tell them apart only by looking at other species; if one can detect the same behaviour in other species, that's a good bet it's a natural feeling. After all what separates us from the other species on this planet is also our society, which is unique.
So guilt was like, for example: shame, made by society to regulate certain functions and actions. It is a mechanism to control. Euphemistically put: it is a mechanism to protect. The function behind it is that it's supposed to prevent us from harming others. It might have to do with punishment, I think that guilt is a closed system though and does not rely on fear of punishment. It is itself punishment enough.
The function is obsolete though, because one doesn't need guilt to prevent one from harming others. Far in contrary, guilt even provokes harm.
To explain this we must make a little excursion to the ontological characteristics of guilt. Guilt is a polar phenomenon, this means it has always two sides which are involved, the guilty and the damaged. A guilty person has almost always made himself guilty in front of somebody else. The person, that is damaged is usually the one that blames. Most harm to others is made because of unresolved feelings of grudge, this means because one is damaged and found no way to make the guilty accept his guilt.
Would the popular feeling of guilt be eliminated such problems would not occur and the same human society would remain (one that is fairly peaceful), only that people might be happier. These problems would not occur, because simply enough a damaged person does not seek to blame others, because she doesn't apply our bipolar system of guilt. This way no grudge could be built up and no revenge feelings could emerge from the grudge.
Now to the rest of the ontological characteristics of guilt. The basis for guilt is responsibility. One can only feel guilty for something for which one also feels responsible. Guilt is not as immediate as other feelings are, one has to intellectualise it, otherwise it can not be felt. (strange hybrid between a feeling and a thought) To be able to feel guilty of something one must accept ones responsibility for the action in question.
Second is that there must be someone damaged, and someone blaming. these must not be the same persons, the blaming party might even be the guilty one, which is the worst form of guilt.
Following a holistic theory of the world, everybody is able to change anything at any time. This means everybody has a responsibility for everything, because all is connected. This also means that everyone can be blamed for everything. This means that everyone is guilty of everything. I'm guilty of the death of small Rahjapuura in Bangla Desh in this exact moment. I will not feel bad about it out of two reasons, first is not of high morale though very human I think: Nobody blames me for it, not even myself, coz I don't give a s**t. Second is: I could not foresee it, even if I would have gone to Bangla Desh to feed R. by spoon personally, I would not have known if no Bonn resident I would have died hadn't I unconsciously saved his life.
I say I am responsible even though I could not foresee it, because retroactively I know now that I could have prevented it.
I'm even guilty of things that happened before I was born. You could make a logic chain (would be very long and complex) proving that writing was invented in order to make me happen. This works for everybody so it's not worth getting megalomaniac on every SINGLE human being being the crown of creation.
So we are not only guilty of everything that happened before we were born but of EVERYTHING up to now! We're responsible for it, the only difference between this and guilt is somebody who blames, which is not controllable and random.
Facing these statements, that guilt is random and its sociocultural function would also be fulfilled by the absence of guilt, I say that guilt does not exist.