[3] Bruckner acknowledges Western sins including racism and slavery, but points out that the west is also responsible for the creation of such things as civil liberties, modern democratic government and abolitionism.
"[4] The problem with the tyranny of guilt, according to Bruckner, is not the West is without sin, but that the Western culture of remorse is a disabling form of narcissism that makes it impossible to effectively criticize contemporary non-Western violations of human rights.
"[4] Douglas Murray describes Bruckner's characterization of the tyranny of guilt as a form of self-flagellation, a kind of moral intoxicant that "People imbibe because they like it...
"[3] This ideal caught fire beginning in the 1960s, reinvigorating Western leftism with the idea that the United States and Israel are the great oppressors, and uniting the European Left, and the Islamic Republic of Iran in a world view according to which "the Jew has become the Nazi, the Palestinian the Jew and radical Islam is now the victim of Western democracy and not its executioner.
"[3] Bruckner sees the beginnings of "sexual apartheid" in Europe in such things as the institution of separate hours for men and women at public swimming pools.