It’s not a conservative thing, it’s a human thing. In order to confront the contradiction, you have to be willing to deal with what that contradiction MEANS. Cause it often means that you were hurting someone, and that will make you feel bad, and your brain really doesn’t like feeling bad. Like, it really really doesn’t like it and will try to reject anything that doesn’t make the bad feeling go away. Ironic, since the fastest way to deal with the guilt is to accept that you caused harm and won’t now that you know it.
Generally speaking feelings felt are feelings processed. The avoidance of the feeling is indeed the thing that keeps the feeling there in an unchanged state (waiting to be processed).
You’re absolutely right that the fastest way to be free of some guilt is to acknowledge what you did and atone for it, and that atonement often means feeling that guilt in as unfiltered a form as possible.
Kinda like quitting cigarettes. The only way out is through that withdrawal you keep putting off with each new cigarette.
