A similar default on the responsibility of judgment can be seen in the notion of "collective guilt," whereby guilt is assigned to all people in a given category for the misdeeds of certain of its members. This notion and its collectivist implications are inculcated at an early age, when (for example) an entire classroom is punished for the misdeeds of a few mischief-makers. Because young children often do not yet have well-developed self-esteem, they are particularly vulnerable to peer pressure. Rather than determining the culprits and encouraging her other charges to celebrate their individuality, the teacher takes the "easy way out," using the drive to conformity as a disciplinary tool. The damage inflicted by her unjust, immoral policy may survive for years or lifetimes.

The notion of "collective guilt" infects popular views of history and society as well. Some would denounce all Germans for the evils of the Nazis, including Germans born long afterward. Others would condemn all white people for the historical enslavement of blacks, demanding that they all should pay the price for their ancestors' sins. (Ironically, such condemnations reflect the same kind of collectivist thinking that gave rise to the evils of Nazi oppression and antebellum slavery.) Still others declare that "all men are rapists" or denounce the whole human race on the basis of the "original sin" of Adam and Eve. As we have demonstrated, however, human actions originate not in social groupings but in individuals (pp. 2.4:3-14). Consequently, responsibility resides not in groups but in individuals. Justice demands that we condemn individual Germans, individual slaveholders, and individual sexual predators.