Responsibility Without Guilt Colonialism

Sor Juana's writings refuse the trap of performative penance that absolves structural sin; she demands systemic change, not theatrical guilt. In climate discourse, wealthy nations and individuals often respond to climate injustice with guilt-driven consumerism—buying electric vehicles, supporting carbon offsets—while defending the fundamentally extractive systems that caused breakdown. True responsibility means different things for different actors: wealthy governments must radically decarbonize and provide climate reparations; corporations must divest from fossil fuels; wealthy nations must cease resource extraction from the Global South. This concept rejects the guilt-washing narrative where Northern consumers perform environmental virtue while systemic extraction continues. Global responsibility, through Sor Juana's lens, means structural accountability: Indigenous peoples determining land use, workers controlling transition decisions, colonized nations controlling their resources. It's not about individual moral purity but redistributing power and resources to those most harmed.