GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT

Somewhere between the courtroom and the kitchen table, between the breaking-news headline and the whispered suspicion, humanity picked up a devastating habit: the reflex to accuse first and ask questions later-if at all.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent is a sharp, witty, and unflinching examination of how accusation became the default operating system of modern life. From ancient scapegoat rituals to social media lynchings, from political purges to the quiet destruction of trust between lovers, Boris Kriger traces the many ways we have turned blame into a universal language-one that requires no evidence, tolerates no defense, and never quite washes off.
Drawing on philosophy, psychology, evolutionary science, and formal systems theory, Kriger dismantles the machinery of guilt: the cognitive biases that make suspicion feel like insight, the media algorithms that turn rumor into verdict, the political systems that manufacture enemies to stay in power, and the intimate relationships where love slowly curdles into surveillance. He shows how externally imposed guilt burrows inward, becoming a merciless inner prosecutor that no amount of innocence can silence.

Keywords: guilt, accusation, justice, blame, forgiveness, presumption of innocence, restorative justice