Can Only a Self Psychologist Save Us?

When I was little I was sure that once I was all grown up the world would no longer feel like a scary place. Maybe I just did not grow up enough—if anything, the world feels scarier to me now. Back then, at least, I was convinced that all the bad guys lived far away. But today, as Walt Kelly's Pogo so aptly put it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

This enemy-who-is-us, our democratically elected government, often acts in ways that strike me as cynical, ruthless, and morally reprehensible. I am overwhelmed not only by fear, but also by shame, rage, and hopeless despair when I think of the hands throughout the world, once extended toward us in friendship, that are now clenched into threatening fists. I want to cry out that I should not be counted among those who justify the invasion of Iraq as a “preemptive strike,” believe that some forms of torture are acceptable, turn a blind eye to the suffering of our most vulnerable and needy citizens, or encourage the greedy practices that ravage our planet. However, I know my words would fall on deaf ears. Unlike the Jews of the Exodus, no sign of the lambs on my door, or even one that says, “I didn't vote for them,” can mark me as innocent. Many I did vote for enacted equally deplorable policies.