Moral Indignation

“There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.”

                              Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

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I have to say

The air is full of moral indignation

I am full of it

As I am morally repelled by Trump

And disgusted by Comey

Who is a lie unto himself

I am ill when I think of the voter repression that is going on

In GOP states

And it is my excuse to hate

Hate them all

Hate them with the fervor of the righteous

But my moral indignation must be tempered

By looks in the mirror

At myself, and the times too numerous to county

When my life has not be marked by virtue

When I too have been seduced by power and success

And by a need, as with Trump, to be adored

My moral indignation must take into accounts my own ills

And those too of those I support.

I must remember that Hillary has not spoken out against Dakota Access

And the injustice visited upon Native Americans

It is a daunting task

To ask but what of this do I own?

How have I contributed to what is going on?

How have I been wrong?

How has my side been wrong?

Politicians can’t do it well

Nations do it poorly (think 911)

The church is perhaps the worst

Seeing oppression and exclusion of others as religious freedom (which is it not)

Perhaps we can’t really do

Perhaps we are truly doomed

To clothe our hatred as virtue

But we can always try

To look at the self in the mirror

We can always try

Right?