Professor Glaude, thank you for this timely reminder of Baldwin’s warning about the “death of the heart.” But Baldwin also leads me to a deeper question: is selfishness merely an epidemic that has overtaken the American Dream, or has it always been embedded within it?
From the enslavement of one human being for another’s prosperity, to the extermination and displacement of Indigenous peoples so that others might inherit their land, American progress has repeatedly been achieved at another person’s expense. The free market did not invent this moral logic; it translated it into an economic virtue, teaching that private accumulation is freedom and that the suffering beneath it is either deserved or irrelevant.
Perhaps the past forty years have not created this selfishness so much as removed its restraints and sentimental disguises. The moral monsters Baldwin described may therefore be more than a departure from the American Dream. They may represent its historical logic brought to its ultimate conclusion.
Trump is the Icon of Irresponsibility, the Don of Denial, the Boss of Blame & Excuses. People follow him 'cuz he models & enables people to speak & follow their darkest thoughts without guilt. Destroying the US & raping children is a credit to him with those followers
Staff writer for The Atlantic, David Brooks’ has a new video podcast that launched this week. It’s called The Permanent Questions and it sounds like he’s taking, head on. exactly what Dr. Glaude discusses in this post.
Gift link to the article in The Atlantic introducing The Permanent Questions video podcast below.
I would say that wyt Americans have only gotten more cruel and hard hearted since integration. Dr. King’s fear of integrating into a burning house has been realized.
MLK was a psyop just like George Floyd, jews wrote his speeches (Levinson) trying to rile up blacks against their main enemy Western White Christians they see as Rome who destroyed their temple in 70AD. Blacks really think the Jews were trying to help them by starting the NAACP. No, it was to use them as weapons, then discard them.
Yes, America was never a moral nation, but one in which some whites bestowed citizenship on themselves while simultaneously murdering and enslaving non-whites under the guise of Manifest Destiny. Until enough people are willing to set the record straight on that fabrication and then translate that truth into laws that rebuff the white supremacist myth of the nation, America will continue to be a cesspool of the Neo-Confederates.
Whites were so kind they granted blacks citizenship and continue to give them welfare but all blacks will do is bitch and complain about victimhood as the jews taught them to do.
The Professor states eloquently where we are. But what to do? Start a movement? Maybe, but there are things at hand, more immediate. Look, really look, at persons you encounter, anywhere. Ask a simple question and then listen, really listen with your heart as well as your ears and eyes. You will hear their pains, their dreams and yes, they’re genius, their spiritual gifts, then do it again and again. Carrie, what you hear in your heart for a little while but not forever you’re not trying out to be Atlas. Pray over what you hear pray over what’s in your heart. Because if you throw my words away with a snare, you’re stuck in the quagmire you despise.
Reflection on: An Epidemic of Selfishness (Sep. 14, 2026)
Professor Glaude, thank you for this piece.
As always, I finished reading it with more questions than answers and maybe that is part of what makes your writing so valuable.
A few questions stayed with me:
• What history do we carry with us, and how does it shape the way we see ourselves, each other, and the society we have built?
• How do we reclaim the idea of freedom from simply looking after ourselves and reconnect it to dignity, mutual obligation, and responsibility for one another?
• Where do we create the everyday spaces and institutions where people can actually experience cooperation and shared responsibility and how do we build those at a scale large enough to matter?
• And how do the many organize across race, class, gender, and nation when so much of our politics depends on keeping us divided?
I keep coming back to Baldwin:
“History... is not merely something to be read... we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do... it is to history that we owe our frames of reference.”
—James Baldwin, The White Man’s Guilt
Maybe this is where the conversation about community has to begin. We cannot build a different kind of community without confronting the history that taught us to see some people as more valuable than others, and taught us to understand freedom primarily as individual self-interest.
If history lives in us, then perhaps rebuilding community means becoming conscious of what we have inherited and deciding together what we want to carry forward and what we need to leave behind.
Malama Kō Aloha= Take care of your love, your heart. The last words of my ancestor Chiefess Warrior Manono as she died in battle along side her husband. It was a civil war when colonial western Influence had created riffs causing ruptures amongst leaders. Im trying to grasp and learn more about who I am and my ancestors who were being erased from their home land and their lands. I am living ve in both realms Hawaiian/American. It is in storytelling sitting with my Uncle that Im learning more and more. But it takes time and reverence and deep listening to begin to take it in and integrating it is also allowing and process and accepting who I am.
Solidarity, community, compassion, realizing we're all connected and one. Trying to solve problems and build up. We used to be a "can do", at our best we tried to be anyway. Now you talk like that and get looked at like Martian. It's disgusting.
Your summation is more optimistic than I have been able to muster. Hope, nowadays, feels more like a ruse than an invitation to possibilities. Power, it seems, has supplanted all other values in this country and it’s a growing contagion of sorts. I still dream, though.
Thank you for saying so clearly that liberty is code for selfishness. In my mind, libertarians are like a kids who got a whiff of “freedom” when they first got out into the world—went to the movies with friends, learned to drive—and thought “I’m free! I can do anything I want.” It’s a child’s way of thinking that you’re supposed to grow out of.
My son was asked to define “freedom” in his liberal arts college, and came up with this: “I will be free once I fully understand how to live in a way that works best for me and everyone else around me.” He nailed it. Freedom linked to community by definition.
Obviously your son was not caught up in the “ winner takes all “ approach to what a good society ought to be . In college , I remember a discussion of Hegel’s “ freedom is the recognition of necessity “ . Would it be necessary to support a criminally inclined despot just because he happened to have acquired enough electorial votes to win an election ? Or would it be necessary to do the greatest good for the greatest number - or whatever necessity means .
I still find it difficult to reconcile the same nation that brought forth the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift after WWII , with turning fire hoses and dogs on our own citizens , killing civil rights activists and a host of other anti charitable actions that have stained our history . I want to see the “ goodness” in our collective nature , but turning a blind eye to the injustices we perpetrate is not the answer . By confronting the mistakes we make , we may be able to forge a better future - it is necessary to do so .
Professor Glaude, thank you for this timely reminder of Baldwin’s warning about the “death of the heart.” But Baldwin also leads me to a deeper question: is selfishness merely an epidemic that has overtaken the American Dream, or has it always been embedded within it?
From the enslavement of one human being for another’s prosperity, to the extermination and displacement of Indigenous peoples so that others might inherit their land, American progress has repeatedly been achieved at another person’s expense. The free market did not invent this moral logic; it translated it into an economic virtue, teaching that private accumulation is freedom and that the suffering beneath it is either deserved or irrelevant.
Perhaps the past forty years have not created this selfishness so much as removed its restraints and sentimental disguises. The moral monsters Baldwin described may therefore be more than a departure from the American Dream. They may represent its historical logic brought to its ultimate conclusion.
Trump is the Icon of Irresponsibility, the Don of Denial, the Boss of Blame & Excuses. People follow him 'cuz he models & enables people to speak & follow their darkest thoughts without guilt. Destroying the US & raping children is a credit to him with those followers
Staff writer for The Atlantic, David Brooks’ has a new video podcast that launched this week. It’s called The Permanent Questions and it sounds like he’s taking, head on. exactly what Dr. Glaude discusses in this post.
Gift link to the article in The Atlantic introducing The Permanent Questions video podcast below.
https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/2026/09/atlantic-launches-new-podcast-david-brooks/688601/?gift=xXaCwcaslYOXS94pShtp8HOovQCB7kwZw7kMD98z6ms
Real talk!
I would say that wyt Americans have only gotten more cruel and hard hearted since integration. Dr. King’s fear of integrating into a burning house has been realized.
MLK was a psyop just like George Floyd, jews wrote his speeches (Levinson) trying to rile up blacks against their main enemy Western White Christians they see as Rome who destroyed their temple in 70AD. Blacks really think the Jews were trying to help them by starting the NAACP. No, it was to use them as weapons, then discard them.
Agree, around the world .
Important read, as you’ve put your fingers on the pulse of another yet indicator of our national rot.
That’s exactly what this - gimme gimme gimme selfishness and will eat their own for more
Yes, America was never a moral nation, but one in which some whites bestowed citizenship on themselves while simultaneously murdering and enslaving non-whites under the guise of Manifest Destiny. Until enough people are willing to set the record straight on that fabrication and then translate that truth into laws that rebuff the white supremacist myth of the nation, America will continue to be a cesspool of the Neo-Confederates.
Whites were so kind they granted blacks citizenship and continue to give them welfare but all blacks will do is bitch and complain about victimhood as the jews taught them to do.
I abhor the uncorrected, grammatical flaws above, but the meaning stands. EV
The Professor states eloquently where we are. But what to do? Start a movement? Maybe, but there are things at hand, more immediate. Look, really look, at persons you encounter, anywhere. Ask a simple question and then listen, really listen with your heart as well as your ears and eyes. You will hear their pains, their dreams and yes, they’re genius, their spiritual gifts, then do it again and again. Carrie, what you hear in your heart for a little while but not forever you’re not trying out to be Atlas. Pray over what you hear pray over what’s in your heart. Because if you throw my words away with a snare, you’re stuck in the quagmire you despise.
Reflection on: An Epidemic of Selfishness (Sep. 14, 2026)
Professor Glaude, thank you for this piece.
As always, I finished reading it with more questions than answers and maybe that is part of what makes your writing so valuable.
A few questions stayed with me:
• What history do we carry with us, and how does it shape the way we see ourselves, each other, and the society we have built?
• How do we reclaim the idea of freedom from simply looking after ourselves and reconnect it to dignity, mutual obligation, and responsibility for one another?
• Where do we create the everyday spaces and institutions where people can actually experience cooperation and shared responsibility and how do we build those at a scale large enough to matter?
• And how do the many organize across race, class, gender, and nation when so much of our politics depends on keeping us divided?
I keep coming back to Baldwin:
“History... is not merely something to be read... we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do... it is to history that we owe our frames of reference.”
—James Baldwin, The White Man’s Guilt
Maybe this is where the conversation about community has to begin. We cannot build a different kind of community without confronting the history that taught us to see some people as more valuable than others, and taught us to understand freedom primarily as individual self-interest.
If history lives in us, then perhaps rebuilding community means becoming conscious of what we have inherited and deciding together what we want to carry forward and what we need to leave behind.
Un abrazo, cruz
Malama Kō Aloha= Take care of your love, your heart. The last words of my ancestor Chiefess Warrior Manono as she died in battle along side her husband. It was a civil war when colonial western Influence had created riffs causing ruptures amongst leaders. Im trying to grasp and learn more about who I am and my ancestors who were being erased from their home land and their lands. I am living ve in both realms Hawaiian/American. It is in storytelling sitting with my Uncle that Im learning more and more. But it takes time and reverence and deep listening to begin to take it in and integrating it is also allowing and process and accepting who I am.
Solidarity, community, compassion, realizing we're all connected and one. Trying to solve problems and build up. We used to be a "can do", at our best we tried to be anyway. Now you talk like that and get looked at like Martian. It's disgusting.
Your summation is more optimistic than I have been able to muster. Hope, nowadays, feels more like a ruse than an invitation to possibilities. Power, it seems, has supplanted all other values in this country and it’s a growing contagion of sorts. I still dream, though.
Thank you for saying so clearly that liberty is code for selfishness. In my mind, libertarians are like a kids who got a whiff of “freedom” when they first got out into the world—went to the movies with friends, learned to drive—and thought “I’m free! I can do anything I want.” It’s a child’s way of thinking that you’re supposed to grow out of.
My son was asked to define “freedom” in his liberal arts college, and came up with this: “I will be free once I fully understand how to live in a way that works best for me and everyone else around me.” He nailed it. Freedom linked to community by definition.
Obviously your son was not caught up in the “ winner takes all “ approach to what a good society ought to be . In college , I remember a discussion of Hegel’s “ freedom is the recognition of necessity “ . Would it be necessary to support a criminally inclined despot just because he happened to have acquired enough electorial votes to win an election ? Or would it be necessary to do the greatest good for the greatest number - or whatever necessity means .
I still find it difficult to reconcile the same nation that brought forth the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift after WWII , with turning fire hoses and dogs on our own citizens , killing civil rights activists and a host of other anti charitable actions that have stained our history . I want to see the “ goodness” in our collective nature , but turning a blind eye to the injustices we perpetrate is not the answer . By confronting the mistakes we make , we may be able to forge a better future - it is necessary to do so .