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.
That clip of James Baldwin is heartbreaking. This epidemic of selfishness you write about is not so much a new disease but a chronic condition we've carried with us from the beginning of the country. With greed as our god, with consumption as our goal, we promote, have always promoted, immorality and selfishness. We pretend to have a moral conscience. The few times we have shown ourselves to be compassionate---those were lapses. I find it interesting that you write about selfishness just like Gil Duran in his book The Nerd Reich---it's the greed that will kill us. And it's all the more disturbing that the villains claim to be sent by a higher power. Thanks, as always, for your truth.
Essential Messages from you Dr.Glaude and From James Baldwin! The immoral rot from white America has and still is the stench thst is destroying this country!
“a failure of feeling.” Yes. Reagan’s policies started this round, more than 40 years ago. This land belongs to all who have toiled on her behalf. Thank you for your words, Eddie.
I look around everywhere and am reminded of how Baldwin characterized the South on one of his visits there: we suffer from a malevolent poverty of spirit.
Thank you! This needs to be a part of our political discussions. Where is the heart in this? Who is not at the table who needs a voice? And, can we see “our community” is bigger than our particular church or neighborhood?
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.
That clip of James Baldwin is heartbreaking. This epidemic of selfishness you write about is not so much a new disease but a chronic condition we've carried with us from the beginning of the country. With greed as our god, with consumption as our goal, we promote, have always promoted, immorality and selfishness. We pretend to have a moral conscience. The few times we have shown ourselves to be compassionate---those were lapses. I find it interesting that you write about selfishness just like Gil Duran in his book The Nerd Reich---it's the greed that will kill us. And it's all the more disturbing that the villains claim to be sent by a higher power. Thanks, as always, for your truth.
Dr. Eddie,
I give you a big AMEN this morning!
Every child deserves adults who will stand up and stop being selfish cowards and assume the responsibility of saving our democracy!!!
On time
Essential Messages from you Dr.Glaude and From James Baldwin! The immoral rot from white America has and still is the stench thst is destroying this country!
“a failure of feeling.” Yes. Reagan’s policies started this round, more than 40 years ago. This land belongs to all who have toiled on her behalf. Thank you for your words, Eddie.
I look around everywhere and am reminded of how Baldwin characterized the South on one of his visits there: we suffer from a malevolent poverty of spirit.
Thanks for your words always.
Thank you! This needs to be a part of our political discussions. Where is the heart in this? Who is not at the table who needs a voice? And, can we see “our community” is bigger than our particular church or neighborhood?