Goodwin on Alienation

It is clear that Goodwin has courageously reached into the core of what he described as the United States being “on the verge of a national deterioration.”

Goodwin mentions several symptoms of our decaying society, including the alarming increase in political and government corruption, crime, greed and the expansive use of drugs. He appropriately points to the fact that our “current epidemic of lawlessness and random violence” is due to “an erosion of that sentiment--best known as empathy--that links our feelings to the distress of our fellow human beings. But empathy is in short supply these days.”

Indeed, these two words, feelings and empathy , describe functions of the human mind seldom mentioned by political commentators and government officials.

Unfortunately, little attention will be paid to Goodwin’s penetrating and mature analysis. Why? Because we are living in a sick society. Our leaders put more emphasis on indoctrinating our students into accepting greed and narcissism in our money culture as the norm of the democratic process, instead of developing an enlightened public opinion so that the citizens of our country, as distinguished from our government, can grow beyond the immature emotional level of our current political and social leaders.

Instead of promoting a feudal mentality, we should be teaching democratic mindedness and cooperation.

ARNOLD MADDALONI

San Diego