Can We Ever Learn to Trust Again?
On moral injury.
There’s a question floating around. It’s been incubating for a while.
Even if we ended the pandemic for real, stopped the genocide, and came up with a miracle solution for the climate crisis, would we ever be the same? Would we ever look at people the way we used to?
Would we enjoy their company?
Would we trust them?
For many of us, the answer is no. We’ll never look at our friends and families the same way. We’ll never pass a stranger without tensing up. We’ll never relax over a cup of coffee with old acquaintances. They decided to put their own superficial wants over our health and safety, insisting they were justified every time. They didn’t just do it once. They did it to us over and over again.
For some of us, it’s always been like this.
There’s a name for that feeling.
The term moral injury emerged from studies on trauma, specifically in veterans. In 1994, Jonathan Shay originally defined it as the "betrayal of what's right, by a person who holds legitimate authority in a high-st…