JAMES CARROLL’S search for wholeness (“A sense of wholeness can cure our despair,’’ Op-ed, Sept. 12) fails promptly on a single pronoun. There is no “us’’ in the United States. There may never have been in a country founded on Enlightenment individualism. Certainly since the Civil War a vast minority of Americans have defined themselves as distinct from some despised “other.’’ The notion of otherness may have shifted in its details, but the sense of separateness and superiority remains.
Since the 1980s we have been treated to the lionization of greed. The rich are heroes whose selfishness is the morality of supermen. Sure, somebody should be cooperative, accommodating, and civic. That somebody is clearly not all of us, but rather the non-rich.
No thanks, Mr. Carroll. I didn’t start the class war. I don’t plan to surrender.
Joseph A. Martin
Somerville
