What is Moral Injury?

     Donald Trump, before his election bragged that he wouldn't loose a single follower if he pulled out a gun in Times Square and shot someone. Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Phillipines, repeatedly brags about having murdered several suspected drug dealers, and encourages his people to do the same. Trump and Duterte have a lot of supporters at home and abroad. 
     How do you feel when you hear about such things?

     "The sorrow, grief, and rage you feel is a measure of your humanity and your evolutionary maturity. As your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal."       Joanna Macy

      “… moral injury is an essential part of any combat trauma that leads to lifelong psychological injury. Veterans can usually recover from horror, fear, and grief once they return to civilian life, so long as ‘what’s right’ has not also been violated.”
        Jonathan Shay. “Achilles in Vietnam. Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character.” Scribner, NY, 1994.

     "Moral injury is 
     • the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass when that person perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that transgress their own moral and ethical values or codes of conduct
     • disruption in an individual’s confidence and expectations about one’s own or others’ motivation or capacity to behave in a just and ethical manner
     • the inability to contextualize or justify personal actions or the actions of others and the unsuccessful accommodation of these … experiences into pre-existing moral schemas
     • a deep soul wound that pierces a person’s identity, sense of morality and relationship to society."
       The Moral Injury Project - Syracuse University http://moralinjuryproject.syr.edu/about-moral-injury/

     See also: "Ignoring 'Soft Skills' & Moral Injury": http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2016/03/ignoring-soft-skills-moral-injury.html

Alexia Foundation http://www.alexiafoundation.org/stories/tradition-womens-rights-and-circumcision-in-guinea-bissau-africabr

Politicians & Health-care Professionals - What Really Impacts Society?

     Politicians & health-care professionals, mining companies & environmentalists, agribusiness & organic food advocates, and a growing list of seemingly opposing forces all uniformly claim to serve society's best interests. After the hot air evaporates, only the actual behavior matters - how much it decreases (or increases) humanity's suffering.
     Regardless of group affiliations, it is the level of each individual's consciousness that determines the quality of behavior. Situations that highlight this point abound: individuals in peace movements being violent; individuals in right-to-life movements murdering doctors who perform abortions; and the ongoing obscenity of individuals massacring in the name of their religion. Such behavior is the antithesis, not only of the groups to which these people claim allegiance, but also of modern civilized society.
     These individuals are at a very early level of psychosocial (character or personality) development. Their behavior is literally primitive. 
     Each of us is hard-wired for, and fully capable of, a stunning range of behavior - from rabid animal to fully-enlightened saint. This is because we all think primarily at one of two basic levels: a fear-based brain-stem fight-flight-freeze level much like an alligator; or a wisdom-based prefrontal cortex mature judgment level much like a wise composed modern human being.
     We rapidly devolve when circumstances cause us to prioritize "me, myself & I" or "my tribe, cult, gang, religion etc" - values, self-respect, laws, long-term plans, other people & the environment be damned.
     We're also capable of rising (evolving) to the level of civilized homo sapiens sapiens, prioritizing the welfare of other human beings, animals, the environment - transcending the default egocentric mode, and behaving in an allocentric / ecocentric manner. 
     MOST IMPORTANTLY, we have direct individual responsibility for both our immediate behavior and the trajectory our evolution of consciousness over our lifetime.

     See also: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/04/basically-good-yet-misbehaving-human.html
    
Carl Cameron's "Prosperous Day" music video: