From Grievance to Justice by William Droel

Each of us experiences frustrations. We complain that the line in the grocery is too long and it was a mistake to shop, or that the neighbor’s dogs bark all day and a move to a “no pets” apartment would have been wise. In his book The Age of Grievance, author and New York Times columnist Frank Bruni makes the case that a “victim syndrome” underlies the divisiveness in our society.

Grievance goes beyond feelings of “bad luck.” We can normally get past daily frustrations with an utterance under our breath or a little wine at night. Grievance, however, is the belief that I have “been wronged,” as Bruni writes. It has damaging psychological and social repercussions. Grievance is excess agitation and excess sensitivity. It leads to “wildly disproportionate outbursts” and perhaps conspiracy theories. They are out to get me, the aggrieved person suspects. Grievance is “an all-encompassing lens” through which past hurts regularly reappear. It is, unfortunately, a conflation of “the picayune and the profound.”

Grievance is also different from bad luck in that it reduces frustration to fault in others. An aggrieved person only sees that someone is above or ahead of them. The advantage, the aggrieved person quickly concludes, has been unfairly gained at their expense. An example is someone who complains that their tax dollars go toward assisting those “lazy, illegal migrants.”

Although he is our whiner-in-chief, Donald Trump did not start the grievance trend. Bruni mentions the French diplomat and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured the US in the 19th century and recorded his generally positive impressions in the book Democracy in America. However, de Tocqueville pointed out that people on our shores are forever “brooding over advantages they do not possess.” The “grievance trend” has steadily increased since the late 1960s as our culture and our economy have tilted away from organic communities and heavily toward individualism.

We no longer live in a Garden of Eden. There is bad luck, sin, and dysfunctional institutions all around. However, children can still learn to navigate life and thus develop a healthy disposition as adults. The psychoanalyst Erik Erikson named multiple stages of human development. The crucial first one he identified as “trust versus mistrust.” That is, a child must come to believe that the world is generally a reliable place, that its scrapes and bumps and slights can soon enough be hopped over. Trust and thus happiness are achieved with dependable parents and a circle of good playmates.

Of course, Donald Trump doesn’t help matters with his harangues about scams and rigged processes and fake news and polluted institutions and “losers.” But Bruni goes beyond Trump’s pessimism to provide other examples of aggrieved behaviors. He mentions those young adults who have a hyper-craving for safety. They want a buffer against what they consider offensive language, against teachers who present a full range of literature or history, against guest speakers with opposing views. A key word for these young adults is hurtful.   

In addition to Trump, other forces are fueling grievance, Bruni observes. For example, elements of the self-help movement have morphed into a presumption that “all feelings are presumed meaningful and warrant a group’s attention.” This hypersensitivity assumes a right to be “protected from disappointment,” leading perhaps to temperamental antics by groups or individuals.

The massive wealth gap is another accelerant because it undermines our country’s promise of upward mobility. The gap hits home through an array of cultural signals like elite seating at stadiums, concierge health-care arrangements, displays of opulence in magazines and on TV, executive-only washrooms, and the like. Bruni also mentions the prevalence of dystopian movies and internet sites in which destruction and end times are depicted. These films support pessimism and justify grievance.

Don’t misunderstand. There is injustice in the world, the healthy response to which is the virtue of social justice. It is unhealthy to respond by fantasizing villains lurking all around, by hallow displays of annoyance or by posturing oneself as a victim. Social justice is organizing like-minded people for improved policies and institutions. It requires competence, an end game, and a good-enough-for-now plan B. ♦

William Droel is the editor of Initiatives, a printed newsletter on faith and work (sign up for a free subscription here). His book Public Friendship can be obtained from National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $5). Ed Marcinaik’s City and Church, referenced in this article, is also available from NCL ($20).

Image: Pawel Janiak / Unsplash