How can Trump Republicans—like Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, to cite but two notable examples—justify the cruel and psychologically abusive separation of children from their parents at the US border, simply because those parents crossed into our country seeking asylum as undocumented (“illegal”) immigrants? It’s not principally a matter of their values. The content of morality is very important, of course. But of at least equal importance is an appreciation of to whom and for whom that moral content applies. I call this the “circle of caring".
Human behavior reflects, in large part, a struggle between the impulses of our “caveman brain”—the brain that evolved many thousands of years ago—and our capacity for “humanistic psychology”—the consciousness that comes with advanced civilization, reflection, and profound introspection. It seems that the “evolutionary psychology” that comes with our caveman brains pushes us towards a small circle of caring. In the strictest evolutionary terms this means a morality relevant only to our particular gene pool. This certainly includes our family (at least for those among us who are not psychopaths, and who therefore care for no one and no one’s future except themselves).
The commitment that “normal” people have to “family” is, from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, arranged in a precise descending order across extended family as a function of relative genetic overlap: Thus, our children are a higher moral priority than our nieces and nephews, who are in turn a higher priority than the children of unrelated persons. But evolutionary psychology does not stop there when it comes to a broader circle of caring—call it altruism if you will. It also resulted in a self-interested commitment to members of our community, those upon whom we depend for our own survival (translated as “for the survival of our genetic heritage”). Beyond that? Evolutionary psychology cannot take us much beyond that, and certainly not to a globalized circle of caring (in part because psychology in the evolutionary period did not involve much beyond family, clan, and community—and perhaps eventually, race).
In contrast to evolutionary psychology, humanistic psychology aspires to a circle of caring that extends beyond an individual’s narrow gene pool as defined by direct genetic heritage. It seeks to create a moral space beyond self-interest, and even beyond the altruism of indirect genetic self-interest. For Americans, confronting globalized issues like immigration can stimulate the expansion of circles of caring to global proportions, by building upon “traditional” American values like justice, liberty, and equality, and upon “universal” values like caring for children. Or, it can bring out the caveman worst in us.
One impediment to the humanistic development is the fact that “global sociopaths” play a significant role in our political life. While true psychopaths are rare, and have virtually no circle of caring, sociopaths are more common, and are distinguished by the fact that they do have a circle of caring in which they may operate “morally.” However, outside that circle they demonstrate the same moral insanity that is at the core of being a psychopath. Enter Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders—and Donald Trump, and, apparently, much of the Republican Party. A poll shows some 60% of Republicans support the policy (as opposed to 6% of Democrats and 27% of Independents).
Appeals to biblical morality (for better—“Suffer unto me the little children”—or for worse—“the law is god given”) are not enough if the core problem lies with a small circle of caring. How can otherwise “moral” and “good” people justify and rationalize the barbaric and abusive treatment of the immigrants at the border who come seeking asylum from violence, trauma, and poverty in their homelands? They can do so without sacrificing or even compromising their “values,” by virtue of the fact that their circle of caring does not include these parents and their children. Once you accept the proposition that these are not “our” children, the moral battle is already lost.
The policy of separating children from their parents as an exercise in political leverage makes sense in a way that has never been captured better than by the 19thcentury Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky when he put these words in the mouth of a character in his book, The Brothers Karamazov:
“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature - that baby beating his breast with its fist, for instance - and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?” (Dostoyevsky, 1952, p. 126-127)
Whether it be said sadly or gladly, with respect to the physical or emotional torture of children, anyone who said “yes” to the child separation policy is saying “yes” to the question posed by Dostoyevsky more than a century ago.
This passage from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov captures one of the most important human rights issues for children because it seems in every instance of political violence, leaders (usually on both sides) consistently answer “yes” to the question, “Would you consent?” They justify and rationalize their “yes” vote precisely along the lines that Dostoyevsky suggested, namely that this act of violence is necessary because by engaging in such terrorism we “are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last.”
Just this one time, they ask, suspend your moral objections to the torture of children in the name of the greater good, the higher principle, national honor, liberation from oppression, defense of the homeland…”secure borders.” Just this once. And just this time. And just in this case. But it never ends. No discussion of the human rights of children can proceed until this point is swallowed, digested, and absorbed. Without it, child protection is always a hollow reed in the political arena.
The only remaining questions are these if this barbaric practice is to stop: Will enough Republicans enlarge their circle of caring to “claim” these children? Will Independents and Democrats allow this to continue unabated through “politics as usual” (in the Trump era meaning “politics as unusual”). Answers please, America!
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James Garbarino is the author of 26 books and is currently writing a book entitlted “Globalization from the Outside In: A Psychological Perspective on the American Experience (University of California Press)
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