We are not okay: Moral injury and a world on fire

We are not okay: Moral injury and a world on fire
American Journal of Bioethics, by Keisha S. Ray; 4/24
Moral injury gives name to a feeling that I have been having lately as I’m asked to show up to work and my life as if there aren’t people who didn’t wake up today because of violence, disease, and greed. I’ve celebrated holidays and my own professional accomplishments, but I can’t escape that lump in my throat, that nagging feeling that this is all meaningless given the state of the world. After all, my principles won’t feed the starving, shelter the bombed, free the captive, or care for the sick. I don’t have the answer. I do not know what we are supposed to do about our perpetual moral injury. I do find some comfort in the origins of moral injury—calling out a broken system rather than broken individuals (Talbot and Dean Citation 2018). I am not broken; I am just a bioethicist and a human forced to work and live within a broken world.