“Better not to plant seeds of selfishness than try to eradicate them once they have grown into giant weeds.”

–Prem Prakash

If you’re carefully listening, watching, and reading about our country these days, you’d think “America” might start:

My country ’tis of Me;

Give Me My liberty;

Of Me I sing.

Seriously, we have become a more selfish society. Self-centered. Egocentric. Self-righteous. Have you noticed? What I want is what’s most important. Don’t tell me what you want, please.

Maybe it started with Thomas Harris’s I’m Okay You’re Okay, published in 1967. For those of you who weren’t around or don’t remember the late 60s, they were the original version of what we’ve been living through since the Floyd incident–the moment that seemed to give license to anarchic behavior on city streets in America. Rioting. Looting. People behaving badly.

Harris posited transactional analysis as the way to solve one’s life problems. He named three ego states: Parent, Child, and Adult. Your ego state and how you relate to others represent the balance of internal versus external influences.

Simply put, the ego, instinctively driven by the id and modulated by the superego, determines one’s interactions with others. The problem is this: For some today–or many, depending on your news sources–the id is in control.

That would explain the instinctively animalistic behavior of people who brazenly rob stores, steal cars, and cold-cock or shoot people. Inhumane behavior. To be sure, this is a microscopic percentage of our nation’s people, but they garner a lot of attention and may be standing at the top of a very slippery slope.

It must be the id that drives parents’ instinctive urge to protect their children, with that urge inappropriately unleashed when they yell at coaches and umpires if their kids are pulled from a game or a call is missed. Or, they go off on a teacher because their child didn’t get the grade they hoped for, even though it was the one they deserved. Not criminal behavior (in most cases), but embarrassing conduct nonetheless.

A more civilized expression of egocentricity would be, “I’ll do what I please, or what makes me feel good and/or secure.” Witness the advent of safe spaces on campuses and in work places. I’m here, but in my cocoon, and let’s not have a dialogue about issues and beliefs. I’m pretty sure “Don’t Tread on Me” was meant for 18th century England, not for our fellow citizens!

We can blame the lawlessness and incivility we’re seeing today on fewer law enforcement officers, cash-free bail, and/or weakness in our judicial system and those sworn to enforce it, but it’s deeper than that. Some individuals, or mobs of people, feel entitled to wreak havoc on society. They take no one into consideration except themselves, and have no shame in doing so.

Individuality is important, to be sure, but what makes someone an “individual” is how they compare and relate to other people; that is, how they function within a social construct or the greater culture. If you believe Freud’s theory, the superego’s role is to make sure the individual behaves in a way compatible with what is considered acceptable social behavior. Today, we’re seeing a lot of antisocial behavior … a whole lot.

Jesus taught those who followed and listened to him, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it (Luke 9: 23-24).” In other words, we must die to ourselves. What??? Who would entertain such an idea? If you think some Christians struggle with that notion (and they do), think of how it must go over with people who profess such a vacuous doctrine as atheism.

Where are the “adults in the room” who will intercede and tell someone what they’re doing is wrong and unacceptable? Coaches and teachers once did, but now their hands are tied as to how much discipline they mete out or criticism they offer.

As with many societal issues, the answer is in the home. Children need to be raised to express their individuality, but in a way compatible with the greater social order. It takes parents, grandparents, and extended family to do that. Loved ones whom the child respects or, at least, fears. We need to get back to emphasizing the value of a two-parent family … or community (not government, please!) support  of single-parent families. That’s how we’ll raise a generation of children who will act like responsible adults when they grow up.

It won’t happen overnight; rather, it will take years. But the effort is worth it.

We should start today.