And yet, since dignity - understood as recognition - is something that must be conferred, two other assumptions about the human condition must be made: first, homo sapiens are inclined in some respect to regard one another as equals; and second, they cannot live optimally without having some form of relationship with each other. Indeed, both these ideals - that we are an egalitarian and social species - have become so commonplace in many parts of the world as to sound like hackneyed New Age notions.

What is of immediate interest to me as a psychotherapist is that the dominant political trend of our time - identity politics - is profoundly psychological, being organised around the injured dignity of oppressed groups. Each group, that is, claims a misattunement between a felt group identity and an outer world that rejects it. For proponents of identity politics, therefore, the problem of dignity turns on a society that is pathologically invalidating. Human beings are first and foremost social beings, and when social formations compromise the dignity of marginalised groups as a matter of routine, the consequences are devastating, involving either self-hating shame or envious resentment.

No matter their theoretical orientation, when psychotherapists receive therapists with warmth and humanness, it is aimed at restoring a sense of connectedness and, by extension, faith in the human family. To have this basic intuition of one’s relatedness to other people - however tenuous - is to know on an almost visceral level what it means to be human.

Yet, when we reflect on the previous chapters, each of the core concepts - shame, envy and impasse - stand for a psychological state, or emotion, that involves a pathology of relatedness. The shameful person cannot tolerate - let alone respect - their own wound, so they inflict wounds on others. The envious person cannot accept their dependency, so they destroy the only source of goodness in their life. And the person who finds themselves at an impasse is incapable of authentic human relating unless the relationship in question is defined by a degrading form of power. It is my submission that these are the dominant emotional tones of life in South Africa.

This point signals the important difference between idealism - when we maintain our values despite the odds - and idealisation - when we deny the odds altogether. To be a good citizen requires that we hold fast to what psychotherapists call ‘the frame’ - the set of conscious routines (for example, the time, duration and confidentiality of sessions) that make therapeutic work possible. In the context of conscious citizenship, it means showing up consistently and tolerating the frequently disabling anxiety that comes with living in this country. Sometimes we are the ones who bring the storm, at other times we are the ones who have to weather it, but we are always involved, implicated. There is not a moment in which something is not being asked of us, whether we are required to give a part of ourselves or receive a part of someone else.

The intentions are admirable. But why should we measure human development in this particular way? Some people might suggest that a measure of human development should include personal freedom, or the strength of religious belief (or its absence), or environmental awareness. Why? Or why not? Even if we agree that health, education and income are the relevant criteria, should we measure them in this way, and weight them in this way? Why? Or why not? The problem is not just that these are questions on which people might disagree. The problem is that it is difficult to see any criteria by which their disagreements might be resolved. The supposed objectivity of the measurement of human development— which is calculated to three places of decimals— is spurious.