But political polarization is by no means the only growing pain exacerbated by anxieties about the future in urban, industrialized economies, where for many the boundaries between our professional and personal lives have all but disappeared.

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.

A human workspace, like all soulful endeavors, is based on the principle of friendship and so fosters friendship among workers, as well as an atmosphere of friendliness, an important cousin to friendship. Friendship is one of the main signs that soul is present, and yet some business owners and managers worry that friendship will slow production. Many workers feel inspired to do their work well because of the friends they have on the job.

It would not take much to bring soul to our society simply by being reminded of the importance of our work.

Even in the midst of civil strife and hard conversations, I try to return to the great humanistic declaration made by the Roman dramatist Terence: “I am human, and nothing human is alien to me.