I had been undecided about meeting my former co-writer for coffee this Saturday. Part of me felt obligated. Another part of me felt heavy, resistant, uneasy.
Then I watched a video that made the decision for me.
An ICE agent ran over a man’s foot while taking him into custody. The video was horrific — not only because of the physical violence, but because of how casual it was. How normalized. How devoid of empathy.
As soon as I saw it, my body reacted before my intellect could intervene.
I texted him:
“Hi A, I’m sorry, but I’m not able to meet up for coffee this Saturday. I hope you, K, and P are doing well.”
After I sent that message, something unmistakable happened: my inner child felt a weight lift off her body.
She didn’t want to sit across from someone who stands with the same type of oppressors that terrorized her in childhood and youth — and later tried to destroy her after I published A Dance to Freedom.
His reply was polite:
“Oh, too bad! I hope all is okay. We’re leaving town for a bit before Christmas, but we’ll be back on the 21st.”
I didn’t answer.
There was nothing left to say.
We have debated for years. If someone still hasn’t found the courage to see and feel by now, no amount of eloquence will open their eyes. Intelligence alone does not liberate. Often, it does the opposite.
Intellect Without Feeling: The Most Dangerous Combination
This man helped me write A Dance to Freedom — but only through rationalization and compartmentalization. I’ve written about him before under different names:
He is brilliant. Sharp. Persuasive.
And emotionally blocked.
As Paracelsus once said:
“I wonder how the high colleges managed to produce so many high asses.”
That line keeps echoing in my mind.
The problem in our society is not a lack of knowledge.
It is an emotional blockage.
We are surrounded by educated professionals who hide behind theories, rationalizations, and seductive intellectual frameworks to avoid feeling their own pain. Intelligence becomes armor. A shield against truth.
Alice Miller warned us about this decades ago.
Why Ordinary People Commit Atrocities
Karl Stoika, an Auschwitz survivor, said something that cuts through every illusion:
“It was not Hitler or Himmler who abducted me, beat me and shot my family.
It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor, who received a uniform and then believed they were the master race.”
That is exactly what we are witnessing today.
ICE agents. Border Patrol. Police forces.
Ordinary people given uniforms — and permission.
Violence is not born from ideology.
Ideology is the excuse.
The real source is childhood repression.
Alice Miller Explained This With Unbearable Clarity
In For Your Own Good, Alice Miller wrote:
“If the child learns to view corporal punishment as a ‘necessary measure’ against ‘wrongdoers,’ then as an adult he will attempt to protect himself from punishment by being obedient and will not hesitate to cooperate with the penal system.”
That obedience becomes cruelty when paired with authority.
She made it clear that intellectuals are not immune. In fact, they are often more susceptible because intelligence allows endless rationalization.
That is why figures like Heidegger could not see the obvious contradictions of Nazism.
That is why educated professionals cooperate with violent regimes.
That is why ICE agents can run over a human being’s foot and keep moving.
As Miller wrote:
“Our capacity to resist has nothing to do with our intelligence but with the degree of access to our true self.”
Reenactment Compulsion: Why This Keeps Happening
Unresolved childhood trauma does not disappear.
It repeats.
Those who were humiliated will humiliate.
Those who were beaten will beat.
Those who were terrorized will terrorize.
Alice Miller put it plainly:
“The unconscious compulsion to revenge repressed injuries is more powerful than reason.”
This is why dictators arise.
This is why cruelty spreads.
This is why uniforms are so dangerous in the hands of emotionally frozen adults.
Why My Inner Child Was Right
My inner child did not want to drink coffee with someone who still rationalizes cruelty.
She has had enough of explaining herself to people who use intellect to justify blindness.
Alice Miller gave us permission to withdraw:
“If we hate hypocrisy, insincerity, and mendacity, then we grant ourselves the right to fight them wherever we can, or to withdraw from people who only trust in lies.”
Walking away was not avoidance.
It was self-protection.
The Root Problem
The great malady of our society is not ignorance.
It is the idealization of parents and childhood, and the denial of childhood suffering.
When suffering is denied, it mutates into:
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violence
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addiction
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obedience
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cruelty
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greed
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war
With all the information available today, ignorance is no longer innocent.
It is chosen.
As Alice Miller wrote in Banished Knowledge:
“We are daily producing more evil, and with it an ocean of suffering that is absolutely avoidable.”
The Only Way Out
Only the unflinching realization of one’s own childhood reality can break the chain.
Not forgiveness.
Not theory.
Not intellect.
Truth.
“The body does not understand moral precepts. It fights against the denial of genuine emotions and for the admission of the truth.” — Alice Miller
My inner child knows this.
That is why she said no.
And this time, I listened.
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