Free to Dance

Earlier this month, I joined sixteen colleagues and friends of the Essential Partners to mark the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. We met at Conversation Place, Essential Partners’ annex across Kondazian Street, to pause, reflect, and share some of our thoughts and feelings about that historic, terrifying and tragic event and what has happened since.

In his opening comments, EP's Bob Stains referred to Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust concentration camp survivor and founder of existential therapy. Bob had recently spoken with a woman who led a therapy group for widows of men who were killed in the Twin Towers. She said that the widows found Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning (originally published as From Deathcamp to Existentialism), by far the most helpful resource for coping with the tragedy. His core message is that “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

I had not thought of Viktor Frankl for at least thirty years, but was instantly reminded of his story of a dancer standing in line for the gas chamber who chose to die by leaping away from the line and being shot while dancing. This image haunted and inspired me for many years.

That Sunday night at Conversation Place, one participant mentioned the image of two people holding hands while jumping from one of the Twin Towers, a riveting contemporary example of the inalienable freedom at the heart of Frankl’s philosophy. Facing imminent death, two people chose to die connected to another human being.

If some human beings can exercise meaningful choice in such desperate moments then surely the rest of us can find a way to do so when confronted by ominous, slow-moving trends where great danger is foreseeable but not imminent. I believe that the increasing polarization of our “public square” is such a trend, one likely to undermine the foundations and viability of our democracy—unless a critical mass of us takes steps to turn the tide.

Since our anniversary gathering, I have been taking to heart Frankl’s central question, “What does the situation ask of me?” How can I respond to the worrying changes of the last decade in ways that honor my concerns, the inclinations of my wisest self and my core values? What attitude can I consciously develop that will increase my engagement rather than my withdrawal, my determination rather than my apathy? Unlike the people in the towers, I—and you—have time to entertain such questions and exercise our core human freedom to take steps to stop the erosion of democratic institutions and practices while we can.