ABSTRACT
The expression of unbridled indignation in personal relations is, often directly detrimental to whomever may be the object of the rageful sentiment. Self-righteous anger can stimulate reprisal and retribution rather than correction. But it can also be poisonous to the very one experiencing and expressing the indignation. As Roth's story illustrates, such micro-traumatized and micro-traumatic relating can cause further psychic bruising and eventually lead to full-scale blindness that may indeed instigate trauma with a capital T. The fear of misrecognition, of prejudice ending in persecution, pervades the fictional Messner family and the climate of the post-World War II United States. The psychoanalytic literature addresses indignation in such forms as moralism, self-righteousness, moral outrage, problems in the development of moral values in childhood, resentful entitlement, and narcissistic rage. As early as 1921, Schmalhausen railed against the self-importance, intolerance, and self-congratulation inherent in a moralistic response.
