This alienation is one manifestation of the spiritual crisis in American society; the deprivation of meaning and purpose in every aspect of daily life. So deep is the crisis that we are no longer able to recognize it — it seems to be built in to the structure of "reality," a basic fact about the way things are.

Much of what we call "pathology" in our society is a response to that deprivation, from crime to drugs and alcohol — from hooliganism at sports events and rock concerts to reactionary nationalism, from racism to xenophobia to homophobia, to all the hostility directed at people who are different. . . . But we should not deny the reality that a great deal of what the dominant society considers inexplicable behavior is often an irrational response to a quite real desperation people feel in their lives, rooted in a desire to overcome the terrible feeling that their own lives are meaningless and empty and that the world feels lonely and pointless.

Michael Lerner, Spirit Matters