LOCAL>> Virtual Class: Janine di Giovanni – Moral Injury and its Personal Consequence

Discover the five things I’ve learned about naming and understanding moral injury and about surviving its personal consequence.

Hosted via Zoom • Live • 1:00pm PT • $40

I’m an author, an analyst, and — currently — a Professor of Practice of Human Rights at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. But first, and always, I am a reporter. I write long-format narratives, mainly about war and the politics of conflict.

In August 2020, Harper’s Magazine published my essay, “On Moral Injury,” in which I sought to give name to a single, shared scar common to all war zone participants — a scar that Dr. Anthony Feinstein, with whom I’ve worked closely, describes it as: “an affront to your moral compass based on your own behavior and the things you have failed to do.”

Moral injury is a branch of trauma that affects individuals forced to witness an event that goes against their moral core: A soldier, for example, who during war time is forced to witness torture; a mother who sees her children bullied; journalists who witness terrible atrocities and must face choices between their obligation to help and their duty to observe, and who many remain haunted by their decisions for years afterward.

In a collective sense, moral injury can similarly impact groups of people — citizens, for example, whose political values differ drastically from their country’s leaders and who feel deeply offended by lying, cheating or injustice in their political life.

In this ninety-minute class, I will look more closely at moral injury, and focus on what I’ve seen when individuals — and communities — believe they have significantly failed to live up to their own ethical standards. I’ll illustrate the psychological damage inflicted by this ethical dilemma with stories from my own career as a frontline journalist. I’ll address the responsibilities that journalists have toward their subjects, and that news organizations should their similarly have to their reporters.

I will also explore some extended dimensions of moral injury, including for example, the moral injuries that the COVID-19 pandemic will likely inflict on us all in the months and years ahead.

(More detail and introductory video at website)