Freud wrote that “the initial helplessness of human beings is the primal source of all moral motives.” If caring for the newborn, a stranger on arrival in this world, is our most primal human ethic, it serves the survival of the group. The biblical command that “you shall not wrong nor oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” and the admonition “to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” express core values of compassion for the vulnerable in the Judeo-Christian faiths (as well as in other matriarchal religions). As Warren Poland observes as well, “one’s sense of self as an outsider, a stranger, is an inescapable part of human life.” But in groups, we’re on guard against others who are not-like-us. If we let the outsiders in, will they throw the insiders out? The outgroup might bring back estranged parts of ourselves. As psychoanalysis opens new doors to our social unconscious, why isn’t our collective conscience more welcome?

Stan Case, LCSW, PhD, is a consulting analyst and analyst of candidates at SPSI and NPSI. His paper titled “Weaving our Webs—Untangling our Truths” will be published in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis. He is in practice in Edmonds, Washington.