Beautifully put. If you are not writing or teaching for a living, please reconsider your current career. You’ve missed your calling!

It’s important to distinguish between circumstances, like the breakdown of a ship’s sewage handling systems, and willful acts, like making a citizen beg for basic Constitutional and human rights. The first is no affront, being an act of God or Nature. It is a burden, it tests resilience, but it is only a matter of dignity if one person chooses to denigrate another, or if a person’s self-worth is tied to superficial things. The second is a direct affront to the dignity–the worthiness–of another. To tell a person that he has no right to speak out against oppression,, that he has no right to defend himself, that he has no safety against capricious prosecution, strikes directly at the core of human worth, those inalienable rights that are necessary to live as a human being ought.

Could we add “in the air” to that and reflect on the inherent indignity of the TSA check point?

A politics centered on dignity would mark a vast improvement over the kindergarten babble that passes for serious argument these days. Indeed, we could do a lot worse than choosing our leaders based on who carries himself or herself with the greatest degree of dignity. And we could do a lot worse than making policy based on its effect on the dignity of those whose lives and futures it would affect.

Thoughtful article.