Commentary An attempt at imaginative sympathy with the situation of others is a duty of citizens of societies as varied and complex as ours: which is not quite the same as uncritically adopting their point of view, of course. What would it be like, for example, to grow up in a ghetto in Baltimore, through which I have passed only in the train but which appeared to me rather like Mariupol lite. I remember a patient of mine, a girl of about 16 who was growing up in a slum in England, who had, by some miracle, formed the ambition to study French literature. She told me that the girls in her class mocked her for it. “They say that I’m stupid,” she said, “because I’m clever.” What must it be like to grow up in a cultural environment that actively devalues intelligence, refinement, and effort in favor of stupidity, …