LJUBLJANA, Slovenia ¨C I fought for years with and for Julian Assange. But upon hearing that he had regained his freedom, my first thought was that he was returning to a world that looks ¡ª and is ¡ª much worse than the one he left behind. Pandemics, wars and widespread ecological breakdown force us to ask the big question: In what sense are we who breathe the fresh air outside prisons still free?
Even our fictional accounts are getting worse. The new children¡¯s movie ¡°Inside Out 2¡± follows a 13-year-old Riley at the start of puberty. Her personified emotions ¡ª joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust ¡ª have created a new section in her mind called the ¡°sense of self.¡± Then, four new emotions ¡ª anxiety, envy, embarrassment, ennui ¡ª arrive and conflict ensues. Joy thinks Riley should focus on having fun at camp, while anxiety wants Riley to win a spot on the team and make new friends. In the end, the first and second generations of emotions learn to work together to protect Riley¡¯s ever-changing sense of self, leaving viewers with an utterly fraudulent depiction of the human psyche.
In the real world, these internal psychic tensions often escalate to the point of madness. A much better movie would have portrayed the emotions of a Palestinian boy in the ruins of Gaza, not a girl from a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. Rather than working together to form a stable self, his conflicting emotions would push him toward psychic breakdown and suicidal acts of violence. Recall G.K. Chesterton¡¯s wonderful description:
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