There’s a painting in the Prado which has been labeled Saturn Devouring his Son but that’s just a label. Nobody knows why Goya (1746-1828) painted it on the wall of his home or whom the person-eating monster or its repast represent. Not many would consider this image suitable for home décor. Goya was old when he painted it – that is, my age – and evidently in a dark mood. The most celebrated painter of his moment, why wasn’t he basking in the satisfaction of success? The courtliest of court painters – his sumptuous portrayal of Spain’s King Charles IV’s family also hangs in the Prado – what transformed him into a haunted hater of mankind?

My guess? He was paying attention. After a life of seeing, he had seen through – the frippery, foppery and folly of his fellow beings – into a loathsome actuality. Committed to the truth of his vision, as an artist must be, he could not look away. Here was “nature red in tooth and claw” (Tennyson’s phrase) gorging on this androgynous mortal morsel in ravenous gobbets. The artist does not take sides. We wonder, shuddering, does Goya ally with the eaten or the eater? The answer is both. We devour one another – and we deserve to be devoured – for this is who we are.

This image rose to me like smoke from the day’s headlines. It hardly matters which day’s. Each day, horror and more horror. The avalanche leaves us dazed and limp. Each day more Americans wake to the monstrosity we’ve put in charge of our nation’s and children’s destiny. What theft, viciousness, deceit, greed, violence, cruelty, stubborn stupidity on a staggering swaggering scale! What’s to be said? What done? Where might we hide? Will we survive? Who are we anyway? Who will we be?

The devourer is the Nameless One, gobbling Humanity. The devourer is, must be, Humanity, destroying its destroyer.

But what are we to do! What use painting our horror onto private walls? No picture can repair us!

Goya knew that. No portrait mends its subject. Yet for individuals to say what we see without flinching is essential to our sanity and a prerequisite for recovery. We must face how bad things are, how bad we are, and not excuse, look away, shrug.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedNow we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

I am sad for our state. What decent person isn’t? I am appalled by our kind. But grief and grievance do not relieve me of responsibility to act. I must say what I see, paint it on my wall, and then, swallowing hard, ask, “What next? What now?” None of us can do much. But if each does what we can, we can do more than we think. The power is in the people if the people flex it. We can be the devourer, we need not – helplessly – be devoured.

Friends bewail their impotence. That is natural, we all do it, but it wastes strength. Each must do what we can, not rue what we can’t. I write. So let me write harder, in a way that might invigorate or inspire. Another can march. Another inveigh. Another give. Each dollar and dolor contribute to the chorus. Goya’s painting horrifies – but also, curiously, fortifies. We can face even this. We can face even ourselves.