Conformity, obsequience, inattention, apathy. There are others, but I believe these capture the tragic flaws of our cultural epoch. Not that these traits haven’t always been with us, but they appear more pronounced now, more dominant, because too few people have the character to offset these ugly, atavistic drives. The tragedy of our species is our infinite potential combined with our bottomless capacity for sabotaging ourselves and others. We were meant for the stars, but we are held back, forcibly mired in a cultural tar pit, the primal ooze, and unable to attain escape velocity. We have the key to paradise within our grasp, but abandon it in a vain effort to reach every new mirage we see in the distance. And now we have arrived at a crossroads. Down into a sub-animal slavery, or forward and upward to our birthright as a species. Per Ardua Ad Astra
