# Cruelty and Callousness - Proposition By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2025-12-04 Perhaps it was an illusion, but there seemed to be a time when American society was marked by optimism and generosity of spirit. Now it seems to be marked by cruelty and callousness. Of course, these characteristics do not apply to everyone. Rather, it is reflective of the nation’s general mood and dominant observable attributes. It is as if in late-stage capitalism the nation has decided to put itself first, in a dying attempt to get whatever it can before the game is over. Maybe there is marginally more to be had. Too much is being sacrificed in the attempt to get it. To distract us from our current predicament, there is a reactionary push to focus our attention on valorizing our past. The Founding Fathers, the founding documents, and veterans of prior wars each have a place and are worthy of our respect. However, it is important to place these things in context and in proportion. The veneration of the past should not blind us to the structural and existential challenges we face currently. The past might inspire us, but the past can’t fix our current problems. We must do it. And we must find a way to do it based on our current realities and our future aspirations. The dead hold no answers to the questions we must confront and the challenges we must overcome. These challenges are compounded by the fact that a depressed society must overcome them. In our depressed state, one might correctly focus on determining whether there is any reasonable point in expending effort to overcome our challenges. One can either take or create. We have become a nation obsessed with taking whatever we can, wherever we can. Only the emotionally impoverished can find any joy in taking from the weak, poor, and powerless. Such cruelty and callousness are on full display in the daily news. If we, as a society, are going to regain our optimism and generosity of spirit, we must first collectively recognize that we have lost them, and then work together joyfully in solidarity to recreate them. Or we can simply pretend that somehow past glory says something about us today. #### Related Items [[American]] [[Society]] [[Capitalism]] [[Depression]] [[Future]] [[Past]]