What’s so disheartening about our times is that it seems people have caved to a deep apathy about even the possibility of being heroic. Our culture is saturated in a hyper-individualistic, Randian narrative that everybody is evil, everybody is selfish, that everybody subscribes to the “f*** you I’ve got mine” mentality. That collective action and concern is a pie-in-the-sky ideal. IMHO even believing that people are capable of acting with true integrity puts one in the minority.

And because our historical blinders are being removed, we look and see that even our so-called “s/heroes” were anything but, that many of them were actually power-hungry tyrants.

I see an ideologically divide right now between those who believe we even have a “better nature” and those who firmly assert that we do not… the worst part is if you don’t believe humans have a better nature then we can never progress or strive to be better human beings.

On one hand I can see how it would be easy to fall into the apathy trap and say “this country was built on slavery, violence, oppression, so why do I owe it to be a good person? Why don’t I just go out and get mine by any means necessary?” If we don’t find a way to tap into our better natures and exalt the goodness in society that has always been there (but divested of any real, political power) I genuinely fear for our futures. The present is bad enough.

Yet, I remain hopeful when writers like yourself keep asking the tough questions and keep pushing others to ask themselves.