Wishing to do better than they were done, they’re working to construct a world view and personal ethic that allows them to move through the world with more kindness and generosity.
Where they lose me is when I realize that almost every human who has ever lived has felt this way. Nobody sets out to hurt other people and to be negative. We all want better for ourselves and our children than we got and we most often go about it through passion and generosity. Some through force and action, but c’mon.
What happens then is the aesthetic we build for ourselves, and the personal ethic we attempt to construct ends up being more complex and prickly than we might’ve guessed. Making a theory of everything and being a good person in the world is a lot harder than people think, apparently. Even the most good-faith attempts at being a good person on their own terms end up painted into corners with terribly difficult problems with no real solution.
This is what was happening when people in my generation endured what they perceived as cruelty. It was not a thing invented to generate cruelty. It was an outcome generated by an imperfect worldview in an imperfect world.
This is what I see now with some friends and people my age. Despite their best efforts to construct an ethic and world view of kindness and empathy...the world isn’t cooperating and they’re causing harm. Unfortunately, an element of their worldview is that harm is unacceptable and must be destroyed.
What differentiates this generation is that Being Better was the beginning middle and end of the program. And since that is almost fundamentally impossible, you end up with a terribly sad diffidence and self-hatred.