Make no mistake: There are plenty of reasons to be outraged. My generation, your generation – we face not only grave moral challenges but existential threats: rising ocean levels globally and rising inequality in America; violence around the world and in our own backyards; the fraying of the social fabric. “The falcon cannot hear the falconer,” and we wonder if the center can hold.
I understand the impulse toward negativity. Like many of you, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the challenges we face, by the injustices that call out for our condemnation. Yet it is precisely because our challenges are so great that outrage is not enough. Pointing out what is wrong is merely the beginning, not the end, of our work.
The Czech author Ivan Klima wrote, “To destroy is easier than to create, and that is why so many people are ready to demonstrate against what they reject. But what would they say if one asked them what they wanted instead?”
What would you say? What would I say? What are you for?
Klima’s life story is one of both criticism and creation. Born in Prague in 1931, he was sent to a Nazi concentration camp as a child. He survived and became an outspoken voice for democracy in Czechoslovakia.
