Disappointment ethics

 "Disappointment" in ethics

September 14, 2022

We have a problem with disappointment.  I think it's endemic of our times. And to be clear, I don't think anyone is actually disappointed in us.  But there is a pathological self-infliction upon the subject of ourselves, and our times, as if we all collectively think that, or wonder why it's not that, everyone should be disappointed in us.  Secretly, with perhaps too much venom, I think often that I don't want to indulge this need for disappointment, if only to say that I have much bigger things to signal my disappointment about.  Honestly there is some contempt to that: to not even pay lip service to the outdated concept that anyone is the embodiment in person of virtue ethics; Honestly that is a disappointment in itself, to not complain about a dead ideology is still inexplicably alive, to everyone except for those who are, in the mind of people, where that dead ideology (still?) resides;  Honestly, that is kind, empathetic, because the ideology of virtue ethics, as opposed to morality, could never survive the light of day even when it was dominant…  But as a bit of advice to those who may still be riding the train of being disappointed in our elders for not having "it" – even if they seem to be baiting you to make that claim… It's so clear that the natural outcome of that narrative is that someone has to tell you that if you are disappointed, you had no reason to expect that what you seek in advanced ways would be found anywhere but as a product of your own striving.