Not gonna talk about cancel culture. I don't know enough to make a honest assessment of the situation, let alone share an informed opinion. But on goodness? I think you're leaning too far into the cynical and I encourage you to pull back a bit and look at things from a different angle.

The reason I mention and recommend Dostoevsky again is that all of his books examine how completely the world will tear you apart again and again for doing the right thing, in ways it never could have done if you never went out into the world. His heroes are tragic because they will never learn to act differently because of it.

Never read Dostoevsky, but I think from that scenario that it can also be read that his heroes are admirable because they insist on doing the right thing despite the risk of the world tearing them apart.

I don't believe that anyone is really a good person until it's hard for them to be a good person.

By your logic then, Dostoevsky's heroes fit that ideal.

Dala and I were talking the other day, about people doing the right thing, and we both joked that we're in a bit of a catch 22. More people would do the right thing if it was easier and there was less risk involved, but in order for that to happen, we need more people to do the right thing. So for now, our hopes rest on the brave and the bold and the stubborn who insist on doing the right thing. Our hopes rest on the ripples of their actions and the ripples of the hopes of others. In doing so, we're able to live in a country where there's two pandemics going on (covid and the pandemic of despair), economic hardships everywhere you turn, political polarization so strong it's insane, and yet in the past two months we've made more progress towards minority rights and police and criminal reform than we've seen in the last decade.