People have this weird belief that if you're critical of a system or tradition, then it must be because you failed to live up to that system or tradition. The idea of having a principled stance, regardless of whether or not *you* personally benefit from society accepting that stance, is foreign to so many people. And this belief is really fucking important for and beneficial to the elites of this country. If you can get the masses to equate criticizing you and the institutions you control with abject personal failure, congratulations, you've just made yourself immune to accountability
Also, as a failure of the education system: we need to spend more time listening to the people our systems leave behind. "Well of course you're critical of this; you failed" should not be a conversation-ender even if it is true.
