The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations

From Rhetoric by Aristotle, Book II, 1389a.31

The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things—and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning.... All their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything; they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.

The young and, not to be forgotten, those who are financially secure but from their own efforts.

Why does so much empirical, rational, and logical nonsense (see critical race theory and social justice theory) enter and remain in circulation for so long?  Because we have enjoyed such a long run of financial prosperity.  We will always, I hope, have the young among us, untested by life's necessary limitations.  But their ranks are further swollen by young and not so young who have never been tested against the harsher realities of life.  Hence the inclination towards exalted notions and the desire to do noble deeds extends far past its natural term limits.

It is an odd hypostasis and is presumably one of those semi-mysterious elements governing emergent order.  

One would think that increasing prosperity would build on itself forever, as it has done for the past, exceptional, five hundred years.  But the hypostatic force of moral feelings (rather than reason) seems to be a mechanism towards retarding progress. 

I am guessing that this is a signal that prosperity without a conscious and effective moral code cannot survive in the wild.