Resentment and entitlement go hand in hand.

In the Book of Genesis, Cain was resentful of his brother Abel’s abilities and talents, and he was envious of the acceptance of his brother’s sacrifices to a transcendent God. After God–or reality, take your pick–discovered he had killed his brother in a fit of murderous rage, Cain quipped back at reality, “…Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9 KJV).

The remainder of the Bible, from that question all the way through the Book of Revelation, seeks to answer Cain’s rather entitled and myopic question. In our era, we in the West are suffering from the twin cultural, political, and economic sins of resentment and entitlement. Resentment by current generations of those generations who have come before, and entitlement for rewards they have yet to earn.

Of course, most of this resentment and entitlement is being recorded and documented in online forums, postings, and videos. Which renders such expressions of resentment and entitlement somewhat suspect from the beginning. After all, the fervent postings of those “Very Online” types might be nothing more than Iranian, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, or Cuban bot factories posing as real, Western-man, humans.

In spite of not knowing who is a bot and who is not, it is important to note that resentment and entitlement don’t serve to build bridges. Of course, if you don’t care about building and only care about rebellion and deconstruction, then resentment and entitlement will bring you all the way to the clearing at the end of the path, where the repetition of the murder of the Abel’s of the West can pick back up right where we left it off in the mid-20th century.