> There was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things: by helping the blind man across the road […] These things

> There was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things: by helping the blind man across the road […] These things involve effort and self-sacrifice. Or if that was too much effort you could just show up at church and complain about the heathens and their wicked ways. Seems to me that what the author is saying is a new phenomenon is actually as old as civilisation.