Remnick quoted philosopher Anthony Appiah's observation that practices once considered normal — wife-beating as a father's duty, homosexuality as a hanging offense, plantation slavery — are now viewed with self-satisfied moral superiority. We look back and cannot imagine how anyone defended such cruelties. But Remnick warned against that comfortable hindsight. He challenged graduates to consider which conditions they tolerate today that future generations will view with the same incredulous shame, arguing that every era lives partly in moral darkness without realizing it.