Since Aristotle, becoming fully human meant closing the gap between what we are and what we could be — through reason, habit, and cultural formation.
Modernity severed telos from ethics: success now substitutes for virtue.
Those who bypass the moral scaffolding to reach the summit are parasitic on the civility others maintain. The result of this approach is to digest the host’s energy (social values and trust) until we are left with only a transactional society of grifters.