I've been writing for a fairly long while and I haven't lost hope yet. Mind you, it's not hope so much that drives me, but a combination of awe, disgust, and pity.

I'm not sure whether you're suggesting that I said we're only infantile or whether that's your view. I think the criticism of a society for being infantile is empty without a realistic standard of existential maturity or heroism.

So I wouldn't say we're necessarily infantile, unless you're comparing all of humanity to a vision of the maturity of a far superior species. These things are relative. There's human maturity relative to human childishness, and there's superhuman maturity relative to the human norms.