We live in an age of immediacy instant foods, instant winners with our lottery mentality, instant information in the computer world, instant gratification in the drug culture. There is little loyalty to the past nor sacrifice for the sake of the future. Christopher Lasch in his classic, "The Culture of Narcissism," notes the forgetful character of the late twentieth century U.S. culture: "to live for the moment is the prevailing passion to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future."

There is little loyalty in the workplace. Our language gives us away when we speak of "headhunters," "corporate raiders," and "hostile takeovers." Few athletes remain with the teams that signed them. Free agency reigns in professional sports. The assumption among religious shoppers is that we operate in a buyers' market. The consumer makes choices based on present needs with little thought for the past or the future.