During the early part of the Roman Empire, triumphant rulers and heroes had an accompanying slave whose job it was to whisper “Memento mori” (“Remember mortality”) to the great men of the hour. In ancient Korea, kings appointed the realm’s most respected scholar as their royal critic whose job was to point out the kings’ faults. To be sure, both were thankless jobs but essential for the inevitable follies of power. In America today, it is especially thankless, even painful, as, among all the critics — such as food critics, movie critics, art critics, sports critics and so on — only “social critics” are unwelcome, even intensely disliked (making this 100th column something of a milestone).

Like all other critics, the social critic believes in human progress with improvement. The way of improvement, according to the social critic, is for the society to become aware of its shortcomings, as declared in the society’s own professed ideals. To an American social critic, the standard ideals are generally defined as what American society ought to be, as located in the Declaration of Independence (“all men are created equal”), the Constitution (“We the People”), the Gettysburg Address (“government of the people … ”), the Pledge of Allegiance (“liberty and justice for all”). Those statements that make up the “American Ideals.” These ideals represent the simple moral decency and economic-political fairness with one another at home or shown abroad that contrast with America’s more dominant traits —obsession with money, addiction to amusement and hunger for power. Social critics see that American society has been reneging on its own ideals and, as public witnesses, they stand up and tell America of its own deviation from those professed ideals.

Critics see dangers in a society that offers its citizens everything their hearts desire, and ask where do we go from here? Do we turn to moral and ethical improvement when we reach the peak of our everyday desires and passions? Or is it downhill from here? Is our always-pampering diet good for our cultural, spiritual and intellectual health? Anyone who habitually praises the status quo is guilty of perpetuating its worst defects. Self-praise (of oneself or one’s country) is an unconscious habit of a liar, which often comes in the guise of patriotism, the last refuge of those living in fools’ paradise. Human follies never sleep, nor does the social critic. Americans don’t like critics, but without critics, democracy or morality would be more difficult than it is in our me-me-me society.

Unsurprisingly, social critics endure backlashes from the very society they try to help progress toward perfection. The irate public cries out: Why do you so hate America? Critics respond, far from it: Because we love our society we devote much of our thinking lives to make it a better place. Do food critics hate food? Do movie critics detest movies? In democracy, the citizenry is king, and social critics, like the Roman and Korean reminders, are the self-appointed critics of the new powerful.

But the average life of social critics has not been a happy one. Among the more famous predecessors, Isaiah was sawed in half; Socrates was executed with hemlock; Jesus was crucified; John the Baptist was beheaded; and Massachusetts’ own Henry David Thoreau was avoided as an “unpleasant” personality. Today, social critics are not sawed in half or crucified, but, just as cruel, they are shunned. Often, critics themselves wonder about their place in society, which can plant the seeds of self-doubt in the critics’ own minds.

As a social critic, I have had my share of trouble. I was fired from my very first job in essence for writing “The Dead End,” which was later praised by TIME as “an important and brilliant book (about) America’s national death wish, and we admire it very much” but had to endure the humiliating distinction of being the “Most Rejected Book Manuscript in History (150 rejections)” for the Guinness Book of World Records. My own department seniors weren’t kinder than publishers: They condemned me for writing “a book manuscript (which is an) embarrassment to the department and the profession,” and recommended that my employment be terminated. After some academic wanderings so common to critical professors, I managed to retire from my last job as a social science professor for the University of Maryland under contract with the DOD.

The logical end-result of our algorithm-driven society — getting only what we want — is that we all become cynics who don’t believe in anything. Cynicism gets its popular ovations (just witness Trump and his GOP followers). But cynicism ultimately invites paralyzing relativism (“fine people on both sides”) that hands over everything economic to corporate masters and everything political to fascist overlords. Just now, spoiled for decades by technology and consumer capitalism, and pampered by constant fawning, America’s original ideals face their most perilous moment of self-destruction. In our age of easy praise and easier deception, we twist ideas and corrupt words effortlessly and subject truth to our whim and caprice without conscience. We need social critics, not pleasing soothsayers or lying comforters, more than ever before. (Even the dire waning, memento mori, is now a logo for jewelry advertisement, implying life is short, go get your jewelry today!)

If I were given another life, I would still be a social critic. As Martin Luther, who was critical of the mighty Catholic Church, famously said when he faced his own crossroads: “Here I stand; I can do no other.”

Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, lives in Greenfield. This is his 100th column published in the Recorder.