Because we were freely given, we are inclined to believe much the same of our forebears. At most, we grant that they stole what they weren't gifted. But this is all a psychological feint, a defense, to shield our esteem from the truth of the contrast. We can never forgive those who have built what no longer needs building by us. Those who fought for what we may receive with weak arms stretched out.
When your life's been a reckoning over unearned comforts, you cannot bear to admit the real work of those who earned it by their own sweat. As you've already condemned yourself, it goes down much easier to condemn the sweaters as well. Oh, the guilt of the passive looking out upon the monuments of the past! And beneath that guilt: the fuming resentment of time and place.
And this much is true: those who built so that we could inhabit did not truly understand human nature, theirs or anyone else's. The point was in the building, their lives grew more meaningful as their creations took shape and flourished. And look how their children tend to waste their inheritance while slandering those who saw fit to give it to them! An old tale, told and retold across generations and civilizations.
Why do I so believe in creation, be it artistic or in any other form? Because it is the only alternative to active or passive destruction.