Rooted in ungratefulness

"[Shakespeare's] hatred of ingratitude – wounding, pitiless, ugly, and inhuman – is so intense that we sense in it not only anger but also a measure of fear. He seems to have had a premonition that the new imperial and commercial era was bringing with it vastly increased and uncontrolled greed and selfishness, which relied on wanton heedelessness of the traditional virtues of community and personal interrelationship. The old certainties embodied by hierarchy and obligations were also breaking down. At the moment of transition in which he lived, all the modern vices – greed, heedlessness, selfishness, refusal either to respect or to remember – readily seemed to be caught up, instanced, and rooted in ungratefulness." (The Gift of Thanks, Margaret Visser, 2008; page 311).