Eon (The Way, #1)

by Greg Bear

"Oh."

"Thirteen hundred years, and people are still people," Heineman mused with an edge of bitterness. "Still squabbling." "True, and not entirely true," Olmy said. "In your day, many people were so severely handicapped by personality disorders or faulty thinking structures that they often acted against their own best interests. If they had clearly defined goals, they could not reason or even intuit the clear paths attain to those goals. Often adversaries had the same goals, even very similar belief systems, yet hated each other bitterly. Now, no human has the excuse of ignorance or mental malfunction, or even lack of ability. Incompetence is inexcusable, because it can be remedied.