Clive Bibby: “To be or not to be”

It is somewhat ironic that the Shakespeare’s character, Prince Hamlet, is asking the same question that has been asked by earlier civilisations facing an unknown future which they, like us, were hopelessly unprepared for.

And, like modern society (which includes all the peoples of this planet), the problems we face are almost entirely of our own making.

Whether it be climate change, threats of nuclear war, famine or the collapse of moral standards that have previously ensured we have had the ability to rise to the challenge - our own destiny is hanging by a thread and most of our leaders appear unwilling to acknowledge the reasons why it has all come to this.

When you think about it, unsurprisingly, it is not hard to find answers to our question but l fear this time it may be too late. The opportunity to embark on a corrective path would appear to have been and gone. Tragically, we must now face the consequences of that inaction.

Without being a philosopher or historian, it isn’t hard to reach back into the world‘s timeline and discover that we have been here before - many times.

Humanity and its leaders, when faced with a crisis that required an understanding of history and the associated failures of previous major civilisations, have shown a propensity to repeat those failures when they could have so relatively easily been avoided.

We never seem to learn.

Perhaps that is the dark side of the human character which is “the mark of Cain” that will mean we are likely to repeat the process until finally we reach the stage when recovery is a bridge too far.

Unfortunately, the signs appear to suggest any recovery plan is unsustainable. Who would have thought it would come to this.

But, for the sake of this discussion, let’s look at some of the reasons why modern society is so ill prepared that a comeback of even modest proportions may be out of the question:

1)   modern western society (the historical counter the aggressive regimes of our adversaries) is for the most part, rotten to the core. We have become so self-indulgent that we have lost any moral focus we once had.

2)   our rejection of our traditional family values (even those we pay only lip service to) means that we are rudderless in an environment where “anything goes”

3)   we have allowed demonstrably corrupt practices to permeate our social order by pandering to every false theory. We appear fixated on making decisions which, in our hearts, we know to be morally wrong. eg allowing racial, gender and sexuality extremism to dominate our civic order.

Nobody should question the rights of minorities, but modern society appears hellbent on promoting these groups out of all proportion to their numbers - the result being that we are unable to function in an orderly manner because of fear that someone may be offended.

So, there are some of the main ones. You will have others.

Hopefully l will be proved wrong and there is a way forward that could save us from ourselves. You be the judge of that. Thanks!

Clive Bibby is a commentator, consultant, farmer and community leader, who lives in Tolaga Bay.