Morality, ethics and conscience ignored by powers that be

TODAY, in the year 2025, the world is facing a calamity of disastrous leadership.

- Philip C Hills

What is even more disturbing is that the huge number of people behind the scenes who do the real humane diplomacy and long-term hard work are losing their jobs at the whims of political leaders who are clearly infantile.

The overwhelming international breakdown of morality, ethics and conscience by the 'powers that be' has developed at increasing pace since the 1980s. Parallel to this period is the rapid development of consumer technologies so that now the whole world has become addicted to mobile phones, the internet and social media.

It has become an habitual drug, often involving scurrilous fake or false propaganda. What is even more worrying is the 'collapse' of public goodwill and compassion.

Clearly, the world has always faced atrocities and tyrannies as well as natural disasters. Yet there has always, in the end, been a counter-balance of diplomacy, conscience and morality. There has even been a recent, growing hope that human civilisation, especially when the whole world is being challenged by man-made industrial-scale climate and environmental degradation, might at last develop fully the powers of altruism, conscience and compassion.