How Much Longer Until Humans Bring About Their Own Destruction?

Speaking as one who has stumbled along for almost seven decades, generally trying to maintain as much of my sanity as I can in this crazy world, I feel overwhelming despair at the ruinous forces of unrelenting evil that I behold whenever I look around me in 2022. I observe nations governed by selfishness, nations in which leaders and citizens alike, frantically driven by a raw welter of careless desires, are concerned only with seizing the hollow benefits that accompany temporal gain. They casually disavow the inevitable results of their depraved intent, wagering that they will never be held accountable for their pattern of repeated follies, blankly presuming themselves to be under no obligation to act differently. By those blunders, they have put the seal upon our collective fate, heedlessly condemning us to an inescapable destiny of horror and suffering.

To a person who is not irretrievably caught in a muddle of foolish delusions, the ways in which mankind is dragging itself down are glaringly apparent. A pandemic of Covid-19 that has wiped out millions of people since 2020. An ailing planet that is under constant assault, rendering it dangerously warmer from year to year. A worldwide condition of deliberate inequity and rampant poverty that is not sustainable. The unceasing threat of a nuclear holocaust. Sadly, most people remain blindly unaware of the monstrous problems that are conspiring to destroy us, and those who do have a slight awareness pretend that somehow, in spite of the evidence otherwise, everything is going to be fine and business will always proceed as usual. In either case, they are fostering bottomless doom: none of them are moving to undertake the necessary actions that could forestall an abject outcome of desolate harshness.

Uncontrolled greed openly prevails within all essential spheres of human activity in the 21st century. Nearly everyone delights in pure avarice, ardently desiring wealth and being fully prepared to violate the doctrines of all moral traditions to get it. Billionaires who possess fortunes that are unimaginably huge, but are not satisfied with the amount of their excess, will do whatever is required to increase the extent of their private holdings, boldly scorning even a feeble pretense of honesty. Meanwhile, the masses who are not billionaires, and never will be, are engaged in eagerly wishing that they were, behaving with as much undisguised greed in their own petty lives as the wealthiest few. Instead of uniting to fulfill a worthy purpose, working together to establish an equality of abundance that could be shared fairly by all people, they grasp at whatever they want, with no consideration for anyone but themselves.

Citizens pass their entire lives without ever admitting to the fundamental wrongness of their chosen priorities. They are in thrall to their own weakness, obligingly submitting themselves to being stripped of all integrity, willingly allowing their souls to be crudely shaped in accordance with the unspeakable demands of their masters, in exchange for the illusory trappings of convention and the fraudulent blessings of prosperity. They are obstinately unpracticed in rational thinking, finding it much easier to numbly get into line, to passively follow the path of weak-kneed compliance that has been set down for them from on high, to seek comfort in the narrow safety of thoughtless acceptance, to make no attempt at opposing the baleful motives of their perverted rulers. In the dutiful opinion of such people, obeisance and conformity are judged to provide the only suitable foundation for a good character.

Many people are at a serious disadvantage in comprehending the gravity of our situation because their brains have been permanently impaired by the harmful effects of alcohol and drugs (whether obtained from a dealer or a doctor.) They lack the estimable quality of watchfulness, and no matter what happens, they are rarely compelled to respond in an urgent manner. When they encounter an instance of extreme unpleasantness, they merely turn their glance elsewhere, retreating into a faulty haven of childish fancies, as if doing so will, in itself, constitute a sufficient remedy. Such denial, vehemently fueled by the brutal untruths and incessant distractions that pour forth from the media, has become deeply ingrained everywhere, firmly taking root in the core of the public mind, which is why humanity is now drifting in a state of stuporous desperation.

How much longer until humans bring about their own destruction? Do people truly fail to perceive, and truly fail to understand, the certain end toward which they are heading, year by year and error by error? Do they truly believe that refusing to acknowledge the unchecked spread of a fiercely contagious virus will cause the virus to abate and then conveniently disappear? Do they truly believe that our planet will not get hotter and hotter, steadily becoming uninhabitable? Do they truly believe that the wicked spell of capitalist falsehood will never be broken? Do they truly believe that thousands of nuclear weapons can be calmly stockpiled in grim readiness for conflict, without ever being used by one nation against another nation? It seems, alas, that most people have elected to keep their eyes permanently closed, yielding to things as they are, and so do not strive to embrace a wiser course.

In view of what I have described, I do not entertain any hopefulness regarding the future, either for myself or for the human community of which I am a dejected member. Logic has forced me to conclude that we have reached the final stage of our history, a period of unstoppable decline in which opportunities for effective change are unlikely to present themselves. I will go on resisting for the sake of principle, holding my own to the last, but I discern no prospect of earthly salvation. Untold centuries of struggle and progress, all the priceless glories that mankind has conceived and achieved, are falling away, vanishing into the darkness of unrestrained corruption, leaving us with only madness and trifles. When the tragedy of capitalism has worn itself out, everything of value, everything that gives meaning to life, will be lost and forgotten.