Rutger Bergman has just delivered this year’s BBC series of Reith Lectures. His contention is that we are entering a new ‘age of immorality’ in which our elites are no longer seriously looking to improve the lot of mankind as a whole. Instead, they are promoting tribal division for their own benefit.
Bergman is right; the Western moral consensus based on liberal humanist attitudes is breaking down. Too many leaders have lost their moral compass. The whole construct that preserved peace and progress since the second world war is creaking. The UN is losing support and credibility. Actions to avert climate change have stalled. More people are being displaced by floods, fires and droughts. Nations are rearming again in anticipation of conflict. With less money to help the disadvantaged, growth in life expectancy in the West has stalled. Aid to Africa has been cut off, further exacerbating distress and conflict. Democracies are losing out to Autocracies.
We seem to be entering a different era in international relations similar to that, that existed before the First World War. Then, there was no concept of international law, conflict between states was a routine occurrence; the powerful strove to conquer others and create empires; and in most countries autocrats ruled and individual liberties were heavily constrained.
To illustrate this unwelcome change in direction, today’s Observer quoted Yeats’ poem. ‘The Second Coming’
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
It is more than time for the best to stand up and be counted.
