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The Progress Paradox...

Moral decline renders society on the fast-track, in reverse gear!

We have come a long way from the tyrannical rules of absolute monarchs, corrupt clergy and tin-pot dictators. After four million years of evolution, humanity had finally earned the right to don the mantle of civilisation. No more obese kings murdering their wives. No more depraved monks exorcising demons in torture chambers. No more militarist dictators plunging nations into catastrophic wars under noble banners.

Progress begat civilisation and democratic freedom and freedom repaid its parent by accelerating progress. Today's computers are building tomorrow's, and scientific conundrums which once took years to address, are now resolved in minutes... Yes sir, progress has brought us along way down the road, but the road to where? Is mankind ready to embrace so much progress, or are we still too closely related to our simian ancestry to be trusted with it? Can anyone trust a baboon with a loaded Kalashnikov in a crowded shopping mall?

Yesterday's pickpockets, con-artists and highwaymen, risked having their necks being stretched at the ends of ropes, when they plied their trade stealing piffling amounts of money and property from their marks, have today evolved into cyber-space identity thieves and top executives of corporate giants who ruthlessly drain bank accounts and steal billions of people's hard-earned cash without remorse.

Yesterday's anarchists and zealots who contented themselves with singling-out a political leader or a celebrity to use for target practice, have become today's suicide bombers who -in the name of god- slaughter thousands of his creation and wear explosives-laden jackets bearing the designer label "God is great".

"I have nothing to fear from the law" are words which resonate from every walk of life, but law enforcement has to progress with the times in order to serve and protect. We all want our children to be kept safe from drug-dealers skulking around street-corners and the ever growing menace of lurking paedophiles. We worry about our hard-earned cash being pilfered by some smart hacker, fret about our property being robbed or vandalised and most of all, we pray for our lives to be spared from the deranged wearers of that particular designer jacket, which may be detonated on a crowded train or bus.

In the age of relentless progress in the fields of instant communication networks, vast information technology and super-fast travel, the Kalashnikov toting baboon is still prowling around the shopping mall, only it has now learned how to pull the trigger. Technology has moved forward in leaps and bounds, but man has not only failed to keep pace with its

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