The second paragraph is all true; now we are going backwards.

It is true that the United Nations is "unbelievably ineffectual" - except when it comes to interfering in sovereign countries,particularly Western countries.

"This writer's answer" - to ensure that democracy prevails in all countriesis even more useless than the UN. Democracy is on the way out: Covid lockdowns; plans to limit freedom of speech; plans to ban cash; net zero; ESG; brainwashing of school children; removal of courses in independent living skills in public schools; racialising and division of society; growing dependence on Marxist-style governments; climate fear-mongering. In Australia, a voting system rigged to maintain duopoly rule; replacement of the population with multiple cultures.

Most thinking people know why we're going backwards, because of the myriad of pragmatism-devoid intellectuals & the greedy stupid !

Agree with most of this and note more wars have been fought over religious doctrine than almost any other.

6 million Muslims put to the sword during the "Christian" crusades and 6 million Jews butchered by the (quasi religious) Nazis during WW11, with religious zeal.

Wars that we have in living memory WW11 and the war in Ukraine were the result of giving a madman almost absolute power.
Alan B.

Unfortunately for all of us the situation described by Peter is a manifestation of a much deeper crisis in our Western consciousness as described in these two related essays re the origins and consequences of our collective madness.
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/undreaming-wetiko-introduction

http://www.awakeninthedream.com/articles/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-comes-to-life

Dear Duffy,

«Unfortunately for all of us the situation described by Peter is a manifestation of a much deeper crisis in our Western consciousness»

Who but you can I expect to identify the issue and know that this "crisis" that you referred us to is in the very nature of nature, as old as nature and as vast as space, going well beyond just the West and just our particular era?

Your articles call it "Wetiko" - the ancients called it "Maya", literally "that which is not", not what you think, that whose neither its existence nor its non-existence can ever be ascertained.

Scripture tells us of this dual power of Maya:
1) Avarana Shakti - its veiling power, of concealing from us our true identity; and
2) Vikshepa Shakti - its projection power, projecting the truth of who we are onto various objects, thus making us falsely believe that these are the truth of who we are.

While each of us who so wishes can personally escape these powers of Maya, this which you call Wetiko, the world at large can never be completely rid of it, or else it would not be serving its purpose. At times more of the light of knowledge will relatively prevail, while at other times such as during the present Kali Yuga, darkness relatively prevails, yet the world will always be a mixture of the two and any claim otherwise, as if the world itself can somehow be saved, can produce false hopes in the readers who could come to believe as if a solution can paradoxically be found in this world itself.

Peter, you ask for much in this world of plenty. You say;

"We have ended serfdom and slavery, abolished the divine right of kings, and introduced parliamentary democracy."

Yes, for a selected privileged few that is true. For others in the third world and a minority in our own land of plenty, little has changed in two thousand years. Injustice and inequality brought on by greed, suspicion and a distorted belief in a nationalistic culture of them and us has resulted in wars and poverty in many parts of the world. While ever injustice and inequality exists, there will be no change, the vicious cycle will continue.

Mankind has achieved great things in science and technology, but unfortunately still lives in the stone age when it comes to inter-human relationships.