The years go by and things change at an amazing rate. (I hate the word amazing used too much). But in this case, amazing means what it has been, mind-boggling, confusing, and dazzling.

Everything from politics to gender definition,  privacy, communication, you name it, things have changed.  What was once great, say The British Empire, is now held in contempt for the evils that were perpetrated along the way.  Slavery being the principal wrong. There were many others, institutions, and empires, where progress was defined in ways that would not be tolerated today.

The Church as I knew it has all but vanished, and the ascendency of other religions usually in the extreme form now grab all the attention and cause mayhem in the complexity of Middle East and throughout the world.

Capitalism has its fair share of detractors, and though I never believed it possible we see liberalism highjacked by the luny fringes leading to what amounts to an attack on the basic freedom of speech. Extreme liberalism is anything but, extremists use social media to shout down alternative viewpoints. Hence the birth of fake news and growing polarisation away from the consensual center ground

The history of many cultures is being re-examined in the light of modern (some say) thinking. Nothing is sacred anymore.

Yet the world still has enormous diversity not only climatic and racial, but cultural and political. I guess in the West we still cling to the idea of liberal capitalism but the EU is manifestly failing to sustain the great experiment, trying vainly to aggregate the views of Poland, Hungary, and Austria versus France, Germany and the bemused and bankrupt southern European states.  Populism, as exemplified by PORTUS Trump knows no apparent moral or legal code. Authoritarianism reigns unbridled in Russia and China, Corruption still reigns supreme in the developing world.  In short, the world is in a mess.

How are we to define progress?  What is progress?  A safer, cleaner kinder world would be a reasonable proposal. However, with such distrust and deviance of rational thinking, we are a long way from a move toward these noble aims. The UN remains hamstrung and useless because of the Paranoia of Putin, the indiscipline of Trump, the greed of many of the developing world leaders and the bemusement of the old guard. Still, a talking shop is better than no talking shop and it’s all that have.

No wonder I’m confused.