What is behind all this evil in the world? 
I don’t know if you have looked around recently, but the state of the world is quite simply disastrous. After a very difficult few years of the coronavirus pandemic and consequent isolation, we now face not only a terrifying environmental crisis but a dreadful war in the middle of Europe that has turned our economic woes into a full-blown debacle. Indeed, we seem to be sleepwalking our way from one problem to the next. Whenever we think we have hit rock bottom, we discover a few more rungs on the ladder allowing us to descend yet further. As humans, we have always prided ourselves on our capacity for rational thought, progress and invention. I see very little of any of these qualities expressed in us today.
To any outside observer, we must appear entirely deluded, still believing that we are a force for good while consistently taking the worst decisions, allowing one problem to compound another, not unlike a colonial power that has not realized its rule has already ended. I would go so far as to say that we have totally lost our bearings and any form of control over setting a positive course for humanity. It feels as though our collective thinking has been taken over by a negative force bent on spreading ignorance and destruction. We are the only ones responsible for the situation we find ourselves in. As Cassius said to Brutus in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Our minds have seemingly been appropriated by our smartphones, the internet and the noxious media that these deliver. This daily toxicity, I believe, is just as harmful as the 50 to 300 million toxic particles we breathe in every single day, or the 20 kg of carbon emissions we individually produce every single day on average (with Americans each producing almost 60 kg of daily carbon emissions). We are completely blind to the damage we are causing to our world and our environment every passing day. If we are not actively doing something to resolve these issues, then we are unfortunately a part of the problem.
We believe that by recycling we are helping the planet, but we never even stop to consider why we are creating so much waste in the first place. Today’s poverty is a poverty of the mind, of the will and of the desire to strive for what is right.
But what is this destructive force that seems to have possessed us all? Have we been overcome by brainwashing, widespread manipulation or artificial intelligence? Do we simply not want to look beyond the seeming comfort of our ignorance? The internet and the smartphone are not evil tools, yet they have created evil within us, making us surrender to the might of collective ignorance. Whatever clothes we think we are wearing, our minds are decidedly naked. We are no longer masters of our own decisions. Technology and the human mind should be busy resolving our existential predicaments, not finding new ways for us to ignore them.
Our economic system has brought us great advancements and lifted much of the world out of poverty, but today it is only causing increased inequalities and forcing us to choose growth at any cost. The system we live in, unfortunately, is a result of every one of our daily choices. We believe that by recycling we are helping the planet, but we never even stop to consider why we are creating so much waste in the first place. Today’s poverty is a poverty of the mind, of the will and of the desire to strive for what is right.
Our planet is telling us almost every day how far we have strayed and how much damage we have done. The freezing bomb cyclone in North America is but one of many increasingly dramatic and deadly weather phenomena we see year-round today. It is the Earth and God trying to tell us to listen. But we do not. We are eating up conflict as if it were a tasty side dish, while our desire to form alliances reeks of old warring tribal societies. It is as though we have entirely forgotten the meaning of the word “compromise,” our minds so set on ignorance, blame and confrontation.
For intelligent beings to so consistently get things wrong these days is quite a feat. God gave us eyes to see, a mouth to speak and a brain to think, but we do not seem to be using any correctly. What is this force that pushes back against our God-given senses and skills, turning us all into destroyers?
I hope we will soon recognize this negative force that has such a hold over us in our daily lives, for to overcome it we must first see it, before it is already too late.
• Hassan bin Youssef Yassin worked closely with Saudi petroleum ministers Abdullah Tariki and Ahmed Zaki Yamani from 1959 to 1967. He headed the Saudi Information Office in Washington from 1972 to 1981 and served with the Arab League observer delegation to the UN from 1981 to 1983.
