A note on current times...

Trying to make sense of the world where we live is one of my ongoing interests. My emphasis is trying to understand the reasons for the current economic (and social) situation. To be able to do this, one needs to take a step back and look at history. I am a firm believer that history repeats itself to a great extent. From time to time I come across certain sentences that are a great help to put things in to perspective. The first one, by Alexander Tyler, a Scottish historian, certainly gives you food for thought. If one accepts his view, which stage are we in? If you answer the question correctly, you know what is coming next... I have made my mind...

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

The second one is by Mahatma Gandhi

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“The things that will destroy us are, politics without principle, pleasure without conscience, wealth without work, knowledge without character, business without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice"

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Ask youself this questions about the western society:

* Do our politics have principles?

* Do we have pleasure with conscience?

* Is our wealth based on work?

* Do our businesses have a high moral standard?

* Is our science based on humanity principles?