A Voice of Reason in a Time of Great Madness

“A voice of reason in a time of great madness.” You may have come across this before, for it is a quote from a movie called Field of Dreams. It is taken from the scene when the central female character in the film (Annie Kinsella) stands up to defend the writer whose books the right-minded (that is to say, the mob) want to ban. “Terrance Mann” she says, “was a voice of reason in a time of great madness. He coined the phrase make love not war.” The time of great madness she is referring to is the 1960s.

We live once again in a time of great madness, yet few are prepared to admit this. And this blog and my other writings are about being a voice of reason in a time of great madness. This is why I write, to show people that we are truly living in an age of great madness that will lead eventually to an avoidable human tragedy on an epic scale. And my message is clear – we need to begin a transition to a different way of living on our small and wonderful planet. It is time to walk a different path and ordinary people should now take control through peaceful means, to ensure that we do begin to walk a different path. This is already beginning to happen, and people with vested interests in maintaining the world as it is, are becoming concerned. My great worry is that they will take steps to stop this change. Recall what the British did in India, in response to Ghandi. The British though, are, at heart, a moderate and tolerant people, and they eventually understood that opposing Ghandi was contrary to the ideals that they themselves hold dear.

Politicians in Europe I hope will understand this, and embrace and encourage transition towards a different path. What this path should be of course is a matter for discussion, but the first step is to begin this dialog and to understand why we need to change. This is a matter that you will find explored in my books, in particular, Encounter with a Wise Man and A Tale of Two Deserts. As regards to what should be central to these discussions, the answer is that which is central to our modern civilisation: free market capitalism; religion; and science, engineering and technology, and how all these should be transformed to enable the development of a sustainable civilisation, and to ensure that extremists of all kinds (atheist, religious, scientific, capitalist, political etc.) find no space to prosper in society, in the world. And by engaging is this dialogue we might begin to understand how the madness that inevitably flows from ideology and dogma, can be avoided.

Through the power of words the climate of thought can be changed. This is the journey …