What is Wrong with Us?

As we come to terms with our critical contemporary situation, sooner or later we realise that behind all the other crises lies the reality that our crisis is a crisis of the human person. We talk about climate crisis but what is behind the climate crisis? Of course, it is human action. It is human behaviour that has caused the crisis and it is because of human folly that we fail to address it. No wonder author and climate activist Naomi Klein is moved to ask: “What is wrong with us?”

The same question might be asked in relation to the global economic crisis – what has caused it if not human greed and avarice? Likewise with militarism, violence, genocide and warfare – all apparently increasing exponentially in our time. “What is wrong with us?”

As we struggle with this question, we know that human identity and vocation is about to be tested as Artificial Intelligence moves to a new level. Likely this will bring great new possibilities – for both good and ill. What is becoming clear is that it will change not only the “what” and the “how” of doing things but also “who” we are. Given humanity’s propensity for injustice and oppression, excitement about the positive possiblities of AI is tempered by concern about how it could be deployed in damaging and destructive ways. High time that we had our house in order!

It might seem like an impossible dream to imagine there could be a different kind of human person. But this is what meets us as we enter the realm of faith. As the apostle Paul put it, “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This newness, this transformation, was it ever more needed? As Naomi Klein puts it, “The solution to global warming is not to fix the world, it is to fix ourselves.”