Will we turn around one day and discover that the way of life we have created, with all its individual freedoms, is totally unsustainable? Will we come to agree with most of the societies who have ever lived on Earth that interdependence is the only way to go on a planet as small, and yet incredibly diverse, as ours?
There are always people worse off and better off than ourselves and as I see it, we are all interconnected and we can only start with ourselves, both for our own good and the good of the world. Of course I genuinely believe this. But once every few months I get a bulletin from the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and it shakes me from head to toe.
A new Mind report relates a shocking catalogue of harassment, assault, victimisation and discrimination against those who suffer from mental health problems in England and Wales. This leads me to wonder about therapeutic treatment for people who are so discriminated against — when someone is factually being persecuted in their own home, where does paranoia begin?
First it was a problem supposedly only for gay men, drug users, and the promiscuous, then for Eastern Europeans and Africans, and now it is women who are said to bear the brunt of the virus and be the ones who should empower themselves and stop the virus in its tracks. Women taking responsibility for men’s behaviour. Sound familiar?
Cognitive enhancements are on the scientific horizon — ways of making our brains function better. But they will only be available to those who are able to pay for them?
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