Man is a despoiler. For personal gain he has marched through the earth, pillaging and denuding the land of natural cover. For spore or profit he has totally destroyed numerous species of wild life. There is no end to his avarice, even the sea has been plundered to the endangerment of some of its greatest inhabitant's. No other creature has created more pollution of air and water or exploitation beneath the earth's surface,

Mure horrifying still is the long history of man's inhumanity to his fellow man- Tens of millions of humans have been killed by fellow humans. It is hard to understand such things as Europeans marching through Tasmania killing the indigenous people for no other reason than to exterminate them. And they did just that, totally destroying the race,

Man's history is one of greed and disregard for human life. He ravished the world when the population was much smaller than it is today. How is he likely to act in the future with the rapid increase of people who crowd closer and ever closer together. Population explosion will exert a much greater pressure on our environment and human nature than we have yet experienced- There is bound to be an increase in survival anxiety. The strong asserting themselves at the expense of the weak. Viciousness increases with survival anxiety. It is sadly possible for the culture of large numbers of people to deteriorate to the levels of the Ik people we talked about in section two.

It is possible that in two hundred years time our progeny will inherit a vicious world exploited and ruled by ruthless men who care only for themselves. The Hitlers, the Idi Amins and Pol Pots of the world take office with the approval of the people.

On the one hand we see a history of greed and disregard of human life- On the other there is a gradual movement toward dignity, personal rights and liberties. In the future, first here and then there, one of these two movements will be forced to give way to the other. The concepts of greed and power are destructive, impatient, vicious and finally self destructive. They are opposed to the concepts of dignity which are constructive, tolerant, and lead to peace and fulfillment.

In many respects, we live in a vicious world of dog eat dog. Should we give up and allow our leaders to blunder on until we have destroyed our habitat and our progeny find themselves like the Ik people, without love, uncaring, cruel and grasping. Should we not rather be concerned for our great-grandchildren and their grandchildren that they do not inherit a world devoid of beauty where even the sea around our shores may be too filthy for swimming.

Can we who have no political muscle, no real economic force or world standing do anything to preserve and improve our culture? Yes, we certainly can, by using the most powerful of all human influences. That of concepts.

Concepts have and will continue to change our society. Concepts start with individuals and extend outwards to include increasing numbers of people. For the future and a better world we can demonstrate and propagate concepts of personal dignity and worth. Concepts of social caring and tolerant interaction. Concepts of non violence. Concepts of personal liberty always with the proviso that such liberty does not restrict the liberty of someone else.

For an example let us take the question of violence. One of the most distressing and often covered comers of our society is wife and baby battering. We hear the stories from refuge home organisers, from social workers and sometimes doctors who repair the wounds and broken bones- The fact is that the majority of the batterers have themselves been battered or witnessed serious battering in the home. The repressed anger of one generation is passed down to the next. They are caught in a perpetual circle which is hard to break.

What does our philosophy of personal dignity have to say about battering. It certainly cannot approve of baby battering. We could, however, tend support and talk about laws designed to protect children and break the circle of violence. We could even follow the example of Sweden and outlaw physical violence to children. Such a move would clearly state public opinion.

My mother taught me many years ago "On average, happy people come from happy homes." It is also sadly true that on average, violent people come from violent homes. Not only do we pass down our physical structure to our children, we pass on emotional responses of tolerance, optimism and success. Alternatively we can pass on repressed fears, attitudes of viciousness, oppression and intolerance. Violence is only one facet of society to which we could apply our Expressions of survival anxiety, exploiting others, avaricious domination and uncaring attitudes are not to the ultimate benefit of the individual. Such attitudes isolate him at least within in his own psyche from the gratification of social co-operation.