Humanity has been so much like a child
With too many rich, useful toys,
Playing with each one that's given,
And discarding it when something
Newer appears in its midst.

We have been dilettantes and amateurs
With some of our greatest notions
For human betterment.
We have been spoilt children:
We have been like tyrannical children;
Impatient and imperious, demanding
Proof when listening is required,
Tearing things down when they don't do
What we want them to do
(How much simpler to let things do only
What they can do)
Being uncreative about what seems dark
And terrifying; preferring
Only what seems easy
And effortless;
Questioning the numbers
Of a philosophy's
Followers rather than examining
The fruitfulness of its ideas;
Wandering down blind alleys of populism
That lead to concentration camps;
Refusing to admit our vast crimes and mistakes
Denying the horrors of the slave trade
Minimising the reality of the gas chambers
Tearing our hair out in futile attempts
At reconciling civilization with genocide,
When civilization (as we have come to accept it)
Never did mean the true universal goodness
Of heart,  but rather meant the self-mythology
Of a people, a race.
No, neither the good in us, nor
Our capacity for evil are exhausted.
Time will show just how young
We are in our abilities,
Of genius for good and evil.
For all these strains, unexamined,
And unredeemed,
Will find their higher fruition
In the unlit centuries to come.

by Ben Okri from Mental Fight An Anthem for the Twenty-First Century