Today, many of the dominant currents in societies everywhere
are pushing people apart, not drawing them together. Even as global poverty of
the most extreme form has decreased, political and economic systems have
enabled the enrichment of small coteries with grossly exorbitant wealth—a
condition that fuels fundamental instability in world affairs. The interactions
of the individual citizen, governing institutions, and society as a whole are
often fraught, as those arguing for the primacy of one or the other show more and
more intransigence in their thinking. Religious fundamentalism is warping the
character of communities, even nations. The failings of so many organizations
and institutions of society have understandably led to a decline in public
trust, but this has been systematically exploited by vested interests seeking
to undermine the credibility of all sources of knowledge. Certain shared
ethical principles, which seemed to be in the ascendant at the start of this
century, are eroded, threatening the prevailing consensus about right and wrong
that, in various arenas, had succeeded in holding humanity’s basest tendencies
in check. And the will to engage in international collective action, which
twenty years ago represented a powerful strain of thinking among world leaders,
has been cowed, assailed by resurgent forces of racism, nationalism, and
factionalism.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a message date 18 January
2019 to the Bahá’ís of the World)
