Sometimes it’s not easy to remember that things do get better, gradually, over time. It’s evolution. We tend, as a race, to inch forwards in tiny increments, generation by generation. But, like the growth of all enormous things, it’s very hard to see it up close. We need the distance of historical perspective. But every time we get a reminder that we are a duplicitous, immoral and vengeful species, prone to corruption and blindness and fallibility, it’s easy to forget, and give in to despair.

I know I am still hurting and angry over the West’s warmongering, over the incapacity of the United States and its allies to see its own shadow. I am of the firm belief, personally and politically, that wisdom comes mainly from withdrawing projections and acknowledging one’s own qualities realistically. When stones are cast at others without self-reflection, with no awareness of the beam in one’s own eye, there is something seriously amiss. It results in a polarity that is interdependent and feeds on itself, an ouroubouros, a snake devouring its own tail (cf the Israelis and the Palestinians, blind to how much they have in common, enslaved by hatred.) When political capital is gained by demonising others, e.g. the “axis of evil” – implying an axis of virtue – the hardest lesson to learn is that such finger-pointing makes the problem worse, not better.

To wage war purportedly in the name of a principle such as democracy requires a soul-searching inventory, an affirmation that democracy is alive and well in one’s own country. When blood is shed in hypocrisy, the inevitable response is a chronic vengeful wrath. Why isn’t this obvious to those in government in the UK and US?

It’s in the nature of psychological shadow that people in the grip of it can’t see they’re in the grip of it. Emperors believe they are wearing clothes as much as everyone else. It is in the nature of empire that this happens, for the office is more important than the person. Courtiers’ jobs depend on praising imperial sartorial style, regardless of what they see. Whistleblowers who point out flawed pedigrees are disrespecting the institution, impugning the nation’s character, and are not forgiven easily. When emperors are revealed to be naked, like Nixon and, to a lesser, literal extent, Clinton, it can be very painful, for admission of human frailty in our leaders requires us to change our own perception of ourselves.

But change is required, on so many levels. And it’s a change that has been hard to name, because the erosion of democratic principles and ethics has been subtle and insidious, and seemingly a by-product of big business, although there are those who see conspiracy and malevolence in every action of the multinationals. The shocking alliance between a British Labour government and an arch-conservative US administration is evidence of a creeping seductive malaise, and at its heart is the belief that economic growth (in particular that of the oil-dependent US) is the only thing that matters – above sustainability, or durability, or dependability, or ethics, or harmony with the environment.

A recent documentary set in Papua New Guinea sent an intrepid reporter into the swamps, and he stayed with two tribes – one living on artificial islands, made from reeds and mud, growing their abundant food on the rich estuarial silt, and the other, further inland, living in tree houses, a hundred feet high, above the mosquitos. The peoples were the most content he had ever encountered.

It is sentimental and mystical to suggest that such collective contentment is attainable in the West by following any particular course of action. The world is increasingly urban, and electronic, for many good reasons. But we lose sight of the cyclical laws of nature at our peril, and the further we advance into the skies with our concrete and cyber jungles, the more we need to enshrine ethical principles, sound earth husbandry guidelines, into how we do our business. It’s a green philosophy, but it’s not one that should exclusively be espoused by green voters and politicians. A low-taxation pro-business politician could be every bit as interested in good business practice as a more social democratic one. It’s not about right- or left-wing anymore. The political polarities are changing, as the Earth’s poles shift, but we don’t yet have the political structures to reflect them.

Britain, for instance, with no green MPs – due to the appalling voting system – is increasingly a reactionary force in the world. Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement, according to the dragon herself, is New Labour. But apart from the Eurovision result to signal that something may be amiss, and Tony O’Reilly’s anti-war Independent newspaper, the message really isn’t getting through.

But get through it must, and will. Campaigning journalists and writers like George Monbiot (www.monbiot.com) are on the case, and, of course, Michael D Higgins, Michael Moore, and Mary Robinson’s Ethical Globalization Initiative offer hope that change in the new century need not be without our informed consent.