Can I ask you two simple questions? They won’t take up too much of your time, although I would like you to think about the answers carefully, possibly overnight: just let the questions float about for a bit and your most honest answers will eventually pop into your head.

That said, it would be very interesting indeed to compare the answers you give straight away to the answers you give yourself time to mull over.

Here are the questions:

1) What Is Humanity’s Greatest Success?

2) What is Humanity’s Greatest Failure?

Simple, aren’t they? Or not, as the case may be. Having had a few years to think about the answers in a roundabout way, writing lots of essays and articles as well as a big book about all sorts of important things, mine came pretty quickly, and I haven’t changed my mind in the month or so since I first asked myself.

1) What Is Humanity’s Greatest Success?

The ability to rationalise.

(Reasoning: It allows us to take information and use it in a practical way, including being able to make conscious decisions. It is the basis upon which all moral judgements are made. Rationalisation is the thing that allows us to plan for the future and learn from the past.)

2) What Is Humanity’s Greatest Failure?

Civilization.

(Reasoning: It is the physical state by which humans cut themselves off from anything non-human through the construction of towns and cities, which require the net import of resources — the key to the disconnection from the source of these resources, and their fate. Civilization creates a situation where the acquisition of power and material goods becomes a fundamental human characteristic, being a self-perpetuating and hence a destructive condition.)

No doubt you have your own answers, and I would love you to share them – or even comment about mine. Just don’t forget to think carefully before you answer…