In terms of psychological development the human race has never really got much beyond dealing with elemental problems. The beloved self-actualisation of Rogers and Maslow sometimes seems little more than hopeful mythology. Even in progressive cultures where there is successful food supply, shelter and security, even relative freedom from conflict, there is still a legacy from the past. A dark shadow remains from the struggle for survival and the sheer brutality of nature.

Here I am, for example, in a place with a very high material standard of life, the best in the world, but where people are still steeped in deprivation mentality. They show a lack of emotional development and psychological sophistication. They are terrified of risk and have an unhealthy relationship with money. It is almost as if any day they expect their material comforts to be stripped from them and thrown back into their primal selves. So alienated are they from a genuine perspective that they can never be truly appreciative of the benefits they have inherited from history. It will take many generations before this even begins to unravel. Only then might anything like the emancipation of the human race be possible.