Kathleen MacMahon: We must confront the darker side of our nature and hope against hope that wisdom will prevail

The human capacity to do horrific things to fellow individuals has always been hard for us to process, now more so than ever

A die-in protest in support of Ukraine outside the gates of Downing Street in London: ‘Are human beings the only creatures on earth capable of such degrees of stupidity, greed and cruelty?’ Picture: Getty

I’ve been thinking about David Attenborough a lot recently. There’s a question I’d like to ask him, one that’s been forming in my mind for a long time now. It seems more pertinent than ever, as we watch with horror the atrocities Russian soldiers are perpetrating on a daily basis in Ukraine. As we observe the ever-growing gap between rich and poor, further widened to a monstrous degree by the pandemic. As we continue to ...