I dont know,,,,,Some argue that it is mostly a result of the decline of Christianity but that looks a lot like a symptom to me. Much more likely it has to do with naive mistakes made by the Enlightenment and as well that we are having trouble adjusting to massive rates of change and the technical man made as opposed to nature or maybe God made world.
Somebody I cant remember who said that it all boils down to mistakes in thinking, which results from will directed in a bad direction as well a laziness....so far this seems the most likely to be right to me......but my investigation is ongoing.
Another says that it all boils down to a lack of following the good, which is a performance error.
EDIT: One of my more radical ideas is that the mistakes the Enlightenment made which might have turned catastrophic were birthed by a failure to pay proper attention to the wisdom of women, and that they should have known better.