In further support of what I have been writing of late, it appears that unification is in consonance with the precepts of evolution as propounded by Charles Darwin. The Incomparable Darwin and his successorshave proposed that all living creatures evolve, and thus change, in order to survive and flourish. If this be correct (and I believe that, today, there is little rational basis for doubting the accuracy of this theory--i.e., either as a conviction that this is the method God utilized to create His universe; or by which the universe has otherwise come into being), then the human body ("morphological evolution") and human behavior ("cultural evolution") are likewise ever-changing and developing, for the dsake of possession by uws of better chances for survival and success as organisms. It would thus appear to follow that the uniformity and unification which has been occurring in our behavior and our organizations over these countless millenniaare themselves actual expressions of these very evolutionary trends, having as their underlying purpose the promotion of our greater likelihood of survival, and our greater success as living beings.
In short, if mankind's history comprises a progression from tiny isolated groups of prehistoric humans to ever larger groupings--until we see, in the current day, a world composed of nation-states, and combinations of nation-states mnbound togetherin various ways--then it seems illogical and unlikely that the progression will end there. It seems, in fact, a further and inevitable next step in this direction for the entirety of humankind to join together into the formation of a united world, guided by a single sensible and beneficent universal government. For if benefits were had by the joinder of a number of tiny isolated prehistoric communities into larger groups, and finally into nations and empires--then it appears to be a like obvious and indisputable fact that further benefit can, should, and will be derived from this continued and final combination of all of the earth's people into a single unified entity.
Of course, if this be thus self-evident, one would be impelled to say, "It's going to happen anyway--sowhy bother advocating for change? Let time take its course; and let things occur naturally." However, it is my fear that the now somewhat likewise unavoidable "Second Big Bang" might occur before this eventual final unification has had a chance to take place. And so, I strongly urge we take matters into our own hands--in a peaceful and law-abiding way--"getting the ball rolling," and "getting the job done," before it is too late.
* * * * *
Friday, March 30, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
HISTORY'S PROGRESS THUS FAR (cont.)
"The most perfect form of patriotism is to be so fully conscious of the rights of humanity that one will want to see them respected for all the peoples of the earth." (Jancourt, "Palestrina") These words, uttered in eighteenth century France, appear to be an early reflection of the concept that people the world over are equal and entitled to the same human rights, regardless of their geographic location, or position in their society. Reason seems to indicate that this concept, in turn, would be best safeguarded in a unified world, wherein a single government directs, and protects the rights of all, the world over.
Thomas Paine has proclaimed that "a government of our own [i.e., self-government] is our natural right." In my opinion, government on behalf of the world (i.e., on behalf of all of mankind) is more in the nature of self-government than can be government by (and at times on behalf of the often petty interests and politics within) individual nations. For the interests of the world constitute the interests of all of the world's peoples--which is more representative of the interests of all of us than the possible political agenda of an individual nation's government (or, worse, the current, or entrenched, leaders thereof).
Thus, on down through our years, an ever-ongoing drive toward unity continues to silently proceed. Evidemce of its obviously unavoidable progress to date exists in numerous dimensions of our society. Our ideas, and the institutions that they have spawned, seem strangely more similar of late. The racial, linguistic, and cultural divisions of prior days are now much more readily overcome, thanks to advances in communication, more widespread education, and mass production of similar objects for worldwide distribution. All over the world, we find people dressing more and more alike. Many of us live in cities with similar streetscapes, which include lampposts, traffic signals, and bus stops; while in the stores the goods sold are basically similar, if not the same. Even our interior climates have become rather unified lately, as heating systems, air conditioning, and electricty in general, serve to moderate temperatures on every continent.
With a few intentional exceptions, people the world over now share a common civilization. This is at least partly due to the vast quantity of recent advances and improvements in our suystems of communication. By reason of greatly improved and accessible telephone networks, the proliferation of the cell-phone and successive devices, as well as the rise and circulation of the Internet, we are in instant contact with one another. This causes events and trends to rapidly reach and affect all of us, and has an effect of bonding us together as members of a single human family. Worldwide communication, trade, and social activity have transformed people's interactions into what has been termed "the rudiments of a world society." Transnational transactions and trade, world-encircling transfers of technology and aesthetics, worldwide tourism, and international conferences and correspondence among nenbers of various professional organizations around the world, all strengthen the proposition that we now do truly experience, and function within, a singular worldwide milieu.
Additional evidence that we are daily moving ever closer to a global community lies as well in numerous and varied official happenings in the recent past, including:
a) nations of the world having entered agreements concerning the emission of greenhouse gases;
b) in the economic arena, the establishment of international bodies, such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund;
c) the establishment of an International Criminal Court;
d) at the UN Millenium Summit, recognition expressed by many of the world's leaders that relieving the plight of the world's poorest nations constitutes a global responsibility;
e) an International Labor Organization, having been supported by the World Trade Organization as a means of organizing global standards for the world's working force;
f) various activities and events having worldwide orientation and significance taking place more frequently of late, and enjoying greater publicity (for example, Earth Day, begun in 1970, having become an annual happening in New York City, symbolizing ecological responsibility on a worldwide basis).
* * * * *
Thomas Paine has proclaimed that "a government of our own [i.e., self-government] is our natural right." In my opinion, government on behalf of the world (i.e., on behalf of all of mankind) is more in the nature of self-government than can be government by (and at times on behalf of the often petty interests and politics within) individual nations. For the interests of the world constitute the interests of all of the world's peoples--which is more representative of the interests of all of us than the possible political agenda of an individual nation's government (or, worse, the current, or entrenched, leaders thereof).
Thus, on down through our years, an ever-ongoing drive toward unity continues to silently proceed. Evidemce of its obviously unavoidable progress to date exists in numerous dimensions of our society. Our ideas, and the institutions that they have spawned, seem strangely more similar of late. The racial, linguistic, and cultural divisions of prior days are now much more readily overcome, thanks to advances in communication, more widespread education, and mass production of similar objects for worldwide distribution. All over the world, we find people dressing more and more alike. Many of us live in cities with similar streetscapes, which include lampposts, traffic signals, and bus stops; while in the stores the goods sold are basically similar, if not the same. Even our interior climates have become rather unified lately, as heating systems, air conditioning, and electricty in general, serve to moderate temperatures on every continent.
With a few intentional exceptions, people the world over now share a common civilization. This is at least partly due to the vast quantity of recent advances and improvements in our suystems of communication. By reason of greatly improved and accessible telephone networks, the proliferation of the cell-phone and successive devices, as well as the rise and circulation of the Internet, we are in instant contact with one another. This causes events and trends to rapidly reach and affect all of us, and has an effect of bonding us together as members of a single human family. Worldwide communication, trade, and social activity have transformed people's interactions into what has been termed "the rudiments of a world society." Transnational transactions and trade, world-encircling transfers of technology and aesthetics, worldwide tourism, and international conferences and correspondence among nenbers of various professional organizations around the world, all strengthen the proposition that we now do truly experience, and function within, a singular worldwide milieu.
Additional evidence that we are daily moving ever closer to a global community lies as well in numerous and varied official happenings in the recent past, including:
a) nations of the world having entered agreements concerning the emission of greenhouse gases;
b) in the economic arena, the establishment of international bodies, such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund;
c) the establishment of an International Criminal Court;
d) at the UN Millenium Summit, recognition expressed by many of the world's leaders that relieving the plight of the world's poorest nations constitutes a global responsibility;
e) an International Labor Organization, having been supported by the World Trade Organization as a means of organizing global standards for the world's working force;
f) various activities and events having worldwide orientation and significance taking place more frequently of late, and enjoying greater publicity (for example, Earth Day, begun in 1970, having become an annual happening in New York City, symbolizing ecological responsibility on a worldwide basis).
* * * * *
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
HISTORY'S PROGRESS THUS FAR (cont.)
Citing a term with which we are all by now quite familiar, our new era has been entitled the age of "globalization." Thomas Friedman, a very knowledgeable New York Times journalist, and author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, as well as several other insightful works, characterizes globalization as a dominant international system which now shapes everyone's domestic politics, commerce, environment, and international relations. It has arisen in post-Cold War society as its dominant international system, making the world an increasingly interwoven place. Further, according to Mr. Friedman, globalization and the Internet have cast commerce, education, and communication onto a global stage. At the same time, it has converted the world's marketplaceinto one in which investors are able to "move money around with the click of a mouse"; and marketers are capable of directing their sales efforts toward "global elites," "global middle classes," and "global teens."
Globalization in fact consists of, and is driven by, the colossal worldwide diffusion of markets and democracy. According to economist Joseph Stiglitz, this has produced huge benefits to all of us. These benefits include greater and wider opportunity for trade, and increased access to markets and technology. Moreover, in the words of Mr. Stiglitz, this has brought us "better health and an active global civil society doing battle in the pursuit of more democracy and greater social justice." (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents).
Our financial and currency markets are more interwoven than ever before. With our advanced technology, a single financial market now operates around the world and around the clock; and it is sensitive to changes anywhere.
All of this gives credence to another statement uttered by Mikhail Gorbachev, during a speech before the United Nations in 1988, wherein he stated that the world economy is becoming "a single organism."
* * * * *
In fact, since World War II, there has truly been a steady and constant movement toward global economic interdependence. As time has moved forward, more and more businesses have buile factories and sold their products in more and more places. By the time the 1980s rolled around, corporations from every advanced industrial country, and some from a number of developing nations, had expanded their production and marketing activities across national borders. Vast growth in foreign direct investment, and in the activities of these multinational corporations, has linked many nations more closely, and has continued to promote our global economy.
During the 1980s, foreign investors owned U.S. corporations valued at almost a trillion dollars. And by 1989, American businesses were amassing over half a trillion dollars in earnings from their overseas activities. Furtrher, these years bore witness to a greater and greater number of intercorporate alliances, in the production as well as the service sectors. It was estimated, for example, that more than twenty thousand such unions occurred between 1996 and 1998 alone. Many, or perhaps most, of these alliances, mergers, and takeovers, have taken place, and continue to so take place, across national boundaries.
It has therefore been generally agreed among the economic community that globalism is occurring on a grand scale, and has already triumphed over regionalism. New financial and technological forces seem to be propelling the world's economies into higher and higher levels of integration. Moreover, since the end of World War II, the prevailing scene is one in which numerous nations have been "catching up" with America's former status as economic behemoth. Mutual interdependence in the global economy seems to be universally recognized and acknowledged; and it is today obvious and thus agreed by most in the business community that the planet's economic interdependence is what has enabled global commerce to flourish so vastly of late.
As technology has advanced to greater and greater heights, it has overcome distance, and has contributed significantly to this movement toward economic globalization. A planet once dominated by military superpowers has evolved to become a "global village" led by a number of economic poowers. Moreover, these economic powers represent internationally-oriented entities, rather than individual nation-states.
In support of this characterization of our planet as a "global village," statistical facts disclosing that, between 1985 and 1990, foreign direct investment (in businesses in other nations) grew at an average rate of thirty percent per year--a rate of increase that was four times the rate of increase in world trade; and further that the annual flow of the world's foreign investment doubled to almost $350 Billion between 1992 and the late nineties. These expansions have, moreover, continued and increased during the early years of our twenty-first century.
Such numerous and varied statements direct us to an irrefutable conclusion that the marketplace today is the entire planet earth; and this global integration of technology, finance, trade, and information exerts primary influence upon most aspects of our lives. We are witnessing a process in the formation of a world economy that is analogous to earlier processes via which national economies were formed. What is required under such current circumstances, in the opinion of the economist Joseph Stiglitz, is a governing body that shall be accountable to all the world's people, to oversee the globalization process in a way that would be comparable to the manner in which the various national governments guided these processes on their respective national levels in years gone by. Thus, in such an atmosphere of so highly integrated a global economy, many are beginning to look upon the nation-state as "anachronistic and in retreat."
What we are in fact faced with today is a world of nation-states attempting to govern and regulate a world of international commerce. The necessity here for a form of worldwide regulation appears to be a natural, and eventually inescapable, consequence. As though in recognition thereof, government policies at the close of the twentieth and start of the twenty-first centuries have in fact indicated movement toward weaker state control and greater international influence. But more is indeed required.
* * * * *
There are, I am sure, still many diehards who favor preservation of the world as an agglomeration of individual sovereign nations, and an isolationist policy for their own respective states. But isolationism--the antithesis of unity--is, in the opinion of many, no longer practicable. It stands in stark conttrast to today's prevailing beliefs and tendencies toward the promotion of freedom and brotherhood for all. America has undergone periods when isolation was its preferred national posture. The Monroe Doctrine was an early official declaration of such a policy. In later years, our refusal to join the League of Nations represented expression of a similar attitude. But America has been far from isolationist where welcome to certain individuals requiring a new domicile is concerned. Notwihstanding sporadic expressions of opposition to newcomers, the U.S. has been a nation composed of immigrantrs since its inception. And these immigrants' loyalty has been at times described as something more than loyalty to a country--rather, loyalty to "the uplifting, dignifying effects of liberty and equality, the exhilarating lure of opportunity, the enjoyment, or even the expectation, of a greater prosperity." (Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism).
This immigratipon began, of course, long prior to the advent of globalization. And there have been numerous similar movements, of people seeking equality and democracy, in numerous other parts of the world as well. Such ideals, wherein people from different groups or classes stand in equal rank with each other, and where all share an equal voice regarding government, actually constitute a form of unity. It therefore ought perhaps be acknowledged that quests for equality and decocracy within individual nations may be considered to be precursors of the eventual unity of all on a global level.
* * * * *
(Please leave a comment--or send an E-Mail to oneworld@tampabay.rr.com)
Globalization in fact consists of, and is driven by, the colossal worldwide diffusion of markets and democracy. According to economist Joseph Stiglitz, this has produced huge benefits to all of us. These benefits include greater and wider opportunity for trade, and increased access to markets and technology. Moreover, in the words of Mr. Stiglitz, this has brought us "better health and an active global civil society doing battle in the pursuit of more democracy and greater social justice." (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents).
Our financial and currency markets are more interwoven than ever before. With our advanced technology, a single financial market now operates around the world and around the clock; and it is sensitive to changes anywhere.
All of this gives credence to another statement uttered by Mikhail Gorbachev, during a speech before the United Nations in 1988, wherein he stated that the world economy is becoming "a single organism."
* * * * *
In fact, since World War II, there has truly been a steady and constant movement toward global economic interdependence. As time has moved forward, more and more businesses have buile factories and sold their products in more and more places. By the time the 1980s rolled around, corporations from every advanced industrial country, and some from a number of developing nations, had expanded their production and marketing activities across national borders. Vast growth in foreign direct investment, and in the activities of these multinational corporations, has linked many nations more closely, and has continued to promote our global economy.
During the 1980s, foreign investors owned U.S. corporations valued at almost a trillion dollars. And by 1989, American businesses were amassing over half a trillion dollars in earnings from their overseas activities. Furtrher, these years bore witness to a greater and greater number of intercorporate alliances, in the production as well as the service sectors. It was estimated, for example, that more than twenty thousand such unions occurred between 1996 and 1998 alone. Many, or perhaps most, of these alliances, mergers, and takeovers, have taken place, and continue to so take place, across national boundaries.
It has therefore been generally agreed among the economic community that globalism is occurring on a grand scale, and has already triumphed over regionalism. New financial and technological forces seem to be propelling the world's economies into higher and higher levels of integration. Moreover, since the end of World War II, the prevailing scene is one in which numerous nations have been "catching up" with America's former status as economic behemoth. Mutual interdependence in the global economy seems to be universally recognized and acknowledged; and it is today obvious and thus agreed by most in the business community that the planet's economic interdependence is what has enabled global commerce to flourish so vastly of late.
As technology has advanced to greater and greater heights, it has overcome distance, and has contributed significantly to this movement toward economic globalization. A planet once dominated by military superpowers has evolved to become a "global village" led by a number of economic poowers. Moreover, these economic powers represent internationally-oriented entities, rather than individual nation-states.
In support of this characterization of our planet as a "global village," statistical facts disclosing that, between 1985 and 1990, foreign direct investment (in businesses in other nations) grew at an average rate of thirty percent per year--a rate of increase that was four times the rate of increase in world trade; and further that the annual flow of the world's foreign investment doubled to almost $350 Billion between 1992 and the late nineties. These expansions have, moreover, continued and increased during the early years of our twenty-first century.
Such numerous and varied statements direct us to an irrefutable conclusion that the marketplace today is the entire planet earth; and this global integration of technology, finance, trade, and information exerts primary influence upon most aspects of our lives. We are witnessing a process in the formation of a world economy that is analogous to earlier processes via which national economies were formed. What is required under such current circumstances, in the opinion of the economist Joseph Stiglitz, is a governing body that shall be accountable to all the world's people, to oversee the globalization process in a way that would be comparable to the manner in which the various national governments guided these processes on their respective national levels in years gone by. Thus, in such an atmosphere of so highly integrated a global economy, many are beginning to look upon the nation-state as "anachronistic and in retreat."
What we are in fact faced with today is a world of nation-states attempting to govern and regulate a world of international commerce. The necessity here for a form of worldwide regulation appears to be a natural, and eventually inescapable, consequence. As though in recognition thereof, government policies at the close of the twentieth and start of the twenty-first centuries have in fact indicated movement toward weaker state control and greater international influence. But more is indeed required.
* * * * *
There are, I am sure, still many diehards who favor preservation of the world as an agglomeration of individual sovereign nations, and an isolationist policy for their own respective states. But isolationism--the antithesis of unity--is, in the opinion of many, no longer practicable. It stands in stark conttrast to today's prevailing beliefs and tendencies toward the promotion of freedom and brotherhood for all. America has undergone periods when isolation was its preferred national posture. The Monroe Doctrine was an early official declaration of such a policy. In later years, our refusal to join the League of Nations represented expression of a similar attitude. But America has been far from isolationist where welcome to certain individuals requiring a new domicile is concerned. Notwihstanding sporadic expressions of opposition to newcomers, the U.S. has been a nation composed of immigrantrs since its inception. And these immigrants' loyalty has been at times described as something more than loyalty to a country--rather, loyalty to "the uplifting, dignifying effects of liberty and equality, the exhilarating lure of opportunity, the enjoyment, or even the expectation, of a greater prosperity." (Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism).
This immigratipon began, of course, long prior to the advent of globalization. And there have been numerous similar movements, of people seeking equality and democracy, in numerous other parts of the world as well. Such ideals, wherein people from different groups or classes stand in equal rank with each other, and where all share an equal voice regarding government, actually constitute a form of unity. It therefore ought perhaps be acknowledged that quests for equality and decocracy within individual nations may be considered to be precursors of the eventual unity of all on a global level.
* * * * *
(Please leave a comment--or send an E-Mail to oneworld@tampabay.rr.com)
Monday, March 26, 2012
HISTORY'S PROGRESS THUS FAR (cont.)
Notwithstanding obvious weaknesses and deficiencies in the United Nations and other international organizations, it nevertheless seems self-evident that mankind's paths have in fact converged more and more in recent years. Convergence, in fact, to quote historian J. M. Roberts, appears of late to be the dominant theme of world history, and people are behaving more and more in accordance therewith, as "more common experiences and assumptions are now shared more widely than ever before." (History of the World).
Another pattern which this convergence has assumed consists of a phenomenon that the years following World War II are said to have provided conditions for, and thereby promoted. It is most widely referred to as "regionalism." Defined as "clusters of supranational, though subuniversal, interests and sentiments...." (Alfred DeGrazia, Political Organization), his might in fact constitute a next-to-last step in the process of which I speak.
From another vantage point, we must view the post-World War II world as one in which we witness a vast growth of the contemporary welfare state. In an increasing number of places, we behold higher and higher priority being assigned to social objectives, such as the right to a suitable job, government compensation in the event of unemployment or disability, social security in old age, free or subsidized health care, and the redistribution of wealth and income through progressive taxation. Moreover, in recent years, these benefits have become available to many, if not most, people within a place--instead of being confined, as in less recent times, to only the poor and disadvantaged residing thereat.
In 1947, answering a Soviet charge that America's program to distribute aid (the Marshall plan) was divisive, President Truman urged world cooperation, and an end to the barriers that do in fact divide our world.
1948 saw a movement toward unity in the sphere of religion. A World Council of Churches was founded, an exponent of the ecumenical novement. As an organized effort to unite the many branches of Protestantism, and eventually all of Christianity, ecumenicism represented but another example of the process of consolidation that is taking place in society. In the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church also began to encourage ecumenical concepts as well as dialogue with the non-Christian world.
In the same year (1948) as well, a former United States fighter pilot named Gary Davis interrupted a session of the United Nations taking place in Paris to announce that he was a "citizen of the world," and to call for the formation of a world government. He was expelled from the hall; but his exclamations, as well as expressions thereafter of a like nature on the part of others of a similar mind, seem hopefully to be a portent of mankind's future.
In the 1950s, Western Europe began to shed a good deal of the nationalism that had been such an overriding influence before. The Marshall Plan and NATO were factors that initiated the beginnings of integration within the Continent. This apparently signaled an end to an era of warfare among its component states, and the substitution of cooperation and negotiation, which has promoted and encouraged political unity for the region--unity which has culminated in the formation of the European Union.
In the late 50s and early 60s, man began to become more extensively interested and involved in ventures into space. At first as a sort of race to accomplish "firsts," between the United States and Russia, it produced, among other things, a lot of wasteful duplication and very little cooperation between the two programs. However, as time went on, this error was somewhat corrected (as evidenced by the first joint US-Soviet space mission in 1975); and space exploration has since become more of an international activity.
During these same years, another technological phenomenon began to unfold, as the world of computers slowly became established as a method, later the most efficient method, and finally the more or less only method, of dealing with our data, as well as the conduct of our business and personal affairs. Today, one of the primary components of our computer-driven world is the Internet, also known as the "World Wide Web." The Internet has been credited with spawning a worldwide "information revolution," and transforming our globe into a "global village," in which people across the planet are exposed to the same information, share the same problems and concerns, and are able to maintain instant contact and communication with one another.
The Internaet has been called "the pinnacle of the democratization of information," in that it is totally decentralized, owned by no one (and therefore by all), and capable of potenbtially reaching into every home in the world. It has compelled people everywhere to change "from thinking locally first and then globally, to thinking globally first and then locally." The three resultant fundamental changes that have come about via the computer--in how we communicate, how we invest, and how we learn about the world and each other-- have been said to have enabled the world "to come together as a single, integrated, open plain." (Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree).
One observer of all this, the noted historian Palmer Colton, speaks of recent years as being a time of "a kind of unigform modern civilization which overlies and penetrates traditional cultures...an interlocking unity, in that conditions on one side of the globe have repercussions on the othetr. (Palmer and Colton, A History of the Modern World)
Historian J. M. Roberts describes this as "a creeping unity" that has overtaken mankind--causing clashes among cultures to decrease significantly. And when conflicts do occur (as in the Middle East today), they may actually be more appropriately characterized as being, or having originated in, conflicts between contestants who share somewhat common backgrounds. (J. M. Roberts, op. cit.)
In 1989, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down; and the era of the Cold War ended with it. The U.S. and Russia, former rivals, began working somewhat toward common aims in Europe and Asia. Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, conscious of the advent of this new age, identified modern-day progress in science and technology as progress requiring "a different road to the future." Referring to the current existence of an interdependent globe besieged by nuclear, ecological, and economic dangers, he declared that our highest concern must be "universal human interests," and the "universal human idea."
Patrenthetically, to quote one G. Frering, chairman of a giant Brazilian company, "The Berlin Wall fell here (i.e., in Brazil) too. It wasn't just a local event in Europe. It was a global event." Or, in words recited at about the same time by one Raul Vivo, rector of a school for advanced studies in Cuba: "Cuba is no longer an island....There are no islands anymore. There is only one world." [emphasis supplied]. Such declarations from so many quarters make it obvious and clear that these concepts have by now come to be noted and acknowledged by a great many people in a great many places.
* * * * *
(Please leave a comment, or send an E-Mail to oneworld@tampabay.rr.com)
Another pattern which this convergence has assumed consists of a phenomenon that the years following World War II are said to have provided conditions for, and thereby promoted. It is most widely referred to as "regionalism." Defined as "clusters of supranational, though subuniversal, interests and sentiments...." (Alfred DeGrazia, Political Organization), his might in fact constitute a next-to-last step in the process of which I speak.
From another vantage point, we must view the post-World War II world as one in which we witness a vast growth of the contemporary welfare state. In an increasing number of places, we behold higher and higher priority being assigned to social objectives, such as the right to a suitable job, government compensation in the event of unemployment or disability, social security in old age, free or subsidized health care, and the redistribution of wealth and income through progressive taxation. Moreover, in recent years, these benefits have become available to many, if not most, people within a place--instead of being confined, as in less recent times, to only the poor and disadvantaged residing thereat.
In 1947, answering a Soviet charge that America's program to distribute aid (the Marshall plan) was divisive, President Truman urged world cooperation, and an end to the barriers that do in fact divide our world.
1948 saw a movement toward unity in the sphere of religion. A World Council of Churches was founded, an exponent of the ecumenical novement. As an organized effort to unite the many branches of Protestantism, and eventually all of Christianity, ecumenicism represented but another example of the process of consolidation that is taking place in society. In the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church also began to encourage ecumenical concepts as well as dialogue with the non-Christian world.
In the same year (1948) as well, a former United States fighter pilot named Gary Davis interrupted a session of the United Nations taking place in Paris to announce that he was a "citizen of the world," and to call for the formation of a world government. He was expelled from the hall; but his exclamations, as well as expressions thereafter of a like nature on the part of others of a similar mind, seem hopefully to be a portent of mankind's future.
In the 1950s, Western Europe began to shed a good deal of the nationalism that had been such an overriding influence before. The Marshall Plan and NATO were factors that initiated the beginnings of integration within the Continent. This apparently signaled an end to an era of warfare among its component states, and the substitution of cooperation and negotiation, which has promoted and encouraged political unity for the region--unity which has culminated in the formation of the European Union.
In the late 50s and early 60s, man began to become more extensively interested and involved in ventures into space. At first as a sort of race to accomplish "firsts," between the United States and Russia, it produced, among other things, a lot of wasteful duplication and very little cooperation between the two programs. However, as time went on, this error was somewhat corrected (as evidenced by the first joint US-Soviet space mission in 1975); and space exploration has since become more of an international activity.
During these same years, another technological phenomenon began to unfold, as the world of computers slowly became established as a method, later the most efficient method, and finally the more or less only method, of dealing with our data, as well as the conduct of our business and personal affairs. Today, one of the primary components of our computer-driven world is the Internet, also known as the "World Wide Web." The Internet has been credited with spawning a worldwide "information revolution," and transforming our globe into a "global village," in which people across the planet are exposed to the same information, share the same problems and concerns, and are able to maintain instant contact and communication with one another.
The Internaet has been called "the pinnacle of the democratization of information," in that it is totally decentralized, owned by no one (and therefore by all), and capable of potenbtially reaching into every home in the world. It has compelled people everywhere to change "from thinking locally first and then globally, to thinking globally first and then locally." The three resultant fundamental changes that have come about via the computer--in how we communicate, how we invest, and how we learn about the world and each other-- have been said to have enabled the world "to come together as a single, integrated, open plain." (Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree).
One observer of all this, the noted historian Palmer Colton, speaks of recent years as being a time of "a kind of unigform modern civilization which overlies and penetrates traditional cultures...an interlocking unity, in that conditions on one side of the globe have repercussions on the othetr. (Palmer and Colton, A History of the Modern World)
Historian J. M. Roberts describes this as "a creeping unity" that has overtaken mankind--causing clashes among cultures to decrease significantly. And when conflicts do occur (as in the Middle East today), they may actually be more appropriately characterized as being, or having originated in, conflicts between contestants who share somewhat common backgrounds. (J. M. Roberts, op. cit.)
In 1989, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down; and the era of the Cold War ended with it. The U.S. and Russia, former rivals, began working somewhat toward common aims in Europe and Asia. Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, conscious of the advent of this new age, identified modern-day progress in science and technology as progress requiring "a different road to the future." Referring to the current existence of an interdependent globe besieged by nuclear, ecological, and economic dangers, he declared that our highest concern must be "universal human interests," and the "universal human idea."
Patrenthetically, to quote one G. Frering, chairman of a giant Brazilian company, "The Berlin Wall fell here (i.e., in Brazil) too. It wasn't just a local event in Europe. It was a global event." Or, in words recited at about the same time by one Raul Vivo, rector of a school for advanced studies in Cuba: "Cuba is no longer an island....There are no islands anymore. There is only one world." [emphasis supplied]. Such declarations from so many quarters make it obvious and clear that these concepts have by now come to be noted and acknowledged by a great many people in a great many places.
* * * * *
(Please leave a comment, or send an E-Mail to oneworld@tampabay.rr.com)
Friday, March 23, 2012
HISTORY'S PROGRESS THUS FAR (cont.)
In 1927, U.S. Secretary of State Kellogg suggested a worldwide pact renouncing war. In 1931, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University and founder of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in acknowledgment of his efforts in advocating worldwide cooperation to maintain international harmony.
Notwithstanding such effortrs by individuals and groups, however, Fascism reared its ugly head in Europe in the late thirties. Internationalists viewed it as a common enemy to all peoples, and expressed the belief that only by banding together could the rest of the world prevail.
In August, 1941, aboard the U.S. cruiser Augusta, President Roosevelt and English Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued a joint declaration of their hopes for a better future for the world, which came to be called the "Atlantic Charter." It contained eight principles, which bore much similarity to President Wilson's Fourteen Points:
a) no territorial gain by any nation;
b) no territorial changes without consent;
c) the right of people to choose their own form of government;
d) equal access to trade;
e) equal access to raw materials;
f) international economic collaboration;
g) freedom of the seas; and
h) abandonment of the use of force.
\
In 1943, The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution entitled the Fulbright Resolution, which called for United States participation in an international peace organization. In November of the same year, a counterpart, called the Connally Resolution, was enacted by the Senate. Next, at a meeting following the horrors of World War II, future world security, and an organization that would subsequenytly be called the "United Nations," were discussed. Such an organization would represent and foster a universal commitment to a peaceful world, via the establishment of an international forum to properly deal witrh such conflicts as should arise, as well as to promote freedom of international trade.
In 1945, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin proposed a further extension of this United Nations concept, in the form of an "assembly," or legislative body for the world, which would enact binding law subject to international enforcement. Its members would be elected directly by the people of the countries that comprised the membership of the U.N. It never came to pass, however; and in my opinion, the absence of a body having such capabilitry constitutes a primary factor behind the basic weakness and ineffectiveness of the United Nations today.
* * * * *
Notwithstanding such effortrs by individuals and groups, however, Fascism reared its ugly head in Europe in the late thirties. Internationalists viewed it as a common enemy to all peoples, and expressed the belief that only by banding together could the rest of the world prevail.
In August, 1941, aboard the U.S. cruiser Augusta, President Roosevelt and English Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued a joint declaration of their hopes for a better future for the world, which came to be called the "Atlantic Charter." It contained eight principles, which bore much similarity to President Wilson's Fourteen Points:
a) no territorial gain by any nation;
b) no territorial changes without consent;
c) the right of people to choose their own form of government;
d) equal access to trade;
e) equal access to raw materials;
f) international economic collaboration;
g) freedom of the seas; and
h) abandonment of the use of force.
\
In 1943, The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution entitled the Fulbright Resolution, which called for United States participation in an international peace organization. In November of the same year, a counterpart, called the Connally Resolution, was enacted by the Senate. Next, at a meeting following the horrors of World War II, future world security, and an organization that would subsequenytly be called the "United Nations," were discussed. Such an organization would represent and foster a universal commitment to a peaceful world, via the establishment of an international forum to properly deal witrh such conflicts as should arise, as well as to promote freedom of international trade.
In 1945, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin proposed a further extension of this United Nations concept, in the form of an "assembly," or legislative body for the world, which would enact binding law subject to international enforcement. Its members would be elected directly by the people of the countries that comprised the membership of the U.N. It never came to pass, however; and in my opinion, the absence of a body having such capabilitry constitutes a primary factor behind the basic weakness and ineffectiveness of the United Nations today.
* * * * *
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
HISTORY'S PROGRESS THUS FAR (cont.)
In short, the world after 1500 had become a more integrated world, wherein many formerly independent societies functioned less and less as such. An international scientific community began to develop. Thinking people acknolwledged this in their writings, and proposed further improvements based upon this trend. In the early part of the century, Sir Thomas More, adopting a religious tack to this concept, observed that "realms" were but artificial, secondary divisions in the ultimately indivisible body of Christendom. In 1625, Hugo Grotius published Law of War and Peace, wherein were formulated systems of international law which he based upon standards of conduct that humans everywhere seemed to observe and exhibit. In 1672, a work by Pufendorf appeared (Law of Nature and of Nations), calling for all of the national states of the time to work together for the common good, and declaring that their sovereignty was in fact subordinate to a more overriding principle, being a concept of reason and justice for all.
During the eighteenth century, Deism preached that God was the essence of reason; and that a common identical sense of morality underlay all of man's religions. By this time, the world's economy was an oceanic economy; and an international trading community was doing business around the globe. Montesquieu wrote that we had thus created an international "Grand Republic," which was uniting all merchants and trading nationsAcross the world's boundaries. Rousseau as well expressed a conviction that all men were brothers and members of an international social and moral totality.
This was the age of the Enlightenment, marked by the emergence of an international intelligentsia, who shared and expressed a generalized intellect and spoke in common terms about it. It was also the age of revolution, wherein the factionalism of class was dethroned and integrated into the united classless sovereignty of the citizenship of a nation.
In Russia, Alexander I, in a monarch's effort to deal with the impending revolutions of the day, organized a Holy Alliance. Its document was a covenant forming an international order, to be signed and thus adopted by the subscribing rulers, whereby they promised to uphold Christian principles of peace and charity for the benefit of their subjects.
In 1819, Prussia established a uniform tariff for all her territories. In 1848, a group composed mainly of private citizens undertook to organize a united Germany. A subsequent result was the founding, in 1871, of a federal empire consisting of twenty five German states, having a common Reichstag.
At about the same time, Napoleon III expressed what has come to be called "a doctrine of nationalities," which considered the consolidation of nations to be the next forward step at that stage of history. Between 1859 and 1870, Italy was unified; and the Habsburgs joined Austria with Hungary forming the Dual Monarchy.
During the same period, on the other sideof the Atlantic, the Dominion of Canada was formed. And unity was preserved in the United States via the Civil War--which put an end to any remnants of a view of the Union as a confederation of member states; and replaced it with an immutable image of a united people irrevocably bound together.
* * * * *
Thus it appears that history marched a great distance farther forward during the periods through and including the nineteenth century, wherein consolidation and joinder played a major role. In India, people who in former times would have kept themselves apart from each other were compelled to interact more. This, coupled with the adoption of English as a common language, produced a unity among the Indian people that resulted in the eventual overthrow of English rule. And in Japan, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 followed a similar track, wherein the country's four most powerful clans voluntarily returned their territories to the emperor, in order to avoid hostility and provide the basis for a uniform rule.
Additionally, during the nineteenth century, an early pamphlet by Karl Marx expressed a conviction that change takes place in our world not so much as a result of arguments, or campaigns, or persuasion that it is morally desirable--but, rather, because it but constitutes a manifestation of the actual and inevitable current of history. Concepts would change or fall, he said, not because the present state of things is impractical, harmful, or morally wrong--but because its day is over, and it is thus historically doomed. I intend to herein demonstrate that the days of factionalism and nationalism are likewise over--and that they too are consequently doomed.
* * * * *
The twentieth century bore witness to more and more consolidation. Historians have said that, after 1900, history is actually a single, global history. For the first time, it was possible to speak of a world civilization, a world economy, and a world market. The price of a commodity in New Zealand could affect business affairs in London--and vice-versa. Railroads began to join together. In the United States, for example, at the turn of the century, six companies controlled what had originally been numerous small local lines. The small family farm began to transform into large-scale, single-crop enterprises, whose products could now be shipped far and wide. Even retail sales activity became less singular and more unified in nature, as specialty shops began to be replaced by larger and larger "department stores," which carried more and more types and quantities of goods for sale to the public.
The twentieth century was, moreover, the century wherein man had reached the stage of international meetings, conferences and conventions. In April, 1907, a Peace Conference opened in New York, as a preliminary to a more major peace conference scheduled for later that year at the Hague, in regard to which President Theodore Roosevelt urged the institution and future implementation of international arbitration. Subsequently during that year, the aforesaid Hague conference was held. An agreement concerning armaments could not be reached; but (in what must seem a perverse irony) international "courtesy" in the conduct of warfare was agreed upon, the then-existing conventions of war were renewed, and eleven new canons added to the rulebook. In February, 1909, President Roosevelt proposed a second world conference, regarding conservation, to be held at the Hague.
In January, 1917, as World War I raged, President Woodrow Wilson, speaking to the U.S. Senate, described an anticipated coalition of nations having as its purpose the preservation of peace. "Peace without victory" was what he called for--a notion that bears certain similarities to the concept of "abdication and joinder" which I will later suggest and describe in these suggestions.
In January, 1918, while World War I dragged on, President Wilson set forth what came to be known as his famous "Fourteen Points." They embodied a number of references to world unity, including:
a) an end to secret treaties between separate states;
b) freedom of travel for all;
c) removal of barriers to international trade; and
d) formation of an international organization of nations to assure world peace by settling disputes via conferences and negotiation.
This last point, Wilson's most cherished wish, would lead to the formation of the League of Nations in 1919. He pointed out that the League was not to be a "vehicle of power"--but, rather, one via which "the conscience of the world...[might] express itself." Unfortunately, the United States declined membership--an absence which many have attributed to the League's failure, and to the eventual tragedy of World War II.
Another, quite different different, worldwide body was also founded in 1919. In Moscow, an international communist organization came into being, and stated its goal to be the fostering of worldwide revolution--"a new world order of united working people of all nations." Approve or disapprove as you wish, concerning a particular philosophy or proposed economic or political system, the age of the worldwide conference and worldwide organization appears to have at this time become a common element in our history.
During the 1920s, more mergings and consolidations were taking place in other departments on domestic home fronts. When the decade began, more than a hundred companies were manufacturing automobiles in the United States. By 1929, there were only forty four; and these were dominated by the "Big Three" (Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors). Moreover, spurred by the revolution that the automobile had created in our society, nations began to be transformed from a geography dotted with numerous scattered rural hamlets, to a much smaller quantity of bustling urban hubs srrounded on their perimeters by suburbs.
Furthermore, the world of production and domestic consumption went from one in which workers in small shops produced a few items at a time, and people purchased their daily needs at the corner store--to one in which modern mass production and merchandising made for high volumes of production and purchases.
* * * * *
During the eighteenth century, Deism preached that God was the essence of reason; and that a common identical sense of morality underlay all of man's religions. By this time, the world's economy was an oceanic economy; and an international trading community was doing business around the globe. Montesquieu wrote that we had thus created an international "Grand Republic," which was uniting all merchants and trading nationsAcross the world's boundaries. Rousseau as well expressed a conviction that all men were brothers and members of an international social and moral totality.
This was the age of the Enlightenment, marked by the emergence of an international intelligentsia, who shared and expressed a generalized intellect and spoke in common terms about it. It was also the age of revolution, wherein the factionalism of class was dethroned and integrated into the united classless sovereignty of the citizenship of a nation.
In Russia, Alexander I, in a monarch's effort to deal with the impending revolutions of the day, organized a Holy Alliance. Its document was a covenant forming an international order, to be signed and thus adopted by the subscribing rulers, whereby they promised to uphold Christian principles of peace and charity for the benefit of their subjects.
In 1819, Prussia established a uniform tariff for all her territories. In 1848, a group composed mainly of private citizens undertook to organize a united Germany. A subsequent result was the founding, in 1871, of a federal empire consisting of twenty five German states, having a common Reichstag.
At about the same time, Napoleon III expressed what has come to be called "a doctrine of nationalities," which considered the consolidation of nations to be the next forward step at that stage of history. Between 1859 and 1870, Italy was unified; and the Habsburgs joined Austria with Hungary forming the Dual Monarchy.
During the same period, on the other sideof the Atlantic, the Dominion of Canada was formed. And unity was preserved in the United States via the Civil War--which put an end to any remnants of a view of the Union as a confederation of member states; and replaced it with an immutable image of a united people irrevocably bound together.
* * * * *
Thus it appears that history marched a great distance farther forward during the periods through and including the nineteenth century, wherein consolidation and joinder played a major role. In India, people who in former times would have kept themselves apart from each other were compelled to interact more. This, coupled with the adoption of English as a common language, produced a unity among the Indian people that resulted in the eventual overthrow of English rule. And in Japan, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 followed a similar track, wherein the country's four most powerful clans voluntarily returned their territories to the emperor, in order to avoid hostility and provide the basis for a uniform rule.
Additionally, during the nineteenth century, an early pamphlet by Karl Marx expressed a conviction that change takes place in our world not so much as a result of arguments, or campaigns, or persuasion that it is morally desirable--but, rather, because it but constitutes a manifestation of the actual and inevitable current of history. Concepts would change or fall, he said, not because the present state of things is impractical, harmful, or morally wrong--but because its day is over, and it is thus historically doomed. I intend to herein demonstrate that the days of factionalism and nationalism are likewise over--and that they too are consequently doomed.
* * * * *
The twentieth century bore witness to more and more consolidation. Historians have said that, after 1900, history is actually a single, global history. For the first time, it was possible to speak of a world civilization, a world economy, and a world market. The price of a commodity in New Zealand could affect business affairs in London--and vice-versa. Railroads began to join together. In the United States, for example, at the turn of the century, six companies controlled what had originally been numerous small local lines. The small family farm began to transform into large-scale, single-crop enterprises, whose products could now be shipped far and wide. Even retail sales activity became less singular and more unified in nature, as specialty shops began to be replaced by larger and larger "department stores," which carried more and more types and quantities of goods for sale to the public.
The twentieth century was, moreover, the century wherein man had reached the stage of international meetings, conferences and conventions. In April, 1907, a Peace Conference opened in New York, as a preliminary to a more major peace conference scheduled for later that year at the Hague, in regard to which President Theodore Roosevelt urged the institution and future implementation of international arbitration. Subsequently during that year, the aforesaid Hague conference was held. An agreement concerning armaments could not be reached; but (in what must seem a perverse irony) international "courtesy" in the conduct of warfare was agreed upon, the then-existing conventions of war were renewed, and eleven new canons added to the rulebook. In February, 1909, President Roosevelt proposed a second world conference, regarding conservation, to be held at the Hague.
In January, 1917, as World War I raged, President Woodrow Wilson, speaking to the U.S. Senate, described an anticipated coalition of nations having as its purpose the preservation of peace. "Peace without victory" was what he called for--a notion that bears certain similarities to the concept of "abdication and joinder" which I will later suggest and describe in these suggestions.
In January, 1918, while World War I dragged on, President Wilson set forth what came to be known as his famous "Fourteen Points." They embodied a number of references to world unity, including:
a) an end to secret treaties between separate states;
b) freedom of travel for all;
c) removal of barriers to international trade; and
d) formation of an international organization of nations to assure world peace by settling disputes via conferences and negotiation.
This last point, Wilson's most cherished wish, would lead to the formation of the League of Nations in 1919. He pointed out that the League was not to be a "vehicle of power"--but, rather, one via which "the conscience of the world...[might] express itself." Unfortunately, the United States declined membership--an absence which many have attributed to the League's failure, and to the eventual tragedy of World War II.
Another, quite different different, worldwide body was also founded in 1919. In Moscow, an international communist organization came into being, and stated its goal to be the fostering of worldwide revolution--"a new world order of united working people of all nations." Approve or disapprove as you wish, concerning a particular philosophy or proposed economic or political system, the age of the worldwide conference and worldwide organization appears to have at this time become a common element in our history.
During the 1920s, more mergings and consolidations were taking place in other departments on domestic home fronts. When the decade began, more than a hundred companies were manufacturing automobiles in the United States. By 1929, there were only forty four; and these were dominated by the "Big Three" (Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors). Moreover, spurred by the revolution that the automobile had created in our society, nations began to be transformed from a geography dotted with numerous scattered rural hamlets, to a much smaller quantity of bustling urban hubs srrounded on their perimeters by suburbs.
Furthermore, the world of production and domestic consumption went from one in which workers in small shops produced a few items at a time, and people purchased their daily needs at the corner store--to one in which modern mass production and merchandising made for high volumes of production and purchases.
* * * * *
Monday, March 19, 2012
HISTORY'S PROGRESS THUS FAR (cont.)
Moving from early India (see Friday, March 16th) to a similar period in Greece, we see comparable trends toward unity. Greece consisted of a number of city-states, each headed by a king. Evidence points to the early development and existence, as early as 1200 B.C., of a federation of monarchs, headed by the king of Mycenae. Later, at about 500 B.C., Greek genius for political organization caused the arrangement of Athenian citizens into purposely constituted units, comprised in such a way as to prevent the emergence of factionalism, such as between city dwellers and farmers. And in the fourth century before Christ, we see Athens engaging in further efforts toward unity, when it undertook the formation of a group of cities into a confederation known as the Delian League. (Furthermore, we learn that subsequent factionalism, and failure of cooperation among the League's elements, caused the weakness that enabled Philip of Macedon to eventually conquer Greece).
Other manifestations of inclination toward unity among the ancient Greeks include Diogenes' declaration in the fourth century before Christ, in answer to a query as to what country he was from, stating that he was "a citizen of the world." And, in his Republic, Plato implies a belief in the similarity of all men, when he describes society as "the individual writ large."
Stoicism, another Greek institution, applied to all men, and taught that all people were alike. It has been described as the seed of an ethical universalism which gradually transcended the distinctions between Greek and barbarian, and spoke of a common humanity. It urged a universal brotherhood of man, as well as tolerance for the rights of all.
This ongoing tendency toward unity can be seen during these centuries in lands farther East as well. During the sixth century before Christ, Confucius emphasized the wholeness of the universe, portraying the ultimate goal of mankind to be to strive together in a quest for universal peace and harmony. A Chinese philosopher named Mozi was noted for his declarations during the fifth century B.C., that the method of achieving universal love and benefit was via a regard of "other people's countries as one's own."
Thereafter, during the last centuries of the Chou dynasty, a school of writers known as the Legalists urged that there should be "one law for all," ordained and applied by one ruler. Some legalists attained high office within the succeeding Ch'in Dynasty, and transformed their aforementioned theories into practice. Among the results was the spawning and spread of a realization that the various segments that eventually constituted China possessed more similarities than differences. This led in turn to political unity during the Ch'in period--which, we are told, was a logical effect of the cultural unification that was thus already under way.
Moving to early Persia, we behold a rather unusual stride toward unity when, around 325 B.C., Alexander marriewd a Persian princess, the daughter of Darius, and shortly thereafter conducted a ceremony in which nine thousand of his troops married nine thousand women of the region. This celebrated spectacle has been referred to as "the famous marriage of East and West." Perhaps the occasion was as well in the mind of the Hellenic scientist Eratosthenes when he declared his perception of all good men as fellow countrymen.
The subsequent Roman ascendency was accompanied by further unifying gestures. The underlying purpose of the Twelve Tables, being the body of common law put into place by the Roman administration, as its realm spread farther and farther, has been described as a framework within which the empire's many cultures were able to survive and contribute to a common civilization.
In fact, the Mediterranean itself, as it existed around 100 B.C., has been described as a "great uniting force," within whose perimeter thrived comparable civilizations, and but a few (common) languages. At perhaps 30 A.D., Cicero affirmed the existence of a worldwide natural law which all men and governments ought observe. And, during that same period, the proponents of Christianity spoke of one God, one plan of Salvation, one Providence, and the concept that all mankind took its origin from one source; resulting in an "overwhelming sense of human unity." (Palmer ands Colton, A History of the Modern World).
As time goes on, further movement, interaction, and joinder among people and peoples takes place. Tribes began to travel into, to absorb and be absorbed into, what had been the Roman regions. Tribes encountered tribes, and intercourse between traditions and societies was inevitable.
Actually, by this time many of the details and burdens of life experienced by much of humanity were alike. From China to India to Western Europe to the Islamic regions, subsistence agriculture was the basis of life within society. All resorted to wind, running water, animal and human muscle as the sources of energy. These rings of similarity spread wider and wider across the globe. And today, although vast economic and technological differences among people and peoples are apparent, many, if not most, of the fundamental underlying details and burdens of our twenty-first century lives remain similar.
We also find evidence of this trend toward unity in the Arab world of the seventh century. Muhammad
himself taught a doctrine which held the brotherhood of believers (referred to as "umma") to be more important than the kinship of the family. This effected a movement away from a tribal setting, towards and into an administration, religion, and language that were simply and solely Arabic, embracing much of the Middle Eastern regions in a unity and singletude that has persisted for long periods. Further, in the Christian world of the seventh and eighth centuries, devotion to individual local saints and holy men came to be replaced by devotion to the "Eucharist and cross. This further consolidation within the Catholic Church produced abbeys, within each of which groups of monks lived culturally organized lives. And Christianity in general is credited with binding many together during these times, in moral and spiritual unity and conformity.
* * * * *
As time went on, combinations and mixings of groups and their cultures continued. In Europe, after 1000 A.D., groups of people became increasingly less isolated from each other. Kings consolidated their rule over the nobles of their regions and created larger and larger realms.
These gradual steps toward greater and greater forms of unity were neither unnoticed nor unheralded by some of our greatest thinkers. For example, a universal empire, jointly commanded by temporal and spiritual leaders, was proposed as early as the fourteenth century by Dante Alighieri. This ideal would later be echoed in the writings of Abbe' St.Pierre, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant.
Beginning in the sixteenth century, the concept of royal domain over all of the inhabitants of larger and larger locales produced the sense of nationhood that began to arise within a growing number of places. In Europe, national patriotism replaced other more local forms of loyalty. These unifications ushered in the modern period of Western history.
Meanwhile, a belief which has been entitled "Humanism" arose during this time. Based upon a concept that our world contained a universal law of nature, which faith and reason would enable us to discover, Humanists declared that all men and all nations should obey that law.
Correspondingly, the medieval conventions of personal dependence that comprised feudalism faded; and centralization commenced becoming the social order of the day, as nation-state, and loyalty to the monarch, replaced vassaldom and loyalty to one's lord.
* * * * *
Following the establishment of these nation-states, man's next (what I consider to be) instinctive tendency toward unification began to manifest itself as imperialism; and I consider this imperialism to in fact be but a fulfillment of this inclination. Nations imposed themselves upon other, less developed, or less powerful, peoples and places; and though the result was not an acceptance or declaration of the subjugated people as equal members of the dominating nation, it did in fact result in a larger political organism (consider, for example, the British Empire), consisting of an assembly of several--in some cases numerous--additional groups of people. True, State A may be today regarded as having taken unfair advantage of States B, C, and D, when it made States B, C, and D its dependencies or colonies; but the net result is nevertheless that A, B, C, and D together (A and its empire, if you will) resulted in a larger and more assembled entity, and thus exhibited, for a time, a further degree of unification, than would have A, B, C, and D, standing alone.
Unfair and unjust, harsh and cruel, that European imperialism obviously was to millions of dominated people, it nevertheless did furthermore revolutionize the world economy of the period, converting hundreds of more-or-less self-supporting and self-contained economies into a worldwide network of exchange.
* * * * *
Other manifestations of inclination toward unity among the ancient Greeks include Diogenes' declaration in the fourth century before Christ, in answer to a query as to what country he was from, stating that he was "a citizen of the world." And, in his Republic, Plato implies a belief in the similarity of all men, when he describes society as "the individual writ large."
Stoicism, another Greek institution, applied to all men, and taught that all people were alike. It has been described as the seed of an ethical universalism which gradually transcended the distinctions between Greek and barbarian, and spoke of a common humanity. It urged a universal brotherhood of man, as well as tolerance for the rights of all.
This ongoing tendency toward unity can be seen during these centuries in lands farther East as well. During the sixth century before Christ, Confucius emphasized the wholeness of the universe, portraying the ultimate goal of mankind to be to strive together in a quest for universal peace and harmony. A Chinese philosopher named Mozi was noted for his declarations during the fifth century B.C., that the method of achieving universal love and benefit was via a regard of "other people's countries as one's own."
Thereafter, during the last centuries of the Chou dynasty, a school of writers known as the Legalists urged that there should be "one law for all," ordained and applied by one ruler. Some legalists attained high office within the succeeding Ch'in Dynasty, and transformed their aforementioned theories into practice. Among the results was the spawning and spread of a realization that the various segments that eventually constituted China possessed more similarities than differences. This led in turn to political unity during the Ch'in period--which, we are told, was a logical effect of the cultural unification that was thus already under way.
Moving to early Persia, we behold a rather unusual stride toward unity when, around 325 B.C., Alexander marriewd a Persian princess, the daughter of Darius, and shortly thereafter conducted a ceremony in which nine thousand of his troops married nine thousand women of the region. This celebrated spectacle has been referred to as "the famous marriage of East and West." Perhaps the occasion was as well in the mind of the Hellenic scientist Eratosthenes when he declared his perception of all good men as fellow countrymen.
The subsequent Roman ascendency was accompanied by further unifying gestures. The underlying purpose of the Twelve Tables, being the body of common law put into place by the Roman administration, as its realm spread farther and farther, has been described as a framework within which the empire's many cultures were able to survive and contribute to a common civilization.
In fact, the Mediterranean itself, as it existed around 100 B.C., has been described as a "great uniting force," within whose perimeter thrived comparable civilizations, and but a few (common) languages. At perhaps 30 A.D., Cicero affirmed the existence of a worldwide natural law which all men and governments ought observe. And, during that same period, the proponents of Christianity spoke of one God, one plan of Salvation, one Providence, and the concept that all mankind took its origin from one source; resulting in an "overwhelming sense of human unity." (Palmer ands Colton, A History of the Modern World).
As time goes on, further movement, interaction, and joinder among people and peoples takes place. Tribes began to travel into, to absorb and be absorbed into, what had been the Roman regions. Tribes encountered tribes, and intercourse between traditions and societies was inevitable.
Actually, by this time many of the details and burdens of life experienced by much of humanity were alike. From China to India to Western Europe to the Islamic regions, subsistence agriculture was the basis of life within society. All resorted to wind, running water, animal and human muscle as the sources of energy. These rings of similarity spread wider and wider across the globe. And today, although vast economic and technological differences among people and peoples are apparent, many, if not most, of the fundamental underlying details and burdens of our twenty-first century lives remain similar.
We also find evidence of this trend toward unity in the Arab world of the seventh century. Muhammad
himself taught a doctrine which held the brotherhood of believers (referred to as "umma") to be more important than the kinship of the family. This effected a movement away from a tribal setting, towards and into an administration, religion, and language that were simply and solely Arabic, embracing much of the Middle Eastern regions in a unity and singletude that has persisted for long periods. Further, in the Christian world of the seventh and eighth centuries, devotion to individual local saints and holy men came to be replaced by devotion to the "Eucharist and cross. This further consolidation within the Catholic Church produced abbeys, within each of which groups of monks lived culturally organized lives. And Christianity in general is credited with binding many together during these times, in moral and spiritual unity and conformity.
* * * * *
As time went on, combinations and mixings of groups and their cultures continued. In Europe, after 1000 A.D., groups of people became increasingly less isolated from each other. Kings consolidated their rule over the nobles of their regions and created larger and larger realms.
These gradual steps toward greater and greater forms of unity were neither unnoticed nor unheralded by some of our greatest thinkers. For example, a universal empire, jointly commanded by temporal and spiritual leaders, was proposed as early as the fourteenth century by Dante Alighieri. This ideal would later be echoed in the writings of Abbe' St.Pierre, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant.
Beginning in the sixteenth century, the concept of royal domain over all of the inhabitants of larger and larger locales produced the sense of nationhood that began to arise within a growing number of places. In Europe, national patriotism replaced other more local forms of loyalty. These unifications ushered in the modern period of Western history.
Meanwhile, a belief which has been entitled "Humanism" arose during this time. Based upon a concept that our world contained a universal law of nature, which faith and reason would enable us to discover, Humanists declared that all men and all nations should obey that law.
Correspondingly, the medieval conventions of personal dependence that comprised feudalism faded; and centralization commenced becoming the social order of the day, as nation-state, and loyalty to the monarch, replaced vassaldom and loyalty to one's lord.
* * * * *
Following the establishment of these nation-states, man's next (what I consider to be) instinctive tendency toward unification began to manifest itself as imperialism; and I consider this imperialism to in fact be but a fulfillment of this inclination. Nations imposed themselves upon other, less developed, or less powerful, peoples and places; and though the result was not an acceptance or declaration of the subjugated people as equal members of the dominating nation, it did in fact result in a larger political organism (consider, for example, the British Empire), consisting of an assembly of several--in some cases numerous--additional groups of people. True, State A may be today regarded as having taken unfair advantage of States B, C, and D, when it made States B, C, and D its dependencies or colonies; but the net result is nevertheless that A, B, C, and D together (A and its empire, if you will) resulted in a larger and more assembled entity, and thus exhibited, for a time, a further degree of unification, than would have A, B, C, and D, standing alone.
Unfair and unjust, harsh and cruel, that European imperialism obviously was to millions of dominated people, it nevertheless did furthermore revolutionize the world economy of the period, converting hundreds of more-or-less self-supporting and self-contained economies into a worldwide network of exchange.
* * * * *
Friday, March 16, 2012
HISTORY'S PROGRESS THUS FAR (cont.)
In my last posting, I spoke of cooperation as a key element in mankind's social and civilizational development. Hunting, in earliest times, illustrates one aspect of such cooperation for natural advantage. Animals that lived in herds were the prey; and a group of men would cooperatively encircle and surround such a herd and drive some or all of its members off a cliff. Cruel as this sounds, it was nevertheless an illustration of group cooperation to solve a common problem: i.e., hunger on the part of the participants and their dependants.
As droughts, storms, and temperature changes naturally occurred, people were impelled to change locations; and thus meet up with, and sometimes join with, each other. These limited combinations of different peoples, and of their varied habits or ways of doing things, constituted the beginnings of what would one day be called "civilization."
Of course, in the earliest days, these agglomerations werre yet small, and extremely limited. For many years, neither persons nor ideas could travel distances greater than perhaps thirty miles a day. This resulted in segments of the now somewhat more civilized world, although consisting of people living in comparatively larger groups, remaining quite local in character--pockets of territory, each possessing its own customs, way of life, manner of elementary speech; and each looking inward upon itself. Moreover, most of these groups were hardly aware of the existence of other groups like their own.
Then, as awareness of one another slowly grew, members of some, if not all, groups viewed the people and possessions of the other assemblages as potential conquests and prizes. The raids and other types of predatory behavior that resulted therefrom were the earliest forms of intergroup conflict (or, if you will, primitive warfare). This in turn led to the earliest forms of organizaqtion, for offensive and defensive purposes; and perhaps the birth of rudimentary forms of political power.
Hunting as a means of meeting the groups' nutritional needs was followed by the development of agriculture. The blessing that consisted of the cultivation of food in the ground created an assured food supply, and even surpluses, giving settlements more solidity. The result was growth of larger and larger populations within these early groups, coupled with a requirement for smaller and smaller areas on which to live and range. Thereby, actual villages began to appear.
Plant cultivation came to be accompanied by animal husbandry. The presence and availability of animals for assistance in the growth of foodstuffs, and as victuals themselves, made possible sedentary year-round settlements. This led to the growth of larger, more dense populations, and of the urban, stratified, politically organized societies that came to be more and more worthy of the term "civilization." This further demonstrates natural progress toward greater and greater degrees of joinder and consolidation, toward and into united societal entities. A dramatic and convincing example of this inclination is to be seen in approximately 7000B.C., when a substantial walled town arose at Jericho Oasis in the Middle East.
* * * * *
As centuries rolled on, man discovered and developed the use of metals. The need for metallic raw materials caused by his new pursuits prompted new and increasingly complex inter-regional and longer-distance trade relations among men, lending a certain tenor of unity to regions of the ancient world yet six thousand years before the birth of Christ.
As time continued onward, a giant and noteworthy aggregation of man took root in what we now refer to as Egypt. We are told that this region was the stage of centuries of struggle among competing rulers who sought to consolidate their power over larger and larger groups of people. The culmination of this took place, in approximately 3200B.C., with the commencement of rule over a giant kingdom by succeeding dynasties of Pharoahs. And the Pharoahs as well saw fit in turn to resort to purposeful consolidation--of their peoples' prevailing religious cults--for the furtherance of their own poolitifcal ends.
* * * * *
Time marches on: and in the fourth and third millennia before Christ, in ancient Mesopotamia, men of numerous villages cooperated collectively to drain watery marshland and build walled towns, whereby protection from potential invaders, as well as the floodwaters common to this area, would be had. Agriculture flourished, thanks in part to the use of implements that employed flint and obsidian. We are told that these materials had to be imported from distant places--implying that by now there existed "a widespread network of contacts abroad...huge distances away." (J. M. Roberts, History of the World). Thus, we see more very early evidences and advantages of cooperative effort, as well as the benefits of reaching far beyond one's own backyard for what is needed in order to achieve it. And cooperation apparently did pay off, as these villages grew into cities, some of which contained as many, by early accounts, as thirty six thousand males (and, of course, a probable corresponding number of women). Uruk, for example, built around 2700 B.C., had walls eighteen feet thick, which encircled an area having a circumference of approximately six miles.
* * * * *
The tendency of larger and larger assemblages of people residing together becomes more and more recognizable as history marches forward. The period between 2750 and 2500 B.C. has been described as "the first international age for the Near East." (J. Garraty and P. Gay, Columbia History of the World). Correspondence between courts was in a single language (Babylonian); and, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, various people's relationships with, and consequent conformity to, each other continued to expand and to proliferate.
Next, in the middle of the twenty-fourth century B.C., an Akkadian named Sargon I led a force that subjugated a number of the Sumerian cities hereinabove described, and thus conceived the earliest empire known to history. This collection of cities into what can be termed an empire seems to constitute a still higher level of organization, and a still further extension of an ongoing process of assemblage which I am attempting to identify.
Moving ahead to the first millennium before Christ, we see more and more of our world sharing in the same accomplishments--a unity of achievement, if you will--in literature, government, technology, organized religion, and urban life--as civilization grew and flourished in numerous places.
Around this time, in early India, a Gupta civilization thrived. Among its achievements was a standardization and systemization of Sanskrit grammar, which was able to be understood and resorted to within the entire subcontinent. This was a source of unity among the people of that region. Moreover, we are told, archeological evidence discloses other forms of common practice within this area, including worship of a Mother Goddess, and a number of sacred animals. Later (in the third century before Christ), during the reign of Asoka, a social philosophy known as Dhamma arose here. Dhamma, being a Sanskrit word meaning "Universal Law," prescribed respect, tolerance, and non-violence toward one's fellow man. It suggested the overlooking of differences, and the unity of all. One early inscription of the wisdom of Asoka simply states: "All men are my children."
As droughts, storms, and temperature changes naturally occurred, people were impelled to change locations; and thus meet up with, and sometimes join with, each other. These limited combinations of different peoples, and of their varied habits or ways of doing things, constituted the beginnings of what would one day be called "civilization."
Of course, in the earliest days, these agglomerations werre yet small, and extremely limited. For many years, neither persons nor ideas could travel distances greater than perhaps thirty miles a day. This resulted in segments of the now somewhat more civilized world, although consisting of people living in comparatively larger groups, remaining quite local in character--pockets of territory, each possessing its own customs, way of life, manner of elementary speech; and each looking inward upon itself. Moreover, most of these groups were hardly aware of the existence of other groups like their own.
Then, as awareness of one another slowly grew, members of some, if not all, groups viewed the people and possessions of the other assemblages as potential conquests and prizes. The raids and other types of predatory behavior that resulted therefrom were the earliest forms of intergroup conflict (or, if you will, primitive warfare). This in turn led to the earliest forms of organizaqtion, for offensive and defensive purposes; and perhaps the birth of rudimentary forms of political power.
Hunting as a means of meeting the groups' nutritional needs was followed by the development of agriculture. The blessing that consisted of the cultivation of food in the ground created an assured food supply, and even surpluses, giving settlements more solidity. The result was growth of larger and larger populations within these early groups, coupled with a requirement for smaller and smaller areas on which to live and range. Thereby, actual villages began to appear.
Plant cultivation came to be accompanied by animal husbandry. The presence and availability of animals for assistance in the growth of foodstuffs, and as victuals themselves, made possible sedentary year-round settlements. This led to the growth of larger, more dense populations, and of the urban, stratified, politically organized societies that came to be more and more worthy of the term "civilization." This further demonstrates natural progress toward greater and greater degrees of joinder and consolidation, toward and into united societal entities. A dramatic and convincing example of this inclination is to be seen in approximately 7000B.C., when a substantial walled town arose at Jericho Oasis in the Middle East.
* * * * *
As centuries rolled on, man discovered and developed the use of metals. The need for metallic raw materials caused by his new pursuits prompted new and increasingly complex inter-regional and longer-distance trade relations among men, lending a certain tenor of unity to regions of the ancient world yet six thousand years before the birth of Christ.
As time continued onward, a giant and noteworthy aggregation of man took root in what we now refer to as Egypt. We are told that this region was the stage of centuries of struggle among competing rulers who sought to consolidate their power over larger and larger groups of people. The culmination of this took place, in approximately 3200B.C., with the commencement of rule over a giant kingdom by succeeding dynasties of Pharoahs. And the Pharoahs as well saw fit in turn to resort to purposeful consolidation--of their peoples' prevailing religious cults--for the furtherance of their own poolitifcal ends.
* * * * *
Time marches on: and in the fourth and third millennia before Christ, in ancient Mesopotamia, men of numerous villages cooperated collectively to drain watery marshland and build walled towns, whereby protection from potential invaders, as well as the floodwaters common to this area, would be had. Agriculture flourished, thanks in part to the use of implements that employed flint and obsidian. We are told that these materials had to be imported from distant places--implying that by now there existed "a widespread network of contacts abroad...huge distances away." (J. M. Roberts, History of the World). Thus, we see more very early evidences and advantages of cooperative effort, as well as the benefits of reaching far beyond one's own backyard for what is needed in order to achieve it. And cooperation apparently did pay off, as these villages grew into cities, some of which contained as many, by early accounts, as thirty six thousand males (and, of course, a probable corresponding number of women). Uruk, for example, built around 2700 B.C., had walls eighteen feet thick, which encircled an area having a circumference of approximately six miles.
* * * * *
The tendency of larger and larger assemblages of people residing together becomes more and more recognizable as history marches forward. The period between 2750 and 2500 B.C. has been described as "the first international age for the Near East." (J. Garraty and P. Gay, Columbia History of the World). Correspondence between courts was in a single language (Babylonian); and, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, various people's relationships with, and consequent conformity to, each other continued to expand and to proliferate.
Next, in the middle of the twenty-fourth century B.C., an Akkadian named Sargon I led a force that subjugated a number of the Sumerian cities hereinabove described, and thus conceived the earliest empire known to history. This collection of cities into what can be termed an empire seems to constitute a still higher level of organization, and a still further extension of an ongoing process of assemblage which I am attempting to identify.
Moving ahead to the first millennium before Christ, we see more and more of our world sharing in the same accomplishments--a unity of achievement, if you will--in literature, government, technology, organized religion, and urban life--as civilization grew and flourished in numerous places.
Around this time, in early India, a Gupta civilization thrived. Among its achievements was a standardization and systemization of Sanskrit grammar, which was able to be understood and resorted to within the entire subcontinent. This was a source of unity among the people of that region. Moreover, we are told, archeological evidence discloses other forms of common practice within this area, including worship of a Mother Goddess, and a number of sacred animals. Later (in the third century before Christ), during the reign of Asoka, a social philosophy known as Dhamma arose here. Dhamma, being a Sanskrit word meaning "Universal Law," prescribed respect, tolerance, and non-violence toward one's fellow man. It suggested the overlooking of differences, and the unity of all. One early inscription of the wisdom of Asoka simply states: "All men are my children."
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
HISTORY'S PROGRESS THUS FAR
I perceive pre-history and and history as constituting a constant progression, along numerous avenues. True, of course, there are instances or periods--sometimes long ages--during which one or more particular paths of progression slows, stops, or even turns back upon itself. But the net long-term effect seems nevertheless to be an inexorable journey by mankind from point A to point B. And I further perceive one very clear aspect of this journey as being a march, ever onward, further and further toward and into states of joinder, homogenization, and unification.
* * * * *
According to science, life on earth began as a single molecule many eons ago. As time went on, molecules joined together into larger and larger assemblages, evolving into the vast collections of molecules that comprise the world's living organisms. Some of these creatures led, and lead, more or less solitary lives; while others have adapted to life and survival by residing together in groups, herds, and colonies. One of these social creatures is man.
From our probable origin in Africa, man spread to all six of our naturally inhabited continents (via separation of land masses, migrations, etc.). In doing so, human groups became initially isolated from each other, separated for millenia by oceans, deserts, and mountains; and thus became differentiated biologically, into our modern races.
In four million B.C., the Australopithecines, the earliest hominids, already lived together in communities. These earliest societies were extremely small and isolated groups. A person might live his or her entire life without meeding anyone from another such group or tribe.
Composing these tiny social groups were a few family units. The origin of the family unit, and of groups thereof, constitute manifestations of the ongoing biological and social progression, whereby individual human beings lived and remained together for mutual benefit and survival.
Cooperation seems to be the key term, when we consider humanity's development and progress in those earliest years. Moreover, as time went on, the scope of these cooperative efforts appeared to grow and enlarge, so as to concern more and more men and women than in earlier societies.
I perceive pre-history and and history as constituting a constant progression, along numerous avenues. True, of course, there are instances or periods--sometimes long ages--during which one or more particular paths of progression slows, stops, or even turns back upon itself. But the net long-term effect seems nevertheless to be an inexorable journey by mankind from point A to point B. And I further perceive one very clear aspect of this journey as being a march, ever onward, further and further toward and into states of joinder, homogenization, and unification.
* * * * *
According to science, life on earth began as a single molecule many eons ago. As time went on, molecules joined together into larger and larger assemblages, evolving into the vast collections of molecules that comprise the world's living organisms. Some of these creatures led, and lead, more or less solitary lives; while others have adapted to life and survival by residing together in groups, herds, and colonies. One of these social creatures is man.
From our probable origin in Africa, man spread to all six of our naturally inhabited continents (via separation of land masses, migrations, etc.). In doing so, human groups became initially isolated from each other, separated for millenia by oceans, deserts, and mountains; and thus became differentiated biologically, into our modern races.
In four million B.C., the Australopithecines, the earliest hominids, already lived together in communities. These earliest societies were extremely small and isolated groups. A person might live his or her entire life without meeding anyone from another such group or tribe.
Composing these tiny social groups were a few family units. The origin of the family unit, and of groups thereof, constitute manifestations of the ongoing biological and social progression, whereby individual human beings lived and remained together for mutual benefit and survival.
Cooperation seems to be the key term, when we consider humanity's development and progress in those earliest years. Moreover, as time went on, the scope of these cooperative efforts appeared to grow and enlarge, so as to concern more and more men and women than in earlier societies.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
WHY A WORLD GOVERNMENT IS NECESSARY (cont.)
In a 2002 work concerning the ethics of globalization, Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University warns us that how we shall fare in our new age of global connectedness will depend upon how we morally adapt to the fact that we are all residing together within "one world" (emphasis supplied) (Peter Singer, One World). More people than ever before seem to be awakening to this. More and more are we subscribing, collectively, to a belief that human life and the condition of the world can and must be improved; and daring to seek and desire the accomplishment of these ideals. Many have become more aware that the genetral political situation that continues to exist in many parts of our fragmented, embattled world does not protect many of us, nor satisfy the needs and desires of most of us.
It is thus conceivable that our approaching years may come to be known as the age of the "end of the state"--that is to say, the end of the partition of society into numerous and needless competing national entities. It is my firm belief--and I hope to convince those who read this--that a more prosperous and peaceful world would result therefrom, and that it therefore needs to be presently and vigorously pursued.
In a unified world, all would be citizens of the same single nation, and thereby entitled to the same treatment and benefits. Tragic and wasteful national disputes and conflicts would no longer be possible, and the hostilities and warfare that often follow would be a thing of the past.
* * * * *
We would all agree that contemporary humanity represents the current cutting edge of biological and social development on earth. Descending to lower rungs on the evolutionary ladder, we note that cooperation among member organisms is basically required for survival and preservation of species. In numerous places in the animal kingdom, we observe inborn capacity for integration, and ability to cooperate in activities that are necessary for the common good. It thus seems to follow that social integration and cooperation are likewise necessary for preservation of the human species as well. It is ominously possible that man's seeming repeated failure to follow what could be perceived as nature's plan may one day result in what might be termed our "self-induced extinction"--while our furry and feathered friends continue to flourish. It is hoped that we will have the wisdom, and seize the opportunity, to take the necessary steps to avoid such an ironic tragedy. It is further hoped that I will be able to convince some who read this that the consummation of such steps as I will herein suggest are not only desirable and even imperative, but readily capable of accomplishment as well.
* * * * *
It is thus conceivable that our approaching years may come to be known as the age of the "end of the state"--that is to say, the end of the partition of society into numerous and needless competing national entities. It is my firm belief--and I hope to convince those who read this--that a more prosperous and peaceful world would result therefrom, and that it therefore needs to be presently and vigorously pursued.
In a unified world, all would be citizens of the same single nation, and thereby entitled to the same treatment and benefits. Tragic and wasteful national disputes and conflicts would no longer be possible, and the hostilities and warfare that often follow would be a thing of the past.
* * * * *
We would all agree that contemporary humanity represents the current cutting edge of biological and social development on earth. Descending to lower rungs on the evolutionary ladder, we note that cooperation among member organisms is basically required for survival and preservation of species. In numerous places in the animal kingdom, we observe inborn capacity for integration, and ability to cooperate in activities that are necessary for the common good. It thus seems to follow that social integration and cooperation are likewise necessary for preservation of the human species as well. It is ominously possible that man's seeming repeated failure to follow what could be perceived as nature's plan may one day result in what might be termed our "self-induced extinction"--while our furry and feathered friends continue to flourish. It is hoped that we will have the wisdom, and seize the opportunity, to take the necessary steps to avoid such an ironic tragedy. It is further hoped that I will be able to convince some who read this that the consummation of such steps as I will herein suggest are not only desirable and even imperative, but readily capable of accomplishment as well.
* * * * *
Monday, March 5, 2012
WHY A WORLD GOVERNMENT IS NECESSARY (cont.)
The author takes no sides in the disputes referred to herein--except to affirm, as I am certain most civilized human beings of any persuasion will, that inflicting unfair or unjust treatment, as well as physical, mental, or emotional harm, by anyone upon anyone, is purely and totally wrong, and should not occur.
In this regard, using the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an example, I would envision the following, were there but a single, strong and just, universal governing body, honestly and dilligently directing all of the world's capabilities and resources toward fair and equitable provision for the needs of all, as I herein proose:
1. There would be no need for the people of Israel to protect its existence as a sovereign nation; and no need for the Palestinian people to seek recognition as a separate nation--because there would be no sovereign nations--only a worldwide governing body, whose function is to provide for the benefit and welfare of all.
2. Assuming that the lands that presently constitute Israel were acquired via just and equitable means, Israel would merely be an area within that part of the world where it exists that happens to be populated by a large number of Jewish people. There the residents could worship and otherwise do whatever they so chose, so long as none of these activities were productive of harm or injustice to themselves or others.
3. Should it be alleged that any of the lands that constitute Israel were unjustly acquired, these would be allegations which would need to be presented before, and adjudicated by, a world judicial tribunal, which would apply strictly logical, sensible, and impeccably just principles thereto, and rule in accordance therewith.
4. On the other hand, assuming that the lands which presently comprise Israel were acquired justly and honestly, others who should reside within or near this area would have no more ground to object to their "neighbors"' presence than perhaps I to the presence of, say, a lot of Frenchmen within, or in the vicinity of, my neighborhood.
5. Were I a non-Jewish resident within, or in the vicinity of, this area, I would be entitled to be treated with fairness, courtesy, and cordiality. I would, moreover, be free to sell my home and/or business, and move on to a place that I felt more comfortable in.
6. Any activity having as its purpose hostility toward, or the ejectment of, Jewish people, or Jewish places of worship, or monuments of or to the Jewish faith--or Palestinian people, or Palestinian places of worship, or monuments of or to the Palestinians' faith--in that place, would be guilty, in the eyes of the world government, of criminal activity. It would not be necessary for a group of residents of that area (under present circumstances, the Israeli army) to defend such area against such acts. Rather, a force representing the might of the entire world would be brought to bear against any such criminal activity.
In addition, it ought be noted here that a worldwide system of educational and occupational opportunity, such as I will later propose herein, would result in conditions wherein there would no longer be pockets of young, uneducated, hungry, unemployed people, in poverty-stricken corners of our world--who today comprise prime targets for hatemongers, and recruiters of terrorist groups.
* * * * *
We are all familiar with the motto which assures us that in union there is strength. What is contained in my urgings is a proposal for the ultimate sort of union--wherein everyone will be united. Jean-Jacques Rousseau told us in the eighteenth century that "each person is...stronger and more free in the group than as an isolated individual...." (The Social Contract). Three centuries later, we continue to seek and to desire that strength and freedom, while we continue to routinely tolerate all of the wrongs that go on around us. Clearly, in a world fraught with danger and conflict, deprivation and unfilfilled need, as well as excesses of every nature and description, we have obviously not yet achieved sufficient measure of strength and freedom. I submit that the root cause of this lies in the division and factionalism created by our very selves, and supported by the institutions we have created and continue to sustain.
I predict that the folly of this will inevitably be recognized, and corrected by means of a universal joinder of all mankind. But the purpose of my writing this is to hopefully impel the "inevitable" to occur somewhat sooner--because there exists a genuine threat that intervening factors, spawned by our own present self-inflicted state of affairs, may precipitate a catastrophe that will cause the "inevitable" to become the impossible.
* * * * *
In this regard, using the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an example, I would envision the following, were there but a single, strong and just, universal governing body, honestly and dilligently directing all of the world's capabilities and resources toward fair and equitable provision for the needs of all, as I herein proose:
1. There would be no need for the people of Israel to protect its existence as a sovereign nation; and no need for the Palestinian people to seek recognition as a separate nation--because there would be no sovereign nations--only a worldwide governing body, whose function is to provide for the benefit and welfare of all.
2. Assuming that the lands that presently constitute Israel were acquired via just and equitable means, Israel would merely be an area within that part of the world where it exists that happens to be populated by a large number of Jewish people. There the residents could worship and otherwise do whatever they so chose, so long as none of these activities were productive of harm or injustice to themselves or others.
3. Should it be alleged that any of the lands that constitute Israel were unjustly acquired, these would be allegations which would need to be presented before, and adjudicated by, a world judicial tribunal, which would apply strictly logical, sensible, and impeccably just principles thereto, and rule in accordance therewith.
4. On the other hand, assuming that the lands which presently comprise Israel were acquired justly and honestly, others who should reside within or near this area would have no more ground to object to their "neighbors"' presence than perhaps I to the presence of, say, a lot of Frenchmen within, or in the vicinity of, my neighborhood.
5. Were I a non-Jewish resident within, or in the vicinity of, this area, I would be entitled to be treated with fairness, courtesy, and cordiality. I would, moreover, be free to sell my home and/or business, and move on to a place that I felt more comfortable in.
6. Any activity having as its purpose hostility toward, or the ejectment of, Jewish people, or Jewish places of worship, or monuments of or to the Jewish faith--or Palestinian people, or Palestinian places of worship, or monuments of or to the Palestinians' faith--in that place, would be guilty, in the eyes of the world government, of criminal activity. It would not be necessary for a group of residents of that area (under present circumstances, the Israeli army) to defend such area against such acts. Rather, a force representing the might of the entire world would be brought to bear against any such criminal activity.
In addition, it ought be noted here that a worldwide system of educational and occupational opportunity, such as I will later propose herein, would result in conditions wherein there would no longer be pockets of young, uneducated, hungry, unemployed people, in poverty-stricken corners of our world--who today comprise prime targets for hatemongers, and recruiters of terrorist groups.
* * * * *
We are all familiar with the motto which assures us that in union there is strength. What is contained in my urgings is a proposal for the ultimate sort of union--wherein everyone will be united. Jean-Jacques Rousseau told us in the eighteenth century that "each person is...stronger and more free in the group than as an isolated individual...." (The Social Contract). Three centuries later, we continue to seek and to desire that strength and freedom, while we continue to routinely tolerate all of the wrongs that go on around us. Clearly, in a world fraught with danger and conflict, deprivation and unfilfilled need, as well as excesses of every nature and description, we have obviously not yet achieved sufficient measure of strength and freedom. I submit that the root cause of this lies in the division and factionalism created by our very selves, and supported by the institutions we have created and continue to sustain.
I predict that the folly of this will inevitably be recognized, and corrected by means of a universal joinder of all mankind. But the purpose of my writing this is to hopefully impel the "inevitable" to occur somewhat sooner--because there exists a genuine threat that intervening factors, spawned by our own present self-inflicted state of affairs, may precipitate a catastrophe that will cause the "inevitable" to become the impossible.
* * * * *
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