The following is a presentation that I gave during a virtual service to the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Second Life.
My last topic at at the Unitarian Universalist Sancuary of SL was titled “Does Human Nature preclude a Culture of Peace?” We saw that Culture of Peace efforts seek to fill the wide gap between ending the arms race, on the one hand, and achieving inner peace, on the other, by addressing such issues as education for peace, sustainable development, respect for human rights, equality of women and men, democratic participation, tolerance and solidarity, the free flow of information, and international security. We saw that building such a Culture of Peace requires deep-seated transformations, not only in the way we think, act and interact as individuals, but also in the very structures of our society and institutional organization.
We also saw that many still doubt whether a Culture of Peace is possible,
due to the assumption that human beings are inherently competitive and
conflictive, selfish and greedy, aggressive and violent by nature. Finally, we
saw a brief summary of some of the many multidisciplinary findings that suggest
that there is nothing in our essential nature as human beings that would
preclude the possibility of a Culture of Peace, but quite the contrary: that we
are superbly endowed with the talents and faculties needed to achieve this
noble goal (you can see the full study at http://cultureofpeaceprogram.org).
When speaking of the social changes needed to build a Culture of Peace and
the scientific evidence that we are humanly capable of achieving them, many
respond that this is Utopian, pie-in-the-sky, an impossible dream. We are so used
to the tragic, hopeless view of the world that the media feed us every day,
that we tend to recoil automatically from any suggestion that things could be quite
different. The most that we allow ourselves to accept is that tried and true approaches
are being used to solve specific problems, but even these we often doubt will
be very successful. Any proposals to go beyond immediate responses to present situations—to
build something new and different—are often met with anything from incredulous
cynicism to scornful derision.
This tendency is addressed in the business world by distinguishing
between problem-centered management and goal-centered management. As the name
implies, problem-centered management consists of reacting to existing problems.
Its agenda is established by prioritizing the issues to be addressed, studying
their underlying dynamics, and designing measures to solve them. This backward-looking
approach centers on events that have already occurred in the past. Although this
is a necessary task that cannot be neglected, no corporation has ever become a
market leader merely by ‘putting out fires’ (unless that was its business, of
course).
Up-scaling the same insight to a global level, it is obvious that the
world we hope for will never be built merely by reactive measures such as
conflict resolution, no matter how essential they may be. The rising tide of
conflicts that demand resolution may well be a result of not having addressed
more long-term changes that could avoid their occurrence.
What is needed to break new ground in any field of endeavor is goal-centered
management, a proactive, forward-looking approach. Its agenda is set by drawing
up a shared vision of a desired future, designing strategies to achieve it, and
taking effective steps to make it a reality. This is not a new idea, but is actually
much more common than one might imagine. Before building, architects will
prepare drawings and models to show customers and engineers what they have in
mind. Actors envisage their performance before going on stage. Athletes
visualize their movements before stepping onto the arena. Successful companies
develop a shared vision to which all staff members can commit themselves.
And as agents of socio-cultural change, we need to have a clear mental
picture of the world we are building, to guide our interventions. This mental
picture has often taken the form of a Utopia, defined not as a hopelessly
impossible situation, but rather as a literary or graphic depiction of an ideal
world. Traditionally, this device has been used not only as a temporary escape
or catharsis, but also to foster a sense of identity, purpose and inspiration, to
criticize contemporary society or illustrate proposals for social change, as a
training approach using social ‘laboratories’ or ‘experiments’, and even for
exploring philosophical hypotheses.
Up through the 19th century, the Western world still believed in the value
of Utopias, the possibility of a better future, an inexorable upward trend in sociopolitical
evolution, and human perfectibility. Then came the 20th Century,
with the atrocity of two world wars and other armed conflicts, the excesses of
cruel dictatorships, various holocausts, genocides and mass fatalities due to faults
of commission and omission, economic crises, recessions and depressions, and
other horrors, many of which originated in––and/or struck at––the very heart of
a continent that had formerly called itself the epitome of civilization and
evolution.
Suddenly, utopophilia—our love affair with visions of a better world—turned
to utopophobia—a flat rejection of any and all proposals for world justice,
unity and peace, and total skepticism regarding human potential. ‘Utopia’ was
no longer an inspiring and galvanizing vision, but rather an impossible dream,
pie-in-the-sky, Pollyannic delusion. The new view of the future was dark
dystopia, social entropy, relentless downward curves in all human affairs, economic
collapse, ecologic disaster, nuclear holocaust, Apocalypse, the end of the
world.
This was a serious setback in our ability to form a positive vision of
the world and work towards that vision. It is one of the greatest obstacles we are
now facing in answering the pressing needs of the time. Significantly, American
Indians hold that before launching any endeavor, it is necessary to dream it
first, while the wise King Solomon is quoted as having said, “Where there is no
vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18).
One basic requirement to achieve the necessary social transformations,
then, is a positive vision of the future, the starting point for proactive,
goal-centered management. In order to be effective, however, this vision should
be based on shared principles, ideals and values, be feasible but challenging,
and be a source of inspiration that touches our noble essence.
One of our aims as agents of socio-cultural change, therefore, could be
to help people recover the capacity for “responsible Utopia”. We need to get
back our ability to dream and create a collective vision for the future of the
world. We need to encourage each other in the adventure of imagining the
processes by which a world of justice, unity and peace can be attained. We need
to disseminate the empowering message that modern science has found nothing in
our inherent makeup that might condemn us to a life of greed and conflict,
aggression and violence. At the same time, we need to foster the search for and
application of concrete, feasible measures to advance along that road, no
matter how long, winding and rocky it may be. To the extent that we do these
things, history will remember our generation as the one that enabled the people
regain their faith in humanity and work towards its revitalization.
Perhaps what is seen as impossible is not the Utopia itself, but the strategies
proposed for implementing it. So it would be good to identify a few general
principles that might guide our efforts to design a common vision. For example,
a world-wide Culture of Peace could not limit itself to an isolated community––an
island of tranquility in a sea of tribulation––as many Utopian authors and
practitioners have imagined. Rather, it must grow from within contemporary
society to transform its structures and practices from heart to heart, from
town to town, from country to country. As H.G. Wells said, “No less than a planet will suffice to serve
the purposes of a modern Utopia.”[1]
In a responsible Utopia, the unity that is sought cannot take the form
of imposed uniformity; just as our treasured diversity must not lead to
divisionism. These two common aspects of the culture of adversarialism––uniformity
and divisionism––should give way to unity in diversity, which preserves and
cultivates the wealth inherent in plurality while integrating and coordinating
the different elements of humanity as a whole. The human body illustrates this
possibility perfectly. Although it is a complex biological organism,
nevertheless it maintains complete harmony among its diverse cells, organs and
specialized systems, without which its great feats in the fields of science,
technology, art, and sports would be impossible.
Furthermore, proposals centering solely on personal transformation, in
the hope that its cumulative effect will transform society, have not produced
the anticipated outcomes. Neither have movements been successful that
concentrated solely on changing the structures of society, under the assumption
that this would transform its individual members. This false dichotomy between
social and individual determinism should give way to a recognition of the
inseparable dynamics between the two. As the historian Shoghi Effendi explains,
“We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions.”[2]
The kind of world we want will not appear suddenly out of thin air, but
must necessarily follow a more or less prolonged historical process, with
periods of slow gestation punctuated by abrupt turning points. Although talk of
sociopolitical evolution may evoke thoughts of inevitability, a responsible Utopian
knows that no being’s potential can be realized without a comparable effort. A tiny
seed does not become a mature, fruitful tree without the continual care of an
expert, committed gardener. We need to be patient with processes, realizing
that if this planet’s life were equal to 24 hours, humans would have appeared
the last minute of the day, and let that historical perspective bolster our long-term
commitment. Furthermore, no vision will be successful if it only considers the
people’s material wellbeing. Rather, it should see human development as an
integral whole, including our physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and
spiritual aspects.
Neither can the long-awaited Culture of Peace ever be deemed a finished
product –the final achievement of an ideal society–, but rather an on-going process
in which there will always be some new problem to solve, some further horizon
to strive after. Some will object that achieving a world of justice, unity and
peace would be undesirable, because in a perfect society there would be no more
problems to solve. This, they say, would deprive human life of its meaning, as
we need challenges to feel complete. This might be an issue under problem-centered
management, for once all fires are put out, the firemen go home to rest. But with
goal-centered management, even if you could solve all of the world’s contemporary
problems, which is highly unlikely, there will always be a new vision to build.
I would like to address my last words to the cynical (which excludes the
present company, of course), those who insist in believing that human beings are
inherently selfish, greedy, conflictual, aggressive and violent, those who deny
that anyone ever does anything with selfless motives out of a sense of justice,
love or empathy, those who doubt that a positive social transformation is
impossible, those who would carry away from this meeting only pity for those of
us who dare to believe in a better world and work to make it happen.
I would like to invite you to take a long, honest look within your own
heart and ask yourself whether such an attitude is not born of some past hurt,
of frustration, of exhaustion. Might it not be a defense mechanism against
feeling the responsibility to do something more, to move out of your comfort
zone, to get your hands dirty, to risk being wrong? Might it not be a way of
justifying the selfishness, greed, conflict, and aggression that you see within
yourself and legitimizing it as an inherent fault, common to all?
It is time now to accept the fact that the only impossible Utopian dream,
the only pie-in-the-sky, the only Pollyannic delusion, is to believe that
somehow humanity will be able to continue in the same direction for any
substantial length of time, that the current situation is somehow sustainable
on the long term, and that we are not currently heading down paths of unimaginable,
self-inflicted horrors. As Michael Karlberg said in a recent TED Talk,
“What we urgently need to do is… to take
a sober look at the conditions of the world we actually live in, and how we got
here. And when we do that, I believe we can see that the truly naïve and
unrealistic view is that the culture of contest can continue indefinitely.
Because the culture of contest is causing us to liquidate the ecological
capital of the earth that sustains us, in a frenzy of consumption and capital
accumulation, even as it locks us into these perpetual cycles of conflict,
instability, and crisis that prevent us from addressing the mounting and
increasingly complex problems that face us in this interdependent age. That is
naïve and unrealistic – to think that we can do that much longer![3]
I would like to close this discussion of the need for proactive approaches to social change towards a Culture of
Peace with the following words of encouragement by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who spent most
of his life promoting a culture of peace from behind the prison bars of
ideological persecution and, once released as a frail old man, travelled to the
West and spoke––among others––to Unitarian Universalist congregations exactly
100 years ago this year:
“Do not think the peace of the world an
ideal impossible to attain! Nothing is impossible... Do not despair! Work
steadily... How many seemingly impossible events are coming to pass in these
days! Take courage! Let your hearts be filled with the strenuous desire that
tranquility & harmony may encircle all this warring world. So will success
crown your efforts...
“Many a cause which past ages have regarded
as purely visionary, in this day has become easy and practicable. Why should
this most great Cause––the daystar of the firmament of true
civilization and the cause of the glory, advancement, well-being and success of
all humanity––be regarded impossible to
achieve? Surely the day will come when its beauteous light shall shed illumination
on the assemblage of man.”[4]
Thank you for your attention, and I welcome your valuable feedback.
Notes:
[1] H.G. Wells, “A Modern
Utopia”, 1905.
[2] Shoghi
Effendi, from a letter to an individual dated February 17, 1933, cited in “Compilation
of Compilations”, Vol. I, p. 84.
[3] TEDxInnsbruck - Michael Karlberg
- Beyond the Culture of Contest: A Critical Juncture of Human History. URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J0ZCAbYrQ7Q.
[4] ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks, UK Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 11th
ed. 1972, pp. 29-30.
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