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An Inevitable Future

Socrates, born circa 470 BC. in The Great Quotations said, “I am not an Athenian, not a Greek. I am a citizen of the world.” His conception of the “world” was limited, but he was an ancient Universalist.

Alfred Lord Tennyson – 1809 – 1892 – English poet.  Yahoo, “Til the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled, in the Parliament of Man, the federation of the world.” Universalism!

President Jack Kennedy- In an American University address, “For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit the same planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”  Another universalist!

The current chaotic, contentious nature of world political discourse is not conducive to the necessary cooperation needed to bring Universalism. However, I am inflexible in my belief that the latent intelligence of the world will surface and, that in time, we will all continue the inevitable march to global universalism.

Our world progression has already made the steps from settlements to cities, to city-states to miniature countries on through to countries (as happened in Italy, Germany) and to cooperatives such as the European Union. In the U.S. the much different states form a nation.

Global union will come. I hope that it will take just focused cooperation and not nuclear conflagration to assert reality.

Education, (global education), is the prime necessity for a healthy world. We, by tradition, are imbued with our national pride and a visceral love of our own country, and so, when globalism develops, we will have to each contend with that urge to view ourselves as a little different to other world residents, and instead sublimate our patriotic nationalism for globalism. I know that will come naturally when necessary. And that is where the global education will excel.

The conflicting interests of the nations of the world has made the United Nations ineffective in many ways, especially control of wars.

Emery Reyes, 1945 in Anatomy of Peace, speaking of the need for the merging of the nations of the world into one global organization, wrote, “Peace among men can only be achieved by a legal order; by a sovereign source of law; by a democratically controlled government; with independent executive, legislative and judicial bodies.

The same on a global level as the U.S. governmental level. A legal order is a plan laid down by common consent of men to make their individual lives, their families, and their nation secure.”

Global education is already at hand. The United World College was founded in 1963 by German Kurt Hahn, and the first college built in the UK. There are now at least 14 in the world.

The U.S. one was built in 1983.  Their address is: United World College, PO Box 249, Montezuma, N.M.  87731, USA. The international goal of UWC is to “transmit a spirit of mutual understanding to young people to help them overcome prejudice and antagonism through living and working together.”

Combined with the Golden Rule teaching, formerly described, these colleges would lead to the “brotherhood of men”, to global problem solving, and eventually to world peace.