The momentum that has enabled mankind to weave up his fabric of civilization having lasted over five millennia is drawn from three sources: (1) the traction provided by divinities such as Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Lao Tzu, (2) the cohesive force provided by the cream of elite (such as tribal chieftain, sovereign, president, pope), and (3) moral awareness (such as conscience, sense of equity, sense of duty, egalitarianism).
Astonishingly rapid development of science and technology has greatly nullified the effect of divine sway. The relentless and reckless rivalry between individuals coming from the cream of elite for superiority over opponents has already marred severely the cohesive force needed for promoting and orientating world civilization. Accelerated expansion of sensual greed has been working very efficiently to neutralize moral awareness. Consequently, though volitionally exerting to strive for social progress, man is plodding deliriously into an impasse.
Therefore man needs to extricate himself from the cavernous impasse. Rapid development of science and technology should be availed of only as a means to deepen our understanding of divinities. And even the inconceivably rapid development of science and technology is far short of offering to the human race an exhaustive knowledge of God and absolutely farther short of ridding the human race of the awe it constantly feels for God. In “the era of the cream of elite”, rivalry between individuals from the cream of elite for superiority over opponents has been rampant and is not likely to come to a halt even after the era expires. Although the irreversible advent of the Age of Globalization is going to put an end to “the era of the cream of elite”, the fierce confrontations between nation states, different creeds, different parts in a country, different civilizations, which are just the aftermath of the rivalry between individuals coming from the cream of elite for superiority over opponents, would not cease. Improved material life tends to improve man’s intellect and should not be utilized as a means to corrupt man’s soul, though it can do little to raise the level of his moral awareness.
In the Age of Globalization, what can man do to resurrect in his heart the fear of God, update his outlook on the way of life, and revive his conscience and common sense, while continuing to rapidly develop science and technology and raise his standard of living? In other words, this question can be construed as a new mission man is confronted with in the New Millennium. The certainty of fulfilling the new mission rests only with the leadership of a government which will, as I have pointed out in this work of mine, go by the name of “a world coalition government”.
(A) Questions to be directed at God
What does God think of man and vice versa?
1. Is the other Commandment workable for man?
As God would see it, man is a uniform and simple species. But as man would see it, God is an incongruity and complexity. As science circles would see it, God is probably an emblem of laws governing nature. As religious circles would see it, God is probably tantamount to Jehovah or Allah. As ordinary people would see it, God is probably the image that an emperor or hero would take, whereas as an emperor would see it, God is probably an incarnation of authority or an incarnation of his subjects. All the visualizations specified above are not untenable simply because different social strata have different visions of God; and these visualizations have been translated into multitudinous forms of hostility, hatred, rancor, quarrel, clash, warfare, to mention but a few. Therefore in the last analysis, all the confrontations having broken out in the world were in essence clashes between visions conjured up by rival social strata.
As a matter of fact, even sects under the same creed would adhere to varied visions of the same God. I have repeatedly pored over the Holy Bible and the Koran, the sacred text of Islam, and found myself totally bewildered by the existence of directly antithetical commandments both God and Allah give expression to respectively in the Bible and the Koran. What should we properly make of the relation between “the chosen people” and “egalitarianism”? That is one of the questions puzzling me. Another question puzzling me is: What should we make of the relation between “jihad” and “peace”? For example, everybody knows that Islam does not object to The Old Testament. In it is recorded that “Lord hath made the covenant with Israel.” “Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn.” And then God further told Israel, saying:
“I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.” (Exod. 023:027—023:033)
Then in The Old Testament, justa few paragraphs ahead of the passage quoted above is another passage also recording what God said to “the children of Israel”:
“If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him, that hateth thee, lying under his burden and forbearing to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.” (Exod. 023:004—023:005)
I can quote from the Bible numerous pairs of suchlike antithetical commandments given by God. This would certainly give rise to the inquiry: Which one of the two antithetical commandments should a devout Christian follow, the commandment God gives with regard to “the children of Israel” or that God gives with regard to “peace”? And which one of the two antithetical commandments should a devout Moslem follow, to go on with “jihad” or make “peace” with his foe. Just as God would decree, if you see the ass of him, that hates thee, lying under his burden and forbearing to help him, you should think it is obligatory for you to surely help with him. Then how come you would go to knock him down after you have helped him with bringing his ass to its feet? Is really your enemy’s ass more valuable than your enemy’s life?
So it is evident that both Christians and Moslems are all at one with The Old Testament and would give the same answer to the question: What should we properly make of the relation between “the chosen people” and “egalitarianism”? In other words, both Christians and Moslems would act only in compliance with God’s commandment governing the relation between “the chosen people” and “egalitarianism”. This can be testified by such events as the military expeditions by Crusade in the Middle Ages, the expansions by czarist Russia, the Holocaust in Nazi concentration camps, the war going on for decades between Israel and Palestine, the nearly two-decade-old attrition which was finally converted into a war between Iraq and the coalition formed of the United States and Britain, the war taking place in Chechen not long ago, the military clash in Kosovo, the September 11 Attack. As a matter of fact, in the last two millennia all the wars between nations or all the carvings up of countries were motivated by either the “chosen-people mentality” or the “jihad fervor”.
As a result, the general public in both the Christian world and the Moslem world and the international community have been making to the statesmen and the religious leaders of the warring parties the appeal that they give up the doctrines they have been practicing, take into consideration the prevalent trend of the world development, and follow the lead of God’s Commandment of egalitarianism and peace.
Oh, merciful God and almighty Allah, You can see clearly now the human race You have created is on the threshold of an age of worldwide globalization where every act on the part of one warring party would inevitably elicit a reaction not only from the other warring party but from the entire international community. Now all the warring parties involved are steadily pushing ahead with Your commandments on the “chosen people” and “jihad”, but at the same time they are being entrapped in an impasse. Not only they are being so entrapped; the billions of people in the vicinity of the regions where the warring parties are tussling are also being entrapped. And now behold, God and Allah! A number of the warring parties have at their disposal a more than sufficient amount of nuclear weapons to blast the whole human race, newly developed biochemical weapons which are more deadly than nukes, and viral weaponry. Scientists have given us to understand that the tiny amount of only twenty grams of viral agent is enough to wipe away the six billion of world population from the surface of the earth. And now behold God and Allah! The warring parties are so frantically hating their rivals’ guts as to recklessly resort to using x-heavy bomb and even such extreme forms of “human bomb” (homicide bombing) as “a human bomb rigged up in an infant”, “a human bomb rigged up in a woman”.
Although God’s or Allah’s will is omnipotent and unvaried and remains valid for eons, yet interpretation of God’s or Allah’s will may vary tremendously from the church leaders or prophets of one sect of a creed to those of another. Church leaders or prophets cannot help being affected by the ongoing development in the world political arena in their interpretations of God’s or Allah’s will. Man has now been crossing the threshold of the era of globalization, the era of nuclear technology, and the era of information society. Now it is very clear that to adhere obstinately to God’s or Allah’s commandment on “the chosen people” and “jihad” is certainly not only to lead the world nowhere but to open for man more Pandora’s boxes to more acutely imperil the world. Under such circumstances wouldn’t it be commendable for man to switch to God’s or Allah’s other commandment that is the commandment on “egalitarianism” and “peace”?
2. Who to blame, God or man?
The more piously man has trusted in God, follows His commandment to a T, the more dreadful ordeal and crisis he has been subjected to. Who is to blame for man’s sorry plight, God or man himself? Is such a plight induced by the falsehood in God’s commandment or by man’s misjudgment on God’s commandment? As I see it, God is absolutely impeccable, so far as man’s plight is concerned.
Everything in the universe is created by a Creator alone, who, as I have repeatedly pointed out, is none other than “the cosmic spirit”, otherwise called God. It is God who endows the flora in every part of the world with “the faculty for growth”, faunas across the world with “the faculty for movement”, and man with “the faculty for physical and intellectual enhancement” or, as I choose to call it, “the faculty for empathizing with nature and human quintessence”. In a word, each of the three different faculties just referred to above is a specific demonstration of godhood under a particular set of temporo-spatial conditions. Moreover, just as God assigns a rigid orbit for each of the innumerable heavenly bodies to move on, He applies rigid demarcations to defining boundaries of domains owned respectively by various forms of existence on the earth, such as the human species, botanical life, animal life and makes sure that all the forms of existence on the earth stay “commensal” and in prosperity. It is a pity that having gone gradually oblivious of God’s Commandments, man has been accentuating the morbid proclivity in his nature; and as a result he is now turning the globe upside down.
Apart from setting the globe upside down, man is in the process of turning all social relations upside down. Man is the most sophisticated, complicated, superb of all creations magicked out by God and has made Him very proud. Apart from endowing him with the faculties for expressing sentiments and communicating with others, He has assigned “moral norm” for man to abide by. Apart from endowing man with rationality and the faculty of doing creative labor, He has laid down for him a set of rules defining what is meant by truth in science. It is not only due to man’s being oblivious of the fact that though natural endowment varies from person to person, it all comes from the same God but also due to man’s being oblivious of one of God’s teachings that persons with different endowments from God need to pursue different careers in peaceful coexistence that a divided world, witnessing age-long and ferocious confrontations and most ruthless open clashes, has thus emerged. One example of such confrontations or clashes is that between science circles and religious circles.
In fact, such confrontations or clashes are everywhere to see. We are aware that they have now invaded every domain of life and then stayed put there. For example, within the domain of religious faith most cruel strife between different religions or sects has never been put an end to till now. Growth of various beliefs or religions in the history of man is in essence a law-of-the jungle process where after merciless extermination or conquest of a rival religion or sect the victorious one rules supreme. Every expansion of a religion or sect is, as a rule, achieved at the tenfold cost of blood and tears, at which its rival paid for its previous expansion.
Since there is only one universe, it can be ruled by only one God. And He can have only one disposition. Even though there were ten universes, they can be allowed to be ruled by one God alone. Man is “the most intelligent species of all the species on the earth” but not “the monarch to dominate all the other species on the earth”. A sovereign who rules over a country is not God. And God is not a sovereign who rules over a country. In the process of creating all forms of existence in the world, God endows different forms of existence with different ingredients of His godhood. Therefore when a form of existence acts in contradiction to its own nature, it is at the same time violating the ingredient of godhood it contains. And when it tampers with the nature of another form of existence, it is actually interfering with the ingredient of godhood the latter contains. In the last five millennia the world civilization has been developing, man has committed all manner of blunders he is capable of committing. Of all the blunders man has witnessed so far, none can be ascribed to God’s misstep. And all the blunders man has witnessed so far stemmed solely from man’s miscomprehension of God’s commandments.
3. Is it due to providence, or waywardness in human nature?
Man instinctively knows he enjoys dignity. Such knowledge is actually an endowment from God. God knows He enjoys divine dignity. And His dignity is absolute. Man’s waywardness is not allowed to go beyond the bounds tolerated by God. Otherwise His jurisdiction pursuant to His absolute dignity would certainly mete out punishment. However hectically man may exert to stockpile nukes, biochemical and viral weaponry, terrorist gadgetry, human bombs, etc. in order to head for a self-destruction, still, without God’s approval, man is not even entitled to committing it.
Well, I should like to venture to ask: Is my appeal for creating a world coalition government, as is expatiated on in this work of mine, a decree from God or just an act—or, my act—motivated by a propensity toward waywardness in human nature?
In the light of social progress, the globalization-oriented social structure is now gaining in irreversible dominance. The vigorous growth of transnational companies, consortia, international economic zones, international economic organizations, etc. constitutes an immeasurably great economic motivation to impel man to stride in the direction of the age of globalization. Various international political organizations such as the United Nations, the League of Arab States, the African Union, the European Union, and various international nongovernment organizations are developing strenuously to constitute a political traction to pull man in the direction of the age of globalization. The Internet, computerization, technology of artificial intelligence, transnational networks of aviation and navigation are providing man with proper and adequate means of communication to make man’s survival in a globalization world possible. In a word, survival in a globalization world claims a “restructuring” of man’s political system, system of rules governing economic development, moral system, fabric of values, outlook on the way of life, etc.
Speaking of a “restructuring”, we may take “state” for an example. For millennia till now, state apparatus has been a formidable and irreplaceable entity in securing man’s survival. But now in the face of the worldwide surge of globalization, state needs to have its functions completely innovated on and its role completely redefined so that it can work compatibly with the requirements that satisfy man’s survival in a globalization world. If the summary I have just made above of the restructuring of state apparatus is true, it follows that a world coalition government that is intended for freeing all the states in the world of their inherent vices, innovating their functions, curbing their greed, and amplifying their inherent merits needs to be created. In other words, creation of a world coalition government is an inevitable outcome of the workings of “the law governing the development of the history of man”. As for “the law governing the development of the history of man”, it is, in the final analysis, nothing but a specific manifestation of godhood in the process of man’s evolution.
That it is imperative for man to create a world coalition government at the present stage of world development can also be attested by the negative experience man has accumulated in the past. The a-bombs dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima constitute an indication that man was already at that time equipped with a capacity for self-destruction. The September 11 Attack is an indication that man already braced himself up at that time for executing a self-destruction. Appearance of biochemical and viral weapons is a proof that man has found out for himself the simplest and easiest way to bring about his self-destruction. The grim fact that man has now sunk to such an enormity of self-destruction can be accounted for sufficiently by man’s intrinsic wickedness that has been—rather than diminished in the millennia of development of world civilization—exacerbated, by the villainy inherent in the traditional form of state apparatus, by the sinisterness common to all traditional forms of religious activities, and by the scourge traditional culture has been inflicting upon the world. To put it another way, the grim fact specified above is a reflection of the inconsistency between the age of globalization and man’s inborn wickedness, of the traditional form of state apparatus, of the sinister side of religious activities, and of the vile aspect of traditional culture.
As things now stand, man is actually left no alternative but to create a world coalition government to spare himself the impending ordeal of self-destruction. Else the inconsistency specified above would be damned only to perdition. Man has to conduct himself in the way befitting his status as an intellectual species, the human species. But how? Without a world coalition government, or without its consistent leadership, man is not to conduct himself in the way befitting his status as the human species.
(B) Questions to be fired at all the leading lights of the present age
What are the leading lights’ impressions of the populace, and vice versa?
1. Are the leading lights the cream of humanity, or just the crack of faunae?
A careful survey of the history of civilized man, that has lasted five millennia, tends to reveal to us the following interesting fact: However widely the civilization of one nation differs from that of another, all the national civilizations that have ever appeared in the history of mankind bear a remarkable similitude that in a nation, sages who advocate pacifism would eventually and invariably emerge victorious in their contest with bellicose “heroes”.
In his most famous work The Republic, Plato writes: “Were people living in a republic content with such a simple and plain life that they would neither covet the riches of their neighboring countries nor accumulate an exorbitance of wealth to invite invasions from neighboring countries, no military organizations would be needed by that country to build up its national defense. But the fact is that people instinctively desire a voluptuous life, instead of a simple and plain one. They desire splendid temples, theaters, exquisite textiles, posh houses, and perfumes imported from abroad.” What Plato actually hints at in this passage is that to eliminate wars presupposes that greed in human nature has to be got rid of. That is why ancient Greeks set extremely great store by practicing frugality and abstinence. In the Protocol of the Delphi City State Alliance were stipulated the following terms: (1) War be forbidden between city states. (2) Nobody be allowed to take the life of any other citizen living in one of the city states. (3) Nobody be allowed to devastate any of the states in the alliance. (4) No member state be allowed to cut off water supply to any other member state. Later in ancient Rome, statesmen and thinkers not only took advantage of Greek heritage but strove to enrich it. For the first time in the history of world civilization, they solemnly advanced a clear-cut, well-conceived, and jurisprudentially-based definition of the term of “justice in war”.
In “Roman Law” (or, preferably Jus Gentium), the law highly praised since its promulgation, there is the following provision: “Before a war is started, the military needs to have itself assured that to start the war is a justifiable and sacred undertaking on the grounds that Roman Empire has been invaded, that ambassador from the empire has been so injured as to justify that his right to diplomatic immunities has been violated, that the rival party in the prospective war has violated such a provision in a signed agreement as is obligatory for it not to violate, that the rival party has aided enemy of the empire, that the rival party is found guilty of sacrilege in a sanctum, and that the rival party has refused to extradite to the empire the person who has offended the empire in a most outrageous way”.
Confucius, a prominent sage in ancient China, consistently denounced war, equating it to a demon. He enlightened his disciples as to what an ideal way of life should be like, saying, “Every able-bodied man should have a job that suits him. Every woman should be married to a man who suits her. Every child should be well taken care of. Every widow, widower, or orphan should be given adequate help. Nobody would covet anything he is not entitled to own. No household needs to latch its door after dark.” This is Confucian version of an ideal way of life. Lao Tzu’s version of an ideal way of life is more sublime than Confucian version and is epitomized in the following aphoristic and pacifistic saying of his: “Everybody under the sky is regarded as belonging in the same great family as you do. In your country everybody is in concord with everybody else.” Advocating a radical pacifistic stand, Mo Di, who was once a disciple of Mencius’, advanced the following farsighted proposition: “Do treat everybody considerately and not to take any action unless you are sure it will benefit all parties involved.” In Mo Di’s opinion, the best policy is to uphold the principles that “every action to be taken ought to benefit all the parties involved”, that the moral principle should govern relations between nations and individuals, and that on the one hand an action to be taken should benefit all parties involved, on the other all parties involved ought to treat one another kindly and considerately. War means massacre, so he believed, and is a direct antithesis to the principles specified above. War is the bane to everybody, he insisted.
In the Manava-Dharmasastra (the Law Code of Manu) are provisions elaborating on diplomatic protocol to be observed by belligerent powers and also on diplomatic immunities. Especially worth mentioning are Kautilya and his works. In his works he expatiates on the principle of “equilibrium in international relations”. The principle was vastly advocated by a great number of statesmen including Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state of the United States. Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest of all the Indian prime ministers throughout the 20th century, advocated the doctrine of nonviolence and nonresistance. His doctrine has been highly appreciated across the world and is essentially a kindred derivative from the Buddhist tenet of “ahimsa” (the principle of nonviolence). About four millennia ago the doctrine of pacifism prevailing in ancient Egypt laid stress on instilling into man the qualities of kindness and egalitarianism and was firmly adhered to by the then Egyptian population. In ancient Egyptian literature once existed a peculiar literary genre called “perceptive writing”. Works in such a genre included exhortative or admonitory writings by sages, educators, celebrities or elders. Most of them are not extant. However the best preserved one of the works of that genre is entitled The Maxims of Ptah-Hotep. One passage in it reads: “Don’t behave arrogantly because of your stock of knowledge. Don’t wax conceited when you are thought to be clever.” Another passage reads: “Being fair is being great. Justice brought about by being fair would be everlasting. Ever since justice was introduced to the world, it has never for once been defeated.” In the First Intermediate Period in the history of Egypt an awful famine took place in the prefecture of Hittite. The following passage about the famine is in the autobiography written by the governor of the prefecture: “In those barren years I managed to feed more than 400 people in Gebelin. I never took away one girl from them. Nor did I rob them of even one mote of their land.” Although this ancient governor was alive four thousand years ago, yet he was more civilized than part of our high officials of today who are wont to extravagantly glorify their immorality.
Never resorting to violence, pacifism looks tame. But its tameness serves to belie its firmness. That is why having undergone all the ordeals inflicted by wars, avarice, savageness, and all manner of menace, pacifism remains completely unscathed, neither broken nor distorted. It persists in holding its course for all most bloody persecutions it has been subjected to. A great number of reputed scholars in modern Europe, such as Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas Moore, Juana Ines de la Cruz, Francois De Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon, Thomas Paine, Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, Theodore Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham all denounced war. What they called into question include not only what is meant by “military affair” but also what is meant by “soldier”. While the career of a soldier would result in nothing but destruction, they opined, the career of a businessman would certainly benefit a lot of people. Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet, or the Marquis de Condorcet, a most respected “French enlightenment philosopher” explicitly pointed out, “People with fairly enlightened minds would in due course perceive that war is the worst of all calamities and the most heinous crime. The so-called ‘a just war” is actually a camouflage, behind which a sovereign state or a country starts or carries on an aggression against another state. Jonathan Dymond, a radical pacifist and a most renowned member of the Society of Friends in 19th-century England pointed out particularly incisively in his work Examples and Testimony of the Early Christians on the Subject of War, “Trying to differentiate between a just war and an unjust war or between a defensive war and an offensive war is totally pointless. Either you ban all wars or you give war free rein.” In the 19th century together with his comrades, Richard Cobden (1804—1865), acclaimed as “the apostle of free trade”, advanced the proposition that free trade and peace are linked in a chain of causality. Lasting world peace would necessarily come true—so they believed, perceiving clearly the interaction between economy and politics—once all the tariff barriers across the world be removed. In the 20th century Sir Norman Angell, writer and 1933 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, advanced his famous proposition that “war is already obsolete now”. Neither waging a war nor starting a raid by an imperialist power to victimize another country—against such a raid military defense at an unusually high cost would have to be stepped up—would by any means improve the economy of the imperialist power. Sir Norman Angell wrote most insightfully, “The factors—whatever political implication they would convey—that are really to uplift the country (England) to prosperity have nothing at all to do with its army or navy.”
Outbreak of war in the history of man has never come to a halt—for all the resounding appeals for peace and discourses spoken or written on the importance of keeping peace made by sages and philosophers in the history of the world and for all the fierce denunciations they made against atrocities perpetrated by and calamities entailed by wars upon the world population. Why can’t outbreak of a war, so cataclysmic a monster, have been ever bridled once and for all? Because the leading lights—or the cream of humanity—need wars. They want to use the blood, tears, and loss of lives that a war can wrench out of its victims as a trophy to embellish their fame; and they look forward to listening to explosions of cannonballs and heartrending howls from the battlefields as salvoes to their triumphs. In order to assure themselves that they are on a par with the Almighty, they yearn to see kneeling or prostrating crowds imploring mercy before them.
Thus I cannot help putting the following question to the cream of humanity: Do you choose to regard yourselves as the crack of faunae emerging supreme under the law of jungle, or as responsible human beings who are conscientious, righteous, and merciful. In other words, do you want to honor your integrity as the leading lights of mankind do, or eliminate your manhood so that you can pride yourselves on having become the crack of faunae in the world?
2. Is it man’s selfishness or man’s integrity that the leading lights epitomize?
The leading lights ought to prove that they are the heroes—the cream—of their people. And their people ought to prove that they can live up to what their leading lights would expect of them. But what now makes us have qualms is the fact that nowadays the leading lights or the heroes, of a nation invariably epitomize its egotism. Else the leading lights would fall into disgrace with their people. As a matter of fact, being a hero, or a leading light, is a means to gratify his cravings for fame and gains. And without being motivated by his cravings for fame and gains, he would not have the willpower to shove himself into the domain of elite. When popular egotism and ambition of a hero (or a leading light for that matter) are both mutually promoting and mutually infiltrating to be integrated into one, then a “heroic age” is impending. Accordingly no hero would emerge in a land where freedom and equality rule supreme. Nor would hero make his appearance in a land inhabited by people who are conscientious and upright.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882), whom Abraham Lincoln acclaimed as “a Confucius in America” and the American people have honored as “Father of American Civilization”, gave the following comments on the life of Bonaparte Napoleon in his essay entitled “Napoleon, or the Man of the World”:
“Here was an experiment, under the most favorable conditions, of the powers of intellect without conscience. Never was such a leader so endowed and so weaponed; never a leader found such aids and followers. And what was the result of this vast talent and power, of these immense armies, burned cities, squandered treasures, immolated millions of men, of this demoralized Europe? It came to no result. All passed away like the smoke of his artillery, and left no trace. He left France smaller, poorer, and feebler, than he found it; and the whole contest for freedom was to be begun again. The attempt was in principle suicidal. France served him with life and limb and estate, as long as it could identify its interest with him; but when men saw that after victory was another war; after the destruction of armies, new conscriptions; and they who had toiled so desperately were never nearer to the reward,-they could not spend what they had earned, nor repose on their down-beds, nor strut in their chateaux,-they deserted him. Men found that his absorbing egotism was deadly to all other men.”
And Emerson further pointed out:
“It was not Bonaparte's fault. He did all that in him lay to live and thrive without moral principle. It was the nature of things, the eternal law of man and of the world which baulked and ruined him; and the result, in a million experiments, will be the same. Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail. The pacific Fourier will be as inefficient as the pernicious Napoleon. As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.”
Selfishness begets narrow-mindedness which in turn triggers off an outburst of frenzy. And frenzy in its turn engenders barbarous cruelty which has heroes and leading lights in tow. There has been no “heroic age” but is maddened with frenzy, distorted by savageness, devastated to total wreckage, and besmeared with blood and filth. In the long, long development of civilizations in different parts of the world have made their appearances on the stages of history a string of innumerable heroes of numerous denominations, acting such parts as emperor, God, public servant with devout allegiance, sage, saint, the Chinese people’s “Red Sun” (or the Chinese people’s “Polestar”). However none of such heroes or none of such “heroic ages” has not been buried beneath the rotten debris of history as a burlesque of a tragedy. The cause leading to every hero’s predestined tragedy lies in the embodiment in a hero of all the base desires of the human race or in the incarnation in a hero of egotism prevalent with the populace.
What needs to be pointed out clearly here is that since there have been, in the history of man, numerous long durations of “heroic age”, they have succeeded in instilling into man the repeatedly invigorated “heroism gene” which seems now to have occasioned in human awareness an almost inerasable “heroism complex”. And I do not think “heroism complex” was not one of the psychological factors contributing to the occasioning of the motive, behind which Osmar Ben Laden set about launching the September 11 Attack, or behind which Sadaam Hussein practiced autocracy in Iraq, or behind which George Bush waged the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore it is rational to say the most dangerous obstacle to the development of a globalization world is the after-effects of “heroism complex” or—to be exact—the heroism-complex-oriented mentality and behavior. The two of them are so glaringly noticeable in part of the multitudes who, suffering from the after-effects, are conducting themselves in a way that is both ridiculous because of their being old-fogeyish and pathetic because of their conservatism.
In a world of globalization, people share the world equally and are no longer hostile toward one another. Therefore they no longer aspire after the appearance of heroes or leading lights on the stage of world politics. They will then have a deepened comprehension of Emerson’s prediction that “only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men”. And indeed they need to have a deepened comprehension of Emerson’s prediction.
3. For whom, the leading lights or the populace, does the bell toll?
Evolution of man needs to pass roughly three phases. In the first phase man has to go through the dual process of grouping individual human beings into collectives while collectives became independent of one another. In the second phase individual human beings go through the process of having themselves become identified with the human species while the human species has itself become fully aware of its identity. In the third phase man will have himself become quite at one with the universe and at the same time he will try his best to have the universe become identified with him.
The first phase is characterized by both the appearance both of innumerable heroes on the historical stage of man and of the rivalry between heroes for hegemony. This phase would stand out in the history of man as a fully-fledged “heroic age”. Personages such as patriarch of a clan, chieftain of a tribe, leader of a nation, sovereign of a state are all counted among “heroes” of this age. In the “heroic age” man’s virtues, vices, merits, demerits, progression in civilization, regression in civilization hinge all upon his heroes and are associated with mental horizon, intelligence, insight, willpower, preference of each of the “heroes” involved. The “heroic age” would stay unexpired as long as the human race remains divided, whatever kind of demarcation the human race is divided by. We may divide the human race into many ingredients; for example we may divide the human race into such ingredients as nation, state, region. Again for example, we may divide the human race into the three ingredients of the Oriental civilization, the Occidental civilization, and the Central civilization. And we may also divide the human race into the two ingredients of the eastern hemisphere and the western hemisphere.
The second phase is characterized by a process of reciprocal assimilation and reciprocal promotion involving both individual human beings and the human species. This phase also goes by the name of the “minor heroic age”. Nowadays the topic very much talked about is “globalization” which is in essence a process in which individual human beings exert to have themselves incorporated into the human species, while the latter exerts to have itself become fully aware of its identity. In the second phase, survival of the human race has become a global concern; and communication between different parts of the world is being computerized. The development of science and technology in this phase is being spearheaded by the progress in the field of artificial intelligence. Under such circumstances findings from research carried out by an individual researcher or scholar can be disseminated across the world in an unprecedentedly short time. On the other hand, everybody is able to absorb the most recently developed knowledge from all parts of the world also in an unprecedentedly short time. Such a development in the second phase would enable mankind to provide every human being with more opportunities to improve his or her personality and with more dimensions to enrich his or her intellect. Therefore in the second phase it is possible for every human being to be elevated to a plane on which he or she would become identified with the whole human species and help the latter with developing global civilization by dint of his or her enriched personality and which would reinforce solidarity of the human race, ensure equality to every human being, and enable everybody to offer help to anybody else who needs to be assisted in discharging his or her social responsibility. And on such a plane opportunity is held out equally to everybody to become a hero, while every hero can be dislodged from his shrine at any time and replaced by somebody else. In a world where everybody is honored as a hero, the epithet hero would be rid of its glamour it has been etymologically endowed with.
The third phase is characterized by the reciprocal promotion and reciprocal assimilation between man and the universe. This phase constitutes “an age without a hero”—otherwise called “an anti-hero age”. Since man has been reckoned so far as the only and the highest form of life in the universe and since man has been counted so far as the only form of intellectual life characterized by its capacity for recognizing the universe and creating things by utilizing natural resources, it is incumbent upon him not only to further his knowledge of himself and elevate his mentality to a higher intellectual plane but also to broaden his knowledge of the universe and improve his capability in making use of the resources the universe can provide him with. I have mentioned above that “in the third phase man will have himself become quite at one with the universe, and at the same time he will try his best to have the universe become identified with him”. What is meant by the expression “man will have himself become quite at one with the universe; and at the same time he will try his best to have the universe become identified with him”? This expression actually means that in the third phase man needs to learn the quintessence of the universe and the law governing its evolution. To broaden man’s knowledge of the quintessence of the universe and the law governing its evolution would enable him to know the universe more incisively than ever before, so that he can make use of his broadened knowledge of the universe to substantiate his knowledge of himself, make himself better adapted to the universe, and to improve his status. Besides, this expression implies that by broadening his knowledge of the universe and widening his knowledge of the law governing the evolution of the universe, man would be able to change behavioral patterns of other heavenly bodies than the earth, so that they can work to better benefit the human race. Of course every change man would make in the behavioral patterns of other heavenly bodies would certainly bear some trace of human intellect. And such a change would never be effected unless in his effort to bring it about man would act in strict conformity with the law governing the universe’s evolution. When evolution of man is in its third phase, none but God and the law governing the universe’s evolution is in a position to play the role of a hero. But at a time when even God and the law governing the universe’s evolution would be utilized by man to work out both changes in all the heavenly bodies and an improvement of the status of man, neither God nor the law governing the universe’s evolution can be counted as heroes. In an age when God would be disqualified from playing the role of a hero, then the only name that would suit such an age nicely would be “an age without a hero”.
What needs to be emphatically pointed out here is that at present man is right in “a stage of transition” between the first phase and the second phase. Trudging on arduously throughout the duration of such a stage of transition, man is being saddled with a dual task which is more demanding than any he has been imposed on before. As is well known, to build an edifice requires the leveling off of all the old wreckage left in the site where the new structure is to be erected. The exertion to level off and wipe out what is old in order to create what is new is often as laborious as—or even more laborious than—the exertion to create something new. This is exactly the case with creating an age of globalization. To usher in an age of globalization presupposes to eradicate the heroic age. Take for example the attempt to bring about the process of reciprocal assimilation and reciprocal promotion involving both individual human beings and the human species. Such an attempt would certainly run into a head-on clash with such entities as state apparatus, religion, political party, traditional culture, because they are all monopolized by heroes or leading lights and provide the latter with all that are indispensable for the making of hosts of heroes. Here, the term “heroes” is meant to refer to such leading lights as emperors, heads of states, popes, bishops, reputed scholars, wealthy entrepreneurs. Heroes like them are impregnated with “heroic spirit”, which they decidedly equate to the charisma peculiar to them and would never allow anybody to depreciate, not to say to vilify. What constitutes an even weightier obstacle to the ushering in of an age of globalization is the myopia on the part of the vast general public. If the general public were told that they would be obliged to stay unsheltered outdoors for the duration of a transition period starting from the destruction of their old paradise and ending with the creation of their new paradise, a sizable bunch of them would object by professing, “Then we are against destroying the old paradise.” Such a bunch is too shortsighted to see beyond today and would not care a damn about what a disaster might befall the next generation tomorrow, being blind to the glaring facts that the old paradise has been destructively sapped to the brink of crumbling and that its collapse is a foregone conclusion.
Now it is already time the human race rose to summon a force that could neutralize all the resistances of the “heroic age” to the advent of the second phase of the evolution of man, that could propel mankind into the second phase of man’s evolution peacefully and that could lead mankind to create a miracle. A world coalition government is precisely the agent that could and would wield such a force.
Time the human race rose to toll the bell either for the heroic age or for itself, because there is no alternative left to it!
(C) Queries to be shot at the soul of man
About the world existing in the soul and about the soul existing in the world
1. Is the soul of man effete or powerful?
Existence of a human being manifests itself in two aspects, one aspect being his mental activities and the other being his activities in the real world. Between the two sorts of activities exist such discrepancies as not only are inevitable but last the longevity of a human being.
A human being’s mental activities which constitute one aspect of a human being’s existence seem too effete to stand up against his activities in the real world, which constitute the other aspect of a human being’s existence; and the mental activities appear to be very insubstantial when compared to his activities in the real world. The other aspect may be likened to a scoundrel who would take pleasure in publicly insulting a sage, to whom a human being’s mental activities may be likened. On the surface the scoundrel may be thought to wield more sway and to be more in control than the sage. But the actuality would be just the reverse of what looks like on the surface. Likewise, a human being’s activities in the real world may appear to be more powerful than his mental activities. But the actuality would be just the reverse of what the two aspects look like on the surface, if we would give them a second thought. Whenever we make a careful survey of the history of man, a basic fact would certainly flash into our minds that the survival of mankind through the millennia is crucially indebted to the mental resilience mankind is capable of. Such a quality helps mankind tide over numerous crises which seemed to have repeatedly tried to overwhelm mankind with pessimism. Mental resilience that was characteristic of the mentality of Plato, Buddha, or Confucius has been in control of mental activities of innumerable generations of humans. Scrawny as a faggot, Mahatma Gandhi and his spirit succeeded in holding colonialism back and are still commanding the respect of the contemporary world population. In truth, without mental resilience development of civilization would be totally out of the question. Void of mental resilience a human being would be reduced to the status of an animal without even the least modicum of humanity.
That mental resilience is mighty and influential is due to the fact that man is the most intelligent form of life in the universe. Mental resilience is a quality derived from one of the facets of godhood and was instilled by God into man while Genesis was in progress. Likewise qualities like conscience, justice, love, sympathy, courage and willingness to help the weak, etc. are all facets of godhood, which were instilled into man at the time of Genesis. Mentality of a human being constitutes the mechanism, by which he or she is able to know what happiness is like. With a sound mentality a human can enjoy love, pleasure, health, friendship, and gratification drawn from his creative activities. Mentality is the source of the momentum to rouse a human to action and would be affected by outcome of the action a human has taken. Man would act in accordance with the dictates of his mentality. If man’s material life goes against the dictates of his mentality, he would readily reject it or revolt against it.
There would be neither progress in civilization nor felicity for man if his mentality were at variance with the objective world. All the barbarism and calamities in the history of man were generated by the contempt thrown and the abuse inflicted by the objective world on the mentality of man. However, much to our regret, nowadays mankind is still wallowing in the mud of vileness (in the form of “poisoned or diseased mentality”), unrepented guilty conscience, and depressed mood.
2. Which, the soul of man or the present epoch, is in the grip of a crisis?
Almost all the politicians, religious leaders, and scholars across the world are of the opinion that the knotty problems man is facing include only such as poverty (or inequality between the rich and the poor), war, clash between civilizations, crime, terrorism, malfunction of the United Nations, bungled environmental protection. These problems just appear to be very knotty but are actually not so knotty or critical as imagined. The most knotty problem the human race is facing today is how to rectify the mentality of the world population so as to save it from moral degeneracy.
There are three venomous feelings which act as a dread scourge of man from time immemorial; they are selfishness, hatred, and apathy.
Selfishness breeds stupidity. Take President George Bush for an example. He took the lead in the crusade against Kyoto Protocol. Then Putin, the Russian president, followed suit. Bush argued that his opposition to the protocol was motivated by his desire to stabilize the level of economic growth in his country. But we know that was just his pretext when his real concern was only about the number of votes he would have lost in the next presidential election if he had signed the protocol. A great number of the American people are going to withhold their votes from Bush, if some action he takes is considered by them as adversely affecting their short-term interests, even if the action in question is decidedly beneficial to their long-term interests. And Bush would never sign the protocol when he foresaw that putting his signature to the protocol would result in depletion of the number of votes in his favor. Are the American people so ignorant as to think that the polluted atmosphere would do harm only to countries other than the United States? Wouldn’t America have to pay more dearly once the polluted atmosphere will have worsened beyond remedy? This is insane stupidity hatched out by doltish selfishness. Now let us take the conflicts between religions for example. The existence of the human race on our globe has behind it a history lasting more than 4,000,000 years. Neither Christian faith nor Islamic faith has behind it a history of 2,000 years. Therefore it would be most reasonable to say that both a Christian and a Moslem are alike human beings in the first place. And each of them is a votary of his belief in the second place. It follows that a Christian or a Moslem needs to live up to the moral standard of man in the first place before either can become a pious votary of his belief. It is only when the two religions can bring themselves to live together on our globe in truly peaceful coexistence that the two religions can jointly create an atmosphere of jubilant concord to benefit the growth of the two religions. This should have been clear to either of the two religions, but of this they seem quite ignorant. Their selfishness leads them to act stupidly. We have witnessed hosts of stupidities stemming from selfishness in everyday life. At a butcher’s two guys tried to stab each other to death because either, wanting to buy at the butcher’s a few good pork chops, had tried to preclude the other from taking them. After a quarrel between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law, both, fuming furiously about being nastily insulted by the other during the quarrel, hanged themselves in order just to make each other feel outraged; and in the end both died. To scramble madly for a title to a small stretch of land where a new house might be built, two siblings would even come to blows. For getting promotion, a guy would even use the body of his wife or daughter as a lure to his superior. These nauseating episodes all point to a distorted mentality that, following dictates of selfishness, could invent innumerable crazy ways for perpetrating enormities beyond belief.
From selfishness ensues hatred. And from hatred inevitably ensues insanity. Therefore enhancement of insanity is in proportion to that of hatred. The insanity demonstrated by Hitler originated with the hellish hatred he bore toward the Jews, Poles, and any other nations than the German nation. He directed his hatred toward the entire world. But our contemporary generation is being motivated by even a profounder hatred than that felt by Hitler. Manifestation of such a profounder hatred ranges from nuke to human bomb and has been upgraded recently to the use of a bomb hidden in the body of a woman or baby. In the September 11 Attack, the war in Iran, and the war in Iraq has also been demonstrated to the hilt what sort of blatant insanity the human race can reduce itself to. Man has now come to the acme of his insanity. To prepare themselves for waging long-drawn-out wars against their enemies, a number of nations and religions have proclaimed that they are to push for the implementation of a “population strategy” intended for urging their peoples to give birth to hosts of children as religious sacrifices offered to their gods as well their nations. Leaders of these nations or religions are ignoring the gruesome impoverishment and devastation their nations and peoples have been plunged into because of the long years of wars they have been waging. In fact such leaders are actually urging their peoples to produce—instead of hosts of children—guns, bullets, bayonets, and shells. It is no exaggeration to say that they are urging their nations to churn out more rabid insanity and more intense hatred towards “enemies” of their nations (or religions). Hatred is a feeling right opposite to love. Normally both of them exist in a human. In a fanatic, however, hatred can in some extreme cases grow out of proportion to his other feelings. Since the mentality of a fanatic is twisted and outweighed by a plethora of hatred, even his feelings of love, gratitude, and allegiance would be more than morbid and converted into lieutenants of hatred. The desire for revenge is, generally speaking, one of the numerous feelings that would occur to a normal human being. But when such a desire grows out of proportion and becomes dominant in a fanatic’s psyche, or when the desire for revenge has become the only motivation of a fanatic’s life, his other feelings would be converted into lackeys and hangers-on to fawn upon his desire for revenge. One who is soaked in hatred must be deprived of rational way of thinking. A fanatic who is stark raving mad is more dangerous than a rabid dog. By the same train of reasoning, a nation that is intoxicated with hatred is a body of raging and violent lunatics and must be more horrendous than a pack of mad wolves. Such lunatics would feel no qualms to exterminate the entire world population including themselves.
Apathy can devitalize the entire human race and is a malady deadlier than selfishness and hatred. Selfishness inducing stupidity and hatred triggering off madness are traumata in a person’s mind; they are in essence reactions to some external stimuli and boil down to some forms of intention that can possibly be translated into some activities. However apathy is in essence a freezing agent to reduce all forms of initiative to “hibernation” until degeneracy sets in. Therefore apathy is devitalization and debilitation. Those who experience apathy experience a living death. There are a lot of people who would, a Cognac in one hand and a Havana in the other and in eiderdown night robes, recline in sofas in their parlors, watching the videodisc showing the tumbling of the Twin Towers in New York, the panic, the stampede occasioned bythe September 11 Attack, or the videodisc showing the streamlined images of the newest jetfighters of the US-British coalition air force and their formations flitting over Bagdad, as if they were enjoying a Hollywood military film. We believe the terrorists who started the September 11 Attack and the American and British politicians who waged the war in Iraq were motivated by an insane hatred that originated with their selfishness and stupidity. We also believe when the two tragedies of the September 11 Attack and the war in Iraq were being enacted, the whole human race was in a state of apathy. Otherwise the two tragedies would not have been enacted. Therefore apathy is the deadliest malady man should strive to the utmost to keep himself immune from, because it can render mankind oblivious of his past, forgetful of the reality, and blind to his future. An apathetic human is a soulless human or a walking corpse.
Probably some one would say the September 11 Attack or the war in Iraq was an event taking place in a small area or in a small country the size of a tiny dot when compared to the immensity of space of our globe. “That’s not true,” I would tell him. Every country in the world—whatever its type: a great country, a small country, a self-styled free country, an autocratic country, a country ruled by a military government, a country ruled by a civilian government—is clandestinely going all out to have itself armed to the teeth. Living in such a world, war may break out any time—at the most unexpected moment.
How come the world has come to this? That is simply because man’s mentality has gone awry. Simply because rationality has departed from man’s mentality. And simply because egotism, hatred, and apathy have succeeded in shredding man’s psyche!
3. Who is to work out the salvation for man?
Statesmen, religious leaders, scientists, and noted scholars from thirty-seven countries attended the First World Congress of Global Civilization held between July 16 and July 18, 2001 at Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia. The primary task accomplished by the congress was adoption of Manifesto of Global Civilization which was drafted by me. The beginning paragraph of the manifesto reads: “Civilization consists of three layers. The social-order texture that is woven of political fabric, economic fabric, and social fabric constitutes the external layer of civilization. The cultural pattern formed of a plexus of customs, a plexus of conventions, and a nexus of religious tenets constitutes the median layer of civilization. Man’s notions with regard to the essence of the human race, the essence of the human species, and the essence of a human being constitutes the core layer of civilization. The civilization of a nation is, after all, a well-organized entity composed of the nation’s prevailing social order, cultural pattern, and established notion of humanity.” (See p.191 of The Book on the World.)
The mechanism underpinning survival of man constitutes a system which is well organized, exists for its own sake, and comprises an integration bred of man’s multi-layered “holographic embryo” and “specialization strain”. Every layer in this system consists of man’s spiritual factor, material factor, political factor (also called social factor). Material life of man serves as the fundamental factor of his survival. Spiritual life serves as the essential factor of his survival. Political life serves as the structural factor of his survival. To elaborate on these factors, there is a passage in my draft of Manifesto of Global Civilization, which reads:
“That man is distinct from animal kingdom is due primarily to man’s ability to reverse the logical relation embodied in the dictum of ‘animal kingdom versus its food’. So far as man is concerned, spiritual life is man’s intrinsic qualification. Material life is the means to let him don some outward appearance. Social system furnishes him with media to have himself anchored to it. Therefore spiritual civilization serves as the goal of his existence; material civilization serves as a vehicle to uphold his existence; and social-fabric civilization serves as a vehicle, availing himself of which he can enlist help for the purpose of achieving his goal.”
Exploring the aforesaid mechanism deeper, we would perceive that spiritual life of man is both the concretization and division of the plexus of material—society—spirit in the domain of man’s spirituality. In other words, spirituality of man is composed of the three planes of (1) rationality (such as cognition, scientific way of cogitation, formal logic, mathematical logic), (2) morality (such as religious doctrine, customs and tradition, social ethics, familial ethics, vocational morality), and (3) psyche (such as conscience, sense of justice, liberty, creativity). “Rationality” is derived from the specialization of what is required by man’s material life and constitutes both the external appearance and the basic ingredient of man’s spiritual system. “Psyche” is derived from the specialization of what is required by man’s spiritual life and constitutes both the essence and the internal texture of man’s spiritual system. “Morality” is derived from the specialization of what is required by man’s social life and constitutes both the median ingredient and the structural scheme of man’s spiritual system.
Thus, being supported by intellect, psyche not only functions as a “command post” capable of orientating man’s all activities toward humanity but differentiates a human being from an animal. So long as a person retains in his psyche even only a modicum of rationality, he can still perceive, in the depth of his soul, fluctuations of such feelings peculiar to man as conscience, affection for kin and kith, conjugal love, remorse, repentance, however grossly immorally and maliciously he chooses to let himself behave.
But what is now most regrettable is that man’s mentality—especially man’s psyche, the fountainhead of man’s mentality—has been almost completely neutralized by the rumpus kicked up by various aspects of man’s life and remains almost in a stupor.
That man’s mentality is being reduced to such a status is not contradictory to the logic of man’s survival.
When man is obsessed with the desire to survive, long-term interests would be completely blocked out of his vision. He would be single-mindedly scrambling merely for his short-term gains and parochial interests. And before he know it, his obsession with survival would swell to acquire such dimensions where his psyche or his rationality would no longer be able to exercise any control over it. Instances of ill overgrowth of an ingredient resulting in eclipsing the entity it belongs in are numerous. Take the development of some religion for example. In most cases the spiritual goal set by the founder of a certain religion would be for his followers to have their souls purified and elevated to angelic sublimity. But the development of the religion established by him might, after his death, stray from the path he originally chose for it, because his successors might intentionally or inadvertently make one part of his dogma overshadow other parts to the distortion of purport of his teachings. This can of course lead to the effacement of the central tenets of the religion.
Since the psyche of man has already been maimed, it needs to be re-modeled. But the question would arise: “Who should be assigned to take charge of re-modeling man’s psyche?”
Evidently state apparatus cannot be nominated to take the charge, though in the past state apparatus was a capable agent in this respect. But now state apparatus has become a capable agent to ruin man’s psyche. Then is it possible for religions to play the role of re-modeling man’s psyche? No. In the past religions worked hard and efficiently to shape man’s psyche; but now religions have become the most skillful manipulators juggling with man’s psyche. Shall we turn to some powerful economic setups or organizations for that matter? Still the answer is “no”, because they are vying with each other for annexing man’s psyche and not in the least interested in re-modeling it. Shall we turn to “regional culture” since it has been a mate of man’s psyche for millennia? No again! “Regional culture” has, since time immemorial, given birth to its progeny in the forms of “cultural regionalism”, “cultural imperialism”, or “cultural nationalism”. And its progeny are wont to resort to bullying, cheating, and domineering; as a result the already deteriorating psyche of man would be getting worse if “regional culture” comes to rule the roost.
Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, chairman of the board of editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica and professor of the University of Chicago wrote a book entitled Six Great Ideas—Truth-Goodness-Beauty-Liberty-Equality-Justice. In the book he states that truth, goodness, and beauty should be considered as intellectual criteria for judging values and that liberty, equality, and justice should be considered as behavioral norms for judging activities of man. But here the problem we have to face is: The definition of each of the six ideas of truth, goodness, beauty, liberty, equality, and justice varies from nation to nation and from culture to culture. Christian interpretation of the six ideas is categorically different from Islamic one. It is due to various interpretations of the six ideas that various cultural systems have emerged. And it is due to the existence of various cultural systems that parties concerned have been involved in fierce polemics, marauding invasions, and wars for millennia. Present-day actualities across the world seem to have attested to this. But I can safely predict that in case everybody would think it absolutely safe for him to honestly speak out his mind or comments on the six ideas, the interpretations placed on the six great ideas by the six hundred million of the world population would be roughly a consensus.
To sum up, the purport of my argument consists in that it is by a world coalition government which is able to redefine the authority and functions of the government of any state, prescribe the functions of a religion, and re-orientate cultural development of a nation that man’s mentality can be restored to its normalcy.
