A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis. CHAPTER 1: INDIFFERENCE (Part 24). This blog is a continuation of the review of The Inner Limits of Mankind by Ervin Laszlo, written in 1989.
Perennial values that should be reaffirmed
If mankind is to stop operating reactively and become truly proactive it needs a good compass with ideals and visions which set the standards by which we direct our steps and which can be immediately and fully attained. The great ideals of the world religions and the ethics and world views of more recent times embody perennial values that should be reaffirmed and divorced from the often questionable political practices, encrusted with obsolete practices and ancillary beliefs, associated with them.
Learning from each other
Respect for the differing views of others, and a readiness to learn from them are among the most difficult human virtues; they are, however, among the most needed as people tend to weigh the ideals of others on a scale which has their own values as the counterweight. The biblical warning – “Where there is no vision the people perish” – needs to be modified; the people perish where there is no vision, but also where there is no positive vision and where there is no timely and adequate revision.
Security
Security – more exactly, insecurity – has become a global problem. Rooted in the logic of a bygone age – the logic of national sovereignty – nation states have no eternal friends, only eternal interests and their security must be assured through force of arms and by threats of aggression and deterrence. Rich states need their arms to preserve and enhance their privileges, and poor states to gain access to them; each nation needs its arms to assure its own perceived interests.
Global insecurity requires global solutions
Insecurity, being a global problem, has only global solutions. This means a coordinated, simultaneous change in all national security policies. Neither rich nor poor nations will beat their swords into ploughshares if they have to do it alone – they may as well beat them into shovels to dig their own graves.
Food
If grain were universally accessible, the current world grain produce could provide well over the 200 kilo subsistence minimum for every man, woman and child in the world; adequate food could be made available to as many as 8-12 billion people if policies were coordinated to ensure proper production and distribution.
Skewed in favor of the rich
However, the yield of world food production does not reach all people equitably; its distribution and forms of production are skewed in favor of the rich. Grain is fed to cattle which wastes it at a ratio of 7:1 in converting it into expensive beef; wastefully produced meat is fed to household pets and much grain is lost in transport and storage.
The international system needs to be restructured
Developing countries need the most appropriate new agricultural technologies, a better system of land ownership, more and cheaper energies and fertilizers, a world food bank for emergency supplies and stable prices, while the rich should reform their dietary habits and the international system needs to be restructured.
Energy and resources
The 1972-73 oil crisis was but a polite dress rehearsal compared to the forthcoming crisis if there are not alternative energy supplies available when available oil supplies begin to fall off or cannot match increasing world demand. Abundant and universally accessible energy sources that exploit water flow, wind currents, the oceans and the sun could be economically competitive as the technology exists. Planning for the exploitation of these sources must start now.
The United Nations
The UN would be the obvious instrument for defining global goals and coordinating the policies required for their achievement but it is incapable of generating the political will needed for their implementation. The plight of the UN is but the visible manifestation of obsolete values and expectations. The peoples of the world perceive their own interest independently of the general human interest and want their leaders to be watchdogs of their immediate national concerns and material benefits.