|
This system is based on the cooperation of ideas, on their dissociation from those who have formulated them, on the elimination of the concept of groups and majorities around those same ideas. (55:1) In a not too remote past, alliances of political or party majorities and minorities have caused damage, after granting powers to groups, privileges to a few and after using individuals as pure numerical elements. (55:2) Central to the task of reconceptualising the system of human relationships is the process that Baha'u'llah refers to as consultation. "In all things it is necessary to consult", is His advice.[56].. "The maturity of the gift of understanding is made manifest through consultation." The standard of truth seeking this process demands is far beyond the patterns of negotiation and compromise that tend to characterise the present-day discussion of human affairs. It cannot be achieved -- indeed, its attainment is severely handicapped -- by the culture of protest that is another widely prevailing feature of contemporary society. Debate, propaganda, the adversarial method, the entire apparatus of partisanship that have long been such familiar features of collective action are all fundamentally harmful to its purpose: that is, arriving at a consensus about the truth of a given situation and the wisest choice of action among the options open at any given moment. What Baha'u'llah is calling for is a consultative process in which the individual participants strive to transcend their respective points of view, in order to function as members of a body with its own interests and goals. In such an atmosphere, characterised by both candour and courtesy, ideas belong not to the individual to whom they occur during the discussion but to the group as a whole, to take up, discard, or revise as seems to best serve the goal pursued. Consultation succeeds to the extent that all participants support the decisions arrived at, regardless of the individual opinions with which they entered the discussion. Under such circumstances an earlier decision can be readily reconsidered if experience exposes any shortcomings. Viewed in such a light, consultation is the operating expression of justice in human affairs". During Baha'i consultation the group doesn't exist and the individual cannot associate with other individuals, to create appointed or pre appointed majorities. In a low "entropy", high "values" society the concept of public responsibility and duties is highlighted as the dominant social motivation. A logical consequence is that the Supreme State controls public resources: air, water, soil, that today are so little respected because governments, blinded with their own progress at any cost, irremediably destroy precious resources such as forests, large producers of oxygen, rivers and seas, large reserves of food. The issue of wasting resources leads us to reflect on armed conflicts which causes often have roots in the attempt to defend or to secure resources, that, in this new world order, will be kept in public custody, therefore eliminating the necessity to declare war [57]. (55:3) War, as history demonstrates, represents, even in its preparatory phase, a form of high density entropy; in fact, the more armaments become complex and the more military forces expand in the world, the more energy is used. Moreover, recent years have shown that a missile or a nuclear warhead can only do two things: create super destruction or create storage of nuclear stockpiles until they become obsolete and must be eliminated. Actions such as banning nuclear devices, prohibiting the use of poisonous gas or eradicating bacteriological war will not eliminate the root causes of war. Although these practical measures are important elements in moving towards peace, they are, in themselves, still too superficial to exercise a lasting influence. Are men ingenious enough to create other forms of conflicts and consequently use food, raw materials, money, industrial power, ideology, terrorism, to fight each other in a never-ending search for supremacy and dominion? Neither is it possible to reconcile enormous upheavals by solving specific conflicts and disagreements among single nations. We will need to adopt a structure which is authentically universal. (55:4) It may be interesting, before we continue our analysis, to examine the content of some letters in which two of the greatest personalities of our century put into question the world order, war and the unity of the planet: Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Following an initiative of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation in Paris, aimed at stimulating an exchange of ideas among eminent people in the world on the greatest problems facing human cohabitation, Albert Einstein addressed an open letter to Sigmund Freud informing him of an "issue that in current circumstances, seems the most important in the field of civilization... " "does or does not a means exist to free men from the threat of war?" [58] (55:5) Einstein wrote to Freud because in those years Freud published "the design of civilization" in which he predicted a particular perspective for man with these words: "Men have gained such a power over the forces of nature that now, using them, they could easily exterminate themselves. They know it and their current anxiety, unhappiness and worry derive from this awareness".
(55:6)
|