Ep. 153 - Why There is STILL Hope for Humanity

Taking a positive approach to serious issues in our globally connected world.

We are not alone.

As  you know, that statement can be interpreted many different ways. As in,  we are not alone in the universe, we are not alone in faith, we are not  alone in how we feel, we are not alone in our political concerns, or we  are not alone in the world. Obviously context matters, so today, when I  say "we are not alone" what I'm referring to is our interconnected  world.

I read a book recently titled Our Global Neighborhood,  that pitches "a convincing path towards a better world." It has all the  hallmarks of a classic intellectual read: It was published by Oxford  University Press, endorsed by Nelson Mandela, and chock full of  inspiring ideas that were destined to take root in the fertile soil of  aspiring young minds.

The book was published in 1995.  Do you remember the world in 1995? Imagine being in college, perhaps in  a master's or doctoral program at an Ivory Institution. In your  mid-twenties your felt on top of the world, like your altruistic intent  could conquer anything, eradicate hunger and poverty, end violence and  usher in an era of world peace. All you needed was a plan and a team to  build the dream. Twenty-five ambitious years later, you've nearly pulled it off.

The first chapter of Our Global Neighborhood is titled "The Concept of Global Governance", which opens with  globalization and the need for a vision, saunters through social and  environmental changes, discusses agents of change in civil society, and  concludes with Enlightened Leadership.

Here's the last paragraph of the first chapter:

"The  challenges facing the world today are vastly more complicated than  those that confronted the delegates in San Francisco. They demand  co-operative efforts to put in place a system of global governance  better suited to present circumstances--a system informed by an  understanding of the important transformations of the past half-century  and guided by enlightened leadership."

World leaders  met in San Francisco in 1945 to sign the United Nations Charter, "a  document expressing the universal hope that a new era in international  behavior and governance was about to begin." Thus, just like that, a  bunch of communists partnered with the Royal Crown and liberal democrats  to create a new global order that came complete with an international  court that enforce international law with international peace keeping  troops.

That's a crude crash course in history, but it's true just the same.

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