SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

As you all have read (!!) my other essays in this Home Page, you have already heard some advice on living. The HINTS essay suggests a pragmatic passage through life, nominally religious. There is the article entitled HAPPY, cautioning about setting hedonism as our primary goal in life. An attempt was made to develop Christianity as a guide for life in the TROUBLES paper. Estimates of what the world might be like in the future century were made in the NEXT article. Influences of a sharp tool shaping our times, SCIENCE, are considered in the essay with that name.

In my NEXT article I have speculated on what is likely to happen in the next century. I recommend that you read, DAWN OF A MILLENNIUM, Beyond Evolution and Culture, by Erich Harth or an older book, THE FUTURE OF MAN by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The extraordinary calendar changes about to take place will no doubt bring out many forecasts about the future of nations and the world. This article, ACTION, is not another attempt to predict social conditions likely to lie ahead but rather to ask, WHAT CAN YOU AND I DO TO MAKE THE OUTCOME MORE FAVORABLE FOR MEN AND WOMEN? We want to use our brief and tiny lives to "push" events in positive directions!

Positive directions, favorable outcomes? These terms are not easy to define in the conditions of the modern world: fiscal crises, widespread poverty, giant global entertainment and sports industries, research and discoveries in technology and biology, rapid communications and travel, exploding populations of both old and young people, wars and ethnic struggles, emerging world government, much unemployment, neurosis and drugs, and destruction of the environment. AND OUR LEADERS GIVE US CONFLICTING SIGNAL AND LITTLE GUIDANCE FOR SOLVING THE PROBLEMS.

As I write these words today in June 1998, the newspaper headlines report New York Stock Market declines due to catastrophic fiscal crises in the Far East. The World Cup Soccer games report billions of viewers. New wars threaten in Ethiopia-Eritrea and Serbia-Kosovo, suggesting UN and US intervention and international peace-keeping efforts. Recently nuclear weapons were tested by India and Pakistan in spite of protests and sanctions by most other nations. Smoke from Mexican and Central American fires pollute the southern United States.

The Earth is shrinking; its peoples are jostling each other. Efforts are being made to contain the dangerous fires--economic, military, and ecological--that flare up in unexpected places. What are the tools we might use to keep the planet from exploding and destroying itself?

We first hope that national governments and the United Nations, led by wise men and women, might guide us in the pressure caldron of population and conflicting ideologies and religions. In reality this is happening, in spite of political propaganda advocating less government and congressmen who bash the United Nations. We have seen some important successes in stopping wars in Bosnia, Somalia, and in Haiti. It is too early to tell whether the international banks and outside fiscal support can stave off the debacle on the Pacific Rim. But tools have been fashioned to thwart economic collapse in single countries and in smaller regions. World problems demand the cooperation of nations and worldwide compassion for suffering humanity. The world is just learning that it is for the self-interest of all that these multi-national rescue actions are made. Presently the world's nations are not lined up into two or more military camps determined to conquer others with military might. Perhaps economic domination is the game today. But in these competitions the "enemy" is the market and it needs solvent consumers over the entire world.

There are other important "tools" that are shaping world cultures. World communications are playing an important role. Television and broadcasting or relay satellites have made TV sets and telephones common appliances in homes of all nations. The Internet and FAX are new but they have already transformed international communications. The English language has become the lingua franca for most commercial businesses, text books in science and medicine, tourism, and international symposia. Just as books and the printing press revolutionized medieval Europe the electronic media and the computer are transforming our lives. In a similar way alphabets, writing, sailing and road-building impacted the ancient worlds.

Many discoveries besides those in communications profoundly affect our lives. Science and research are the prime movers. As those persons opposing international government, we find reactionary people who condemn science as an evil. We are witnessing a decline of intellectual discipline in some western countries due in part to such opinions. But world-wide, and in the Asian countries especially, discoveries about the physical world and in biology are emerging rapidly. Medical research has extended the life-expectancy of all of us.

We are moving. Humanity is a nascent species evolving into a better world, even if we don't dare dream that it is. Earth is a beehive, burgeoning with people and ideas. Miracles of changes are happening all around us and we refuse to recognize them or accept them with gratitude. Why all this pessimism and negativism?

We are in a pressure cooker. It is not our choice that the world population is soaring. Nobody welcomes this trend. Birth control will stabilize numbers among the wealthy nations. But it is the poor people that have the most babies and their enormous procreation power will flood the earth with people.

This process will not be smooth. There are many forces of resistance to close-quarters and socialization. Individualization and privatization are preferred modes for living in most societies. Self-pride, egoism and civil liberties are taught in many schools as desirable social ideals. Family pride and nepotism are perhaps not as popular forces as formerly, but they still are operative. Ethnic allegiance and nationalism are causing many of the little wars that erupt over the whole world. The notion of a world community and world government is not accepted by many people.

The molding of a single earth family or community will not happen without serious convulsions and conflicts. But it will eventually occur due to population pressure. Unification of humanity into a single cooperating society will come about and it will be a beneficial transformation. It is likely there will be genocides and organized programs to destroy populations. But we can take part in positive actions with many other people to avoid the jealous recrimination of proud individuals, factions and nations that generate violence and wars.

We CAN live our lives to make this transition less painful and more rapid. How? By making ourselves more sociable and loveable. By helping others, listening to others, and noticing and praising them!!

Now read the essay called DREAM!

Carl Sletten, August 1998