Summary of the Discussion

Continuing its work on the spiritual dimensions of social progress begun in Slovenia in 1994, in preparation for the United Nations World Social Summit [Copenhagen, March 1995], the Triglav Circle met at the Harvard-Yenching Institute on Saturday, the 22nd of February. Twenty persons reflecting diverse political orientations, cultures, walks of life, and disciplines discussed how secular societies can respond more effectively to the material and spiritual needs of individuals and communities. Convinced that any vision of human progress that does not take into account the aesthetic, moral, and spiritual needs of humanity is defective, the Circle regularly gave particular attention to what ethics and the spiritual quest mean in the context of current political trends and debates on the organization and progress of societies.

On the occasion of the Copenhagen Seminar convened by the Danish Minister of Cooperation, in October 1996, in Havreholm, Denmark, former Prime Minister P.E. Trudeau made the following points:

• It is imperative that citizens who are slowly awakening to the dangers of unbridled globalization begin building political counterweights.

• In this regard, we must recognize that the corporate world in general and the transnational corporations, in particular, have been favored with a considerable head start. Since Thatcherism and Reaganism heralded the introduction of the minimalist state a decade a half ago, the sovereignty of the people has been eroded to the benefit of the sovereignty of the market. Deregulation, decentralization, downsizing, and privatization followed, and in their wake, came increased unemployment, poverty, squalor and crime. As Emerson expressed it in equally troubled times: Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.

• As we all know, the free market may well be the most effective and efficient way to allocate resources. But it sounds no alarm bells against social injustice, nor does it offer protection against the destruction of an environment.

• Political philosophers, whistle-blowers, stake-holders, and assorted activists are not enough.
Globalization is not just happening, nor is it moved by an invisible hand: it is being made to happen by men and women of power with a lot of money at their command. The fierce opposition mounted against the Tobin tax on Casino economics illustrates that. It also reminds us that “economics” are really “politics” by another name.

What is to be done?

Solidarity between like-minded governments and peoples is a first step towards challenging a world order dominated by corporate interests. But, I venture to predict that the real counter-forces will eventually have to rely on a popular will mobilized by raw politics. Only then can groups of sovereign states come together and re-establish their power over the forces of disorder and injustice.

This strong and provocative statement generated discussion on several different levels:
• Opinions on current economic and social trends;
• Primacy of and necessity for the public sector (res publica) versus its subordination to the market;
• Ethics and politics;
• Transmission of ethics and values;
• Spirituality, society, and politics.

Opinions on current economic and social trends
Not only in the United States, but perhaps even more in other parts of the world, the American society is perceived as the yardstick of progress in the contemporary world. Seen from different perspectives around the globe, this society of individual freedom, opportunity for all, and material achievement is a power which dominates the world scene. For many, it is a political model, the best ever achieved, a source of aspirations and dreams. For many others, the American society is excessively individualistic and hedonistic, and its social Darwin style competition is generating a breakdown of its social fabric. All these views are represented in the Triglav Circle.

The Unites States has problems of poverty and criminality. This does not mean that the American civilization is doomed. Rather: Much more thought needs to be given to how, in the U.S., the desire for a degree of equality and a degree of humaneness in social life can be integrated with the element of economic dynamism inherent in the American tradition–the idea that some immigrant can come to the U.S., at the age of 12 without a penny in his pocket, and in 20 years can be living a very dignified and humane life. For all its flaws, the U.S., offers opportunities. It has done so more extensively than any other country in the world. That is part of the challenge–that the U.S. thinks of itself as an open, free market society where there is a lot of opportunity for people, not to be just greedy, but to improve their lives and have decent opportunities.

There are regions of the world, notably some in Europe and Asian countries, which seem to have less serious social problems. And, it is, in particular, tempting to regard Scandinavia as a sort of paradise with happy and equal people enjoying life and nature. But, apart from the fact that the welfare state or society of the Scandinavian type is in financial crisis, thus putting into question the orderliness and extensive public services it offers:

It is problematic to apply the Scandinavian model to a very large and diverse country such as the US with 250 million people, racially, culturally, and ethnically very heterogeneous. The kinds of challenges and problems are vastly different. Smaller countries do not have many Cubans, Mexicans, or Vietnamese arriving on their shores. Nor do they have the kind of dynamic open society that enables outsiders to come in and find a decent life. One reason the US needs to keep focusing on decentralization and encouraging experimentation at the local level is that it may be possible in some communities to have little Norways, Swedens, or Denmarks. But California, Florida, and Texas have very mixed populations with tremendous social challenges but also tremendous economic dynamism. To try to import this very stable Scandinavian model is inappropriate in these communities.

Another reading of the functioning of the American society leads to an emphasis on socio/economic inequalities and the evidence of social breakdown: We live in a world that is seriously divided, even within the U.S. While the bulls are rampaging through the stock market, the downsized companies are showing great profits, taxes are being cut here and there, and budgets are being balanced. Everybody seems to be happy. How can one possibly complain? But, in the inner cities murder rates remain at record levels, there is one bank robbery per day, schools are closed because the roofs leak, police officers are assassinated as they sit in their cars, substitute teachers cannot be found because school boards are only paying fifty dollars a day, there is no recycling, and numbers of box people are increasing building their civilizations on heating grates.

The phenomenon of globalization, related to the influence of the American economy and American model of civilization, is also a source of controversy. Nobody denies that the world is getting smaller, that the revolution in communications is facilitating all sorts of exchanges, from capital to tourism, from drug-trafficking to the spreading of consumer goods throughout the world. Nobody denies either that this is the driving force of an emerging world economy and, perhaps world culture. For some, however, globalization is a progressive trend, in the sense that it represents a new phase in the history of humankind, “progress” from a stage where nations were isolated and struggling. Others see that:

Despite the spread of global capitalism, especially in the wake of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and a number of other so-called socialist states, racism and poverty are still locked in. The relationship between racism and poverty is much clearer now than it was in under the old dispensation of industrial capitalism. The discrimination, whether it is racial or gender, is still exploitation. Workers who, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, were protected by the Factory Act, the Education Act, and the Public Health Act and all benefitted from a fight for freedom, are now not necessarily so protected by the new dispensation. With advances in technology, capital is no longer rooted in one place. It can go to where cheap labor is, particularly to Third World countries. Western governments in particular are enthralled by this multinational capital. Trade no longer follows the flag, the flag follows the trade. These are serious threats to efforts to eradicate the racism and poverty we have seen for so long.

Moreover, as Trudeau suggests, globalization is partly a “natural” phenomenon and partly the product of the activities and ambitions of the most powerful, individuals, corporations, and governments. Hence the following judgement: The globalization that is taking place is the culmination of the growth of various kinds of interdependence. It has been driven by technological innovations that have effectively dismantled many national boundaries and created what some would call the global factory and the global assembly line. At the same time that the global village has been developing and the meaning of boundaries has been shrinking or decaying, there are problems in the economies of industrial countries. There is heavy unemployment in many of the countries of Europe, partially due to globalization; there is migration of industries to low-wage labor parts of the world — partially due to the shift from industrial to post-industrial to post-materialist societies and partially due to over-restrictive monetary policies during the last decade in the industrialized countries. Some is also due to demographic shifts. Some European countries have gone into negative population growth. The problem is that the global factory has been created and our global village has been created along side it but there is no global council to take care of the global village or factory that now exists. What has happened globally is the logical outcome of the laissez-faire, free-market ideology.

Privatization, has been a strong component of the globalization process. In this context, it contrasts with a globalization process built on the cooperation of governments and countries though the United Nations and other institutions for international cooperation. Privatization, not only of the means of production, not only of public assets, but also of services, traditionally considered subject to public regulation and financing rather than to profit-making, has been implemented by most governments and advocated by all major institutional and regional organizations. Dissenting voices, likely to become stronger as social, environmental and economic problems mount around the globe, can, however, be heard. For example:

We are witnessing now what might be called the privatization of international relations as the state, in a Marxist sense, is truly withering away. This privatization has consequences. Among them is the fact that there are many things that states do and that markets do not. There is a tendency toward market excesses. In British history, when the market dominated and the government was just beginning to consolidate its authority, there was a large underclass which continues to be found in many countries as industrialization takes place.

From one perspective, in Britain, privatization freed resources that could be spent on other things. From this point of view the opposition to privatization is very puzzling because on the whole, it has introduced efficiencies and freed resources for use in other services. Both in the U.S. and Britain, under conservative administrations, more government funds have been spent on public health. Another perspective sees in Britain, still the epitome of state socialism, where the government is subsidizing cities and covering deficits from private corporations.
The question is: Is privatization about freeing resources in this way? Privatization is not simply elimination of subsidies to large government firms, it is also a means of turning back the clock on the nationalization of industry and government ownership of industrial concerns. Privatization is the contracting out of the traditional functions of government to the private sector. In the U.S. something similar is called out-sourcing. This is one response to the need to free up more funds for entitlements [which are squeezing government discretionary funds]. Out-sourcing and privatization are a convenient means of cutting budgets. As these decisions are made with the best of intentions, there are second and third order consequences not previously anticipated, including higher costs to government for some out-sourced services, than would have been the case had the government done the job itself. People in business are there to make money. One of the reasons there is a growing number of rules and regulations is that people are trying to make them substitute for ethics. But no one can think of every ethical circumstance to be covered by the law.

Underlying different views on the American society, on globalization, on privatization, or on related issues such as liberalization of capital flows and on the roles of transnational industries and banks, are different political philosophies, notably about the relations between politics and the market.

Primacy and necessity of the political versus its subordination to the market
There is primacy of the political and of politics for those who believe that “everything is political”, or to use the expression of Trudeau, “that ‘economics’ are really ‘politics’ by any other name”. This means that ethics, social relations, and institutions, including the market, are shaped, if not dominated, by questions of power and issues of competing interests, ideas, and values. Such a view, seen by its proponents as simply a quality of “realism” in observing the functioning of societies, is not necessarily associated with a “leftist” position on the political spectrum. But, apart from the anarchists and libertarians for whom power in all its forms is the enemy, persons with leftist orientations tend to see the primacy of the political as a positive fact which ought to be understood and used to improve societies. For instance, to understand the role of politics it is necessary to denounce the pretensions of economists and other social scientists that claim to be working in the realm of objectivity but who are in reality often projecting their personal views or supporting specific interests when making analyses and offering interpretations and solutions to problems of development and social progress. Persons on the right of the political spectrum who recognize the primacy of the political may do so in order to deplore it and to advocate a retreat of the state and other public authorities from the management of human affairs.

Primacy of the political is not necessarily associated either with a strong government, a strong state, or strong political parties. When conservative elites dominate a society, it is in their interests to weaken most functions of the state except the maintenance of law and order. Similarly, political parties and often political debates and struggles are discreet when social classes and groups share the view that things are in the saddle and should indeed continue to ride mankind.

For those who believe that it is a necessary and good thing to have a strong and effective political process and a strong government and public apparatus, times are difficult. In the words of Trudeau, “since Thatcherism and Reaganism heralded the introduction of the minimalist state a decade and a half ago, the sovereignty of the people has been eroded to the benefit of the sovereignty of the market. Put in other words:
The question to be raised is whether or not the state really has been downsizing in the last 20 years. The proportion of GNP that is going to the US Government has in fact increased during the last 40 years. One tool by which to measure if the state is shrinking and withering or whether it is as strong as ever, is precisely the percentage of the GNP going to the government.
Over the last decade, or if one is to speculate for the future, this amount has leveled off or is declining. But, the key point is the positive functions of the state. If the state is increasingly engaged in the business of transfer payments that is, taking taxes and passing them on as social security checks, that also shows up as a percentage of the GNP going to the government. Projecting forward to the year 2020, US Medicare will represent 90% of U.S. GNP and that will show up as government expenditure. What is of concern to many is the discretionary money that the government has at its disposal to invest in essential public goods. No one is taking a look at the long term impact of the diminution of the positive functions of government while turning everything else to market forces.

Weakened governments are the result of governments being forced to carry heavier and heavier burdens of entitlements. In the U.S., 17 cents of every dollar spent by the government is what is called discretionary spending, the other 83 cents is mandated by law. Of the 17 cents, approximately 70% is used for person/power expenses (judicial, executive and legal branch expenses). Thus, in reality, about 3% of the tax dollar is left to do “good things,” which is a partial explanation of why the popularity of Reaganism, Thatcherism, and now Clintonism. The momentum of entitlements, the graying phenomenon, everything associated with this, is cutting down on the ability of governments to govern. This is not only the case for the U.S.. Presently, in France, there are only two people working for every person in retirement. This weighs heavily on governments budgets. The only way governments have dealt with this in the OECD countries is to disparage big government and by doing so they have been cutting the positive functions of government as they’ve evolved in the 20th century. The net result has been to weaken the power of the state and to strengthen market forces.

Very few social scientists or observers of social trends would deny that a weakened role of the state, and particularly of its redistributing role, means an increase in inequalities. Views differ greatly, however, on whether it is good and useful to try to correct the inequalities that life and society create, or whether it is possible to do so without coercion and/or the triumph of mediocrity, and whether or not, the struggle against inequalities is compatible with innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity, and economic growth.

Some believe that in this matter few societies have any choice; either governments and other institutions play an active role in tempering inequalities and marginalization, or social and political breakdown will ensue. Here is such a view:
Unless there are forces from below pressuring the government into doing something about market excesses, nothing much happens. Wealth will continue to accumulate in the absence of enforced moral codes. Free markets have almost always spawned serious inequalities and greed becomes sanctified when there is no counterweight from government. Ideally, what do governments for their people? They create safety nets, educate the young, preserve public morality, enforce rules to promote general welfare. Without government society may regress to a war of all against all. Governments have responsibilities for overseeing socio-cultural evolution. Political scientist David Easton, describes politics as the authoritative allocation of values. Government oversees the passing of ethics from generation to generation. Markets respond to public wants, governments respond to human needs. Markets take short term viewpoints while governments operate in the long term. Without effective government there is no vehicle to promote any common purpose and the political community breaks down. Without public spending and investment, without strong enforcement of public policies society has lost two of three legs on the stool that supports society. Without government authority there can be no authoritative allocation of values, no laws, no safety net and government does not even use its spending in an ethically productive way. The question before society then, as states get downsized and captured by markets, is: Who protects human values and who defends the moral dimension? Looking at a world in which only two classes co-exist, if one were to build an ideal world would it be designed this way?

Among the arguments against reliance on governments and the political process as a counter force to the interplay of market forces, is the issue of corruption.
Yet, it is quite evident that the fact that governments may have failed in many respects should not mean that governments have nothing to offer, but rather that they should be improved. Governments are needed in an open society for their social proactivism and as forums for the discussion of ideas. Market forums are not necessarily inherently nor by definition more democratic than government forums. They are ruled in large measure by global conglomerates whose structures and modus operandi are often authoritarian. Democracy in the market is the freedom of the individual with money to buy what he/she seems to need. In the absence of government, the market can become a jungle where Social Darwinism prevails and there is no safety for the weak players and small business prey. Governments are needed to temper the short-term “What is in it for me–profit considerations?” with long term perspectives on what is the public interest. Without some government regulation, bad things do happen. Consider the social havoc caused by leverage buy-outs inflicting whole communities with unemployment as businesses downsized in the name of efficiency and at the increasing cost of loss in the belief of a democratic system that has more meaning than “the vote”.

There are alternatives to total reliance on revitalizing big government to deal with social injustice and disorder coming in the wake of the spread of transnational business and globalism. The question is what the forms of government would be consistent with the spirituality, human dignity, and coming together of humanity. The following are some considerations in the development of alternatives:

• The basis of the foundation for seeking alternatives is to think in terms of social cybernetics–or how societies make decisions. People make decisions through: a) markets. Governments through: b) spending and; c) laws, legal systems and moral discourse. These three phenomenon: markets, public spending, and legal systems constitute a three legged stool (a+b+c) on which civil societies rest. The questions is: How do you balance this three legged stool–the market decisions by people, products, and enterprises; public decisions concerning spending and redistribution; and laws about uses. An example of the operation of this balancing act is offered by the case regarding relicensing a paper company in the state of Maine: private corporations interested in development versus non-governmental groups interested in preservation and in the middle is the licensening agency. What set of principles is Maine to rely on to define the “public interest?” Economic, environmental, or something else?

• Revitalizing intermediary institutions is extremely important in particular to deal with social injustice and mediating between individuals and economic forces. In doing so, differences in cultures and social orders are not be go ignored. If intermediary institutions are conceived and developed according to generic western models of schools, churches, military by the dominant international political forces–the question to be considered is how they will remain or operate when transplanted into other cultures. Will they be absorbed and reshaped by the local ideology, dominant cultural practices, religion? For each culture it is useful to determine which institutions people turn to solve their problems. There are radically different structures in different societies but also similarities. In some countries intermediary political institutions such as political parties and interest groups, have difficulty to avoid being co-opted by the state. In Egypt for example, NGO’s can operate in only one sector.

The call for more efficient government and by definition, a more powerful role for the nation state is not necessarily a juxtaposition of government as such versus individualism, and the market. Such a call can be based on the assumption that the effectiveness of the state government has actually withered away and that what is occurring is a competition among economic forces over which the government has no control or input at all.

Ethics and Politics
On the first level of analysis, the calls to avoid corruption and to practice the virtues of honesty, integrity and care for the public good, are non-ambiguous and non-controversial, as the bridge between ethics and politics. While there are many differences of views on whether or not such and such government or society is entirely, partially, or only marginally corrupt, there are no disagreements on the need for ethical behavior of individuals in public and private institutions.
Of much greater complexity is the second level of analysis: are ethics and ethical behavior compatible with the positions and stances on the political spectrum? Is it possible to be leftist and ethical? Conservative and ethical? Typically, a true believer in a political philosophy or doctrine, or a militant in a political party, will associate his or her political convictions and positions with a full respect for sound and even universal moral principles. And will, sometimes, in all sincerity, believe that political opponents are deprived of any moral principle and have no respect for ethical behavior. At the same time, the politician or militant immersed in a democratic culture, knows that tolerance and respect for the opponent is actually the first ethical principle to be applied in a civilized society.

In considering this question, the following basic points are put forth:
o Some political positions and doctrines, like those stemming from fascist and racist principles are unquestionably unethical; and the only problem is whether or not a democratic society has to remain fully ethical in the choice of means for combating such doctrines.
o For most political stances and issues, ethics is compatible with different positions, especially when the debate and the options are about the means. To use a very simple example, it would be unethical to state that poverty is a normal and desirable feature of society, but perfectly ethical to state that the market can take care of the problem, or to believe that only governments can do so effectively.

• For most political debates, especially within a country, there are advantages to limiting the number of issues and the number of debates with explicit reference to ethical questions. In this domain, inflation is dangerous.

• It is very tempting to believe that politics and policies have a great chance to be in harmony with ethical principles if moderation is a shared value by all citizens. Yet, there are causes and problems requiring passion and an immoderate use of energy and imagination.

• Is concentration of power unethical? Not necessarily. The problem is that global capitalism with unbridled market force and social Darwisnism is a central concern and some kind of counter measure must at least be imagined if one does not exist. Do we allow it to continue without any ethical qualms where whoever’s moral power is enhanced becomes a major player? Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The question further arises as to whether by criticizing the policies of a particular government, one is “politicizing ethics.”

Within this loose framework, more ideas have been developed:
By using the term ideology is meant that there is a generation of economists in the U.S. that have dominated the social sciences by looking at only one side of free-market theory. Free-market ideology means free trade, optimization of the production of goods and services world-wide. While most people would agree that economic affluence is a good thing, there have been a lot of side effects and those are the things that have not been effectively dealt with because there is nothing to counter the movements of markets worldwide, that is ethics have no explicit place in the governance of the global village.

One stimulant of human initiative and progress is greed. Adam Smith propagated that one of humanity’s natural instincts is greed and greed breeds a good product. Although in excess reprehensible, it is a powerful force. Like all powerful forces such as nuclear power, greed can be destructive to everything else. The same may be said about capitalism. For both individual greed and capitalism the best control can be the individual’s own self control according to internal moral codes. There are also government regulations. In applying government regulations great care should be exercised to protect and nurture human motivation rather than to suffocate it.
While greed is the motivating force of a King Midas society, greed is not the only motivator or stimulant to human initiative in real societies today. People may be moved by imagination and creativity as well as an inherent need to be of service and the related desire to better the lives of others. Such motivation is most apparent on a national scale in the Nordic countries with very modern and affluent economies. These countries have adopted tax policies that temper divisions between people along income lines. Gaps between CEO’s and workers salaries in Norway are in the single digits whereas, in the United States it can be several hundred. In return every member of society has access to free education and health care services on a genuine egalitarian basis. Likewise, Denmark has committed 1% of it GNP to foreign aid. Most other OECD countries have refused to do this.

From an economic perspective, however, peacefulness and orderliness are not the requisite ingredients of progress:
In Scandinavia there is a wonderful life but to the business eye no great innovations are taking place there. In a sense there is a running down, a using up of capital from the past. In human society things happen, some bad, some good. Once you start to bring things down to peacefulness and orderliness much less takes place. Many great leaders have attributed their success to some traumatic event in their lives, like General Eisenhower and others. In the art world, there have been no more tortured people than artists like Van Gogh–slicing his ear off. Perhaps there is something in human nature that says that when things are nice and easy it is time to relax. The same is seen in economic competition. Human beings need challenges; they need to be up against something tough or maybe even painful to be creative. If so, there is a dilemma.

Transmission of ethics and values
Particularly troubling today is the perception that the well springs from which ethical or moral values and the conduits through which they are transmitted are disappearing.
Where do ethics come from and how are they passed from one generation to the next?
Institutions are templates which pass on values and ethics to the next generation. They include primary institutions like families and secondary institutions like schools: templates which replicate human behavior that have been successful in the past and ethical codes have been part of that successful behavior. Traditional family structures are presently under assault and are breaking down, as are many other institutions including religious organizations historically responsible for passing ethics from one generation to the next. Over-emphasis on resort to market life, materialism, and scientific progress to satisfy all material human needs and to quell all its fears contributes to the destruction of these institutions. Many people perceive no ethical codes in markets which, as arenas for transactions, are amoral in definition, structure, and purpose.

Ethics are the codes that organized religions have for many years handed down. Organized religious institutions are a valuable source of information on how humans can get along. But if one does not choose to adhere to a religious institution, there is an inherent morality in the human spirit that can be normally relied upon to pass on moral values to one’s children. That point never seems to be emphasized. But, when one makes such a pronouncement the question of moral relativism versus moral absolutism arises.

Does the same morality exist everywhere so that parents, teachers, people on the street can all offer the same correct moral answer to a child’s question of whether something is right or wrong? Do all religions even pass on the same morals? If there are moral absolutes in human nature, why doesn’t the whole human species collectively try to pass them on?

Certainly, if one does not go to church, one does not forget the difference between right and wrong learned as a child. Looking back in history, one finds that the things considered right and wrong today are the same ones that Socrates and Chinese philosophers talked about. There is a universality in the common chords: Do not lie. Do not cheat. Do not steal. Do not murder. And, treat others with respect for their dignity. The underlying problem, however, even where ethics are enounced, is turning these values into habitual behavior. Ethical behavior has to do with not just knowing what is right and wrong but practicing that knowledge so that the behavior becomes habitual, because, beyond punishment for non-ethical behavior and reward for an ethical act, one realizes that one experiences satisfaction, well being, and even happiness in ethical living. This does not come without long term, consistent, daily education.

One often says today that young people do not even know the difference between right and wrong. While most people, whether taught by their parents or not, do have a sense of what is right and wrong, society does not offer much stimulation to act along those lines. One of the problems is that children are growing up in modern societies wherein parents are frequently absent and increasingly children are being raised in single parent families where that parent has to work one, sometimes two jobs. In a great many of these cases, there is no continuous parental presence to show the young how they ought to act, let alone reinforce that instruction consistently. What the young do get on a regular “day in/day out” basis is what they see from their peers, leaving the possibility for a “group mentality take over”, where lying, cheating, stealing and, killing, is not only accepted, but not infrequently coming to be expected.
Education is the most important of all. Education means to lead out not to “drum in.”
With the breakdown of institutional religion and families as moral templates, perhaps, one of the only institutions left to transmit values is the public school system. But many in the United States say: “We spend quite a bit of money and don’t get results.” Schools cannot be expected to do the job of transmitting ethics that parents as the primary institutions are not doing or even reinforcing at home. Part of the problem is that the US establishment has decided that public schools are not the place to transmit moral values. And, consequently:

In the U.S., people are increasingly resorting to home-schooling because in the public school system no values are being taught. There is no consensus on what it means to be a good person, and no sense of a national dream. Money and materialism are left alone to dominate the life field. Children, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, say “I want to make a lot of money.” Well, what do you want to do with the money, “I want to buy things.” The market depersonalizes. There is no spiritual backing out there. To have a meaningful life, you need to have relationships.

Beyond the mother, we do not encourage the nurturing of any other relationships. To be pursued is the idea of Erik Erickson: “Strengthening people strengthens yourself.”

The schools should have a part in value transmission. If the military has to do it, so must the public schools. Returning to the Scandinavian model it is noted that “In Norway, school children have to take a course in civic virtue or religion and they are baptized either in church or in a civil service where they are baptized as “good citizens.” But elsewhere in Europe there are other examples:

In my childhood, I went to grade school in a grape growing village on the outskirts of Vienna where they follow the custom of having the same teachers remain with their students from the beginning to the end of their course of education in a particular school. So, I had the same teacher for the first four years of my school life. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him because my father was a resident and quarantined with his patients for two weeks at a time. I only saw him every two weeks. This teacher was my surrogate father. The interesting thing is that at the end of the school year there was a custom of bringing flowers to the teacher and this teacher had an entire hay-wagon full, the village appreciated him so much. My suggestion is to recruit more male teachers who have the personalities of father figures in response to this breakdown of the family and where single predominately female parents are frequent.
Spirituality, society, and politics

The strengthened political counterweight of the government is not the only option nor necessarily the best option for tempering and guiding globalization. Another countervailing power is to be found on a different dimension. In the first instance it should be emphasized that:
There is a distinction between spirituality and religion.

Religion should be everybody’s choice. But spirituality is universal.

One of the problems in assessing spirituality is that it is tied in many minds to organized religions and most of these mind-sets have difficulty going beyond that conception. Organized religions are human institutions which have the task of passing on values. But, as all human institutions, they can become corrupt. Spirituality is a transcendent quality. The search for spirituality moves outward and inward at the same time. Spirituality going outward is the Einstein version of recognizing billions of galaxies and the possibilities of other existences rather than just one’s own. One of many inward dimensions is the concept of empathy – the ability to put oneself in the place of another.

The conjunction of spirituality and politics lies behind what is the meaning of the pledge of the Social Summit that societies should respond to the “material and spiritual needs of the individuals, their families and the communities in which they live”? Should this be read as an appeal to provide people with the necessary economic base and enjoyment of their human rights in order that they can then pursue freely and autonomously their spiritual quest? Or, should this be read as an injunction to governments and all institutions to encourage human beings to be fully human and not only producers and consumers ?

Related to the question of spirituality and politics is the familiar notion of progress. It has taken different roads during history. One is directed towards the whole flourishing of the individual as a person independent of economic or material growth and the other is progress along the material road toward bigger and better things through economics and exchange in the market. The later is the preeminent vision in today’s society. The economic definition of progress associates human dignity with attainment of a certain level of material comforts – to be achieved perhaps through the market or, for the poorest, by foreign aid. The non-material vision of progress views dignity as inherent in the spirit of humanity – the well source of charity, native intelligence, and a sense of oneness with the other creatures that animate the universe.

The material vision is not without its pitfalls and may perhaps lead humanity towards a dead-end. A number of people, notably Adam Smith, warned of the dangers of the division of labor accompanying specialization stimulated by competition in the open market. Smith noted that specialization could render people the most stupid of creatures if governments did not step in to stimulate the mental and cultural development of people in danger of becoming so immersed in the market that they were no longer capable of considering other aspects of human life. Karl Marx foresaw that progress along the economic road might terminate in a situation where machines would dominate human lives. More recently, Japan’s philosophy professors Imamichi and Hashimoto have made the point that in time technology takes over and that all moral choices and objectives became conditioned by “things” rather than some transcendental ideal which propelled society at another time. If markets, things, and machines control moral decision making, where is humanity progressing?

The imminent environmental crisis, the growing alienation in societies, and the weakening of traditional intermediary institutions, schools, universities, local councils and communities, churches, and other social organizations that provided moral education and encouraged humility, service, and discipline have provoked many to reconsider the preeminent notion of progress and to give greater pause to the later more transcendent vision. This vision would seem to require a radical change in present mainstream social thinking. This idea, in turn, raises the question:
What to do then if one is to maintain and invigorate the human spirit? The immediate problem is the metamorphosis of the mind-set. It is going to be a more difficult problem than humanity has ever faced before to change this mind-set which is currently in crisis. Remember what Galileo got for his pains. It is comparable to the task of turning around a giant ocean liner. It will take a number of tugboats to do it and those tugboats have to work in coordination. Certainly spirituality would be one of those tugboats and science would be another one. The challenge is to facilitate the realization of our inherent spiritual potential. That is what the snake in the medical symbol is all about.

The medical symbol is two snakes winding around a staff. Why snakes? The symbolism is traced back nearly 4000 years, to excavated versions of this symbol from the Indus River culture. The Hindus venerated the snake because it sheds its skin as it grows and it became the symbol of rebirth. Typically, the snake makes three and a half turns around the staff so it crosses the staff seven times. This corresponds to the seven chakras of Hinduism. The lowest chakra serves bodily functions of excretion and nutrition. The highest chakra, the seventh, the crown chakra, is the union with the universal. The idea is that human spiritual development goes in sort of a spiral course and ends up with the crown. Apparently, the Aryans, coming down from the Himalayas, were so impressed by that vision they adopted the symbol themselves and took it back to Greece where it became the symbol of Hermes, the messenger of the gods, carrying the Caduceus. It is presumably this message that came down from Olympus.

As such it symbolizes holistic medicine and illuminates one path to the spiritual core.
Holistic has nothing to do with alternative medicine but there are some aspects of alternative medicine which may have some spiritual value. One is in being able to induce a relaxation response, particularly, with meditation in which this response is coupled with a transcendental leap or spiritual connection of individual choice. The other is dream analysis which is still the best way to understand the unconscious. Jung called it individuation which means becoming undivided. He didn’t feel that he became “whole” himself until he was in his 80’s ands experienced an extension of his consciousness.

Spirituality has immanent practical implications.

Heart-felt human satisfaction, a purposeful human life and, by natural extension, appreciation of Earth and Universe depend on being able to respond to one’s own and to others’ spiritual needs.

To facilitate this journey is to start at the beginnings of life and in so doing to imagine a serene and majestic polar bear cuddling its young. The image should be one of unequivocal, unconditional love and affection for the infant, the affective environment essential to the development of this future adult’s “basic trust, sense of well-being, and optimism.” It is from these initial seeds of trust in life and love that the inner “spirit” is awakened. These ideas were articulated in the pioneer work of Erik Erikson and explained by Dr. Peter Kulka.
So-called basic trust in life is developed in a loving maternal environment. It then leads to optimism which carries a person through the rest of its life. That’s where faith, hope, and the inclination to care seem to come from.

The environmental crisis makes it imperative that there be a link between politics, philosophy, and spirituality.
In other words, economic drives must be tempered by spiritual insights to realize a sustainable environment. There is much that lies in the Biblical injunction, Man does not live by bread alone. Similar injunctions are clear in Confucian teachings and those of other great religions. It is an old Viking principle as well. Care for Earth cannot be imposed nor easily stirred up in mindsets that have never experienced a nurturing maternal environment, the soil in which the inherent seeds of spirit may begin to grow. The foundation of any kind of humane or caring society is that parent-child relationship and that sense of trust which generates a basic trust in life, optimism, and the most fundamental moral values.

But the point is, suppose the kid does not have it? what is the substitute for it? There is a despair and lack of hope in the younger generation. “I am a loser.” We need to do more than pass down the tablets inscribed with the 10 commandments and simply say, “Reread them.” This “maternal environment question” is all too often overlooked. It should figure in the forthcoming Earth Charter which to some peoples’ views would be meaningless if it does not adequately emphasize the need to protect and encourage the maternal environment, the key requisite for developing a global community that is capable of respecting Earth. But today, society at large is not focusing on the processes by which definitions of good and bad are being transmitted to the next generation.

I see nothing on the horizon that is going to focus us in on that polar bear problem, that is, how do you socialize the next generation, how do you keep ethical frameworks alive, how do you impart values. That is where the collapse is coming and nobody is paying attention to it. Preserving Earth, or moving society towards support for a sustainable and meaningful lifestyle is an inherently spiritual, ethical, and common property question that requires responsible public attention:

Strong governments must oversee this common property resource, or reliance on concentrations of wealth through market mechanisms will tear that common resource apart. Unless some set of institutions takes primary responsibility for the authoritative allocation of values in a society, humanity is likely to lose that dimension. Society cannot abnegate the use of government simply in favor of markets and preserve that humane dimension from generation to generation. Something has to take the long-term view and markets do not do that well.

While there are other major institutions having nothing to do with government that play a powerful role in transmitting and defending environmental and ethical values i.e. churches, the media, universities, foundations and the like, these institutions do not have the power to pass rules. And, they are in one way or another are either in danger or dysfunctional:

For example, equality of opportunity is essential. It is important to preserve a first rate public university system because that is where every one who desires to learn will have a chance to achieve equality of opportunity. As federal and state governments shrink down the quality of public universities is threatened as an institution. Telecommunications can be more negative than positive because the mass media are taking over as the global societal socializer with all of the messages that are being carried to the next generation through that mass media. The loudest message is “consume.” For these reasons and those mentioned above these intermediary institutions have problems at this point in time. And government does relate in a positive way to these institutions.

Although, socio-cultural evolution has gotten way ahead of genetic evolution, ultimately people can adapt to their advanced technological culture and rekindle the ‘spirit’ as the independent decision-maker and determinant of progress and human destiny.

Genetically, science reveals that today’s humanity is not significantly different from the Neolithic people. Genes haven’t changed since the Ice Age. How did these people live? In small groups. They knew each other well. These are the type of communities today’s peoples need to strive to reestablish. To achieve all these communities solidarity is certainly a staring point. They may embrace a rite of competition in caring. The Sioux Indians gave away everything and in so doing, they competed with each other in how much they could give away. In this way they attained their self-esteem. Today’s societies could form a network of fiduciary communities, groups like those models traditional to China elaborated on by Professor Tu Wei-ming.

For this work there is a need to study other cultures:
According to Carl Popper, it is very difficult if not impossible to arrive at the truth if you are in the same universe that you are talking about because what you do changes everything else. By analogy, we are all in the same social system so to get at the truth scientifically we have to step out of the system. This is what we can approximate by studying other cultures.
In this adaptation, children need to have some religious upbringing even if only so that they will rebel against it and question it to avoid increasing tides of fundamentalism. What sort of spiritual institutions in the next century would meet this need? Three new concepts are surfacing:

• Emergence of a cosmological vision fueled by a religious alignment among the main institutions;

• Religious cosmologies are bridging their boundaries and rediscovering their traditional roots, and;

• The “new social contract” of the people that embraces environmentalism and other great social concerns of the people.

Plato taught that governments could only be as good as the political actors and the motivations that fuel their public decision making and action. Aristotle pursuing the same line of thinking, drew a distinction between bad and good governments on the basis of whether the governors served personal interests or whether they served justice and the common good. In considering spirituality and politics, one must address the quality of thinking of the powerful that govern society, its economics, and its politics. If there is to be a humane tone for the global village, leaders must set it. Young people are longing for such standards and for people to show them the way, to take an interest in them as individuals, to let them know that there is a right and wrong, and that knowing this difference matters.

Leadership in the military is the end-all and be-all of its function. The military stresses the idea of ethics and also trust. Responsibility carries with it accountability. There is also a high standard of integrity to be adhered to. Such leadership is essential because the military is dealing with issues of life and death where these values are essential.

Moral leadership is as vital for industry as it is for government. If global companies stressed leadership governed by a moral and ethical code it would solve many of societies problems.
While there is a striking difference between business and military leadership it is no less vital for a sustainable society. The increasing number of business schools that are incorporating ethics courses in their curriculum reflect this recognition.

In considering leadership, democratic societies must not deny the usefulness of the role that an elite class can play for the betterment of society. Elite is not synonymous with rich. Elites impose on its members moral responsibilities: 1) to remain informed 2) to act as providers for the less fortunate and, 3) to understand the long-term interests in society.

Traditionally, elites were patrons and protectors of the “arts”. Without a true elite class, the future of art as it was known in the past is in jeopardy. In today’s global society art is a luxury for the rich and a well-spring for advertising. To the extent that art reflects the destruction and hopelessness of the modern world; the public now questions art as being essential in the moral society.

In the former Soviet Union, productive education was found to be more important than art as the way of improving society. In the first year after the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, the Minister of Culture came to Lenin asking for help to rescue the Bolshevik Theater. Lenin couched his answer in a very interesting way. He said, “My advice is, that you should be more concerned about liquidation of illiteracy in the country than to rescue the Bolshevik Theater.”

In terms of raising the living standards of the whole society Lenin was right. The arts, however, remain vital for the spirit of society and for the arts to survive they need an elite of public intelligentsia to foster and protect them and to lead society towards their appreciation. If not the prophecy of Fukyamia may come true: “In the post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history.”

It is interesting that in the old League of Nations they had an intellectual committee. Something like that, should be considered when the UN is reformed.