Foreword
To continue its work on the moral and spiritual dimensions of social progress, the Triglav Circle met for its 6′ time on 4 April 1998. This gathering took place at the Harvard Faculty Club and was hosted by the Harvard-Yenching Institute. Thirty-seven persons reflecting diverse political orientations, cultures and occupations considered how ideas on moral values and spirit of humanity could further debates on the humane organization and sustainable progress of societies.

The discussion focused on the globalized ideology of western liberalism and its application of concepts articulated in the 17′ and 18″ century writings of Enlightenment philosophers. Using insights from different philosophical and religious traditions, the participants considered concepts that would give more emphasis to non material dimensions of life in order to enrich the prevailing liberal political ideology. The Circle also gave attention to public intellectuals as critics of the spirit of the time and to institutions for a universal society.

The following notes were derived from the rich discussions that took place and from the background papers that were prepared for the meeting. The notes were written by Barbara Baudot Coordinator of the Circle. Bethany Wilson, assistant to the Assistant Director of the Institute of Politics, J.F. Kennedy School of Public Administration, offered valuable editorial assistance in compiling the material for the notes.

Added to the notes are the agenda for the meeting and the list of participants. The fist of participants is necessary to identify the authors of direct quotations cited in the text only by first and last initials.

Special appreciation is extended to Professor John Kenneth Galbraith for participating in the meeting. His comments to the Circle are presented as a discrete section in the context of the notes. The Triglav Circle also thanks the Harvard-Yenching Institute and its students for their contribution to this meeting.

Reconsidering the Universalist Message of the Enlightenment

Despite the veil of ignorance that may impair their vision and the professional loyalty that may compromise their impartiality, public intellectuals are constantly guided by what the best of the liberal arts education can offer: a common sense rooted in the spirit of selflessness. — Tu Weiming

I. Introduction

Global liberalism embodies contemporary concepts of rationality and progress, individualism and human rights whose early philosophical articulations are traced to the writings of western Enlightenment philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries. This doctrine determines a global ethos of modernity used as a universal criteria for assessing human progress. Its instruments are global capitalism, economic gain as a yardstick of human progress, and promotion of the rights of the individual. The global success of the American culture testifies to the immense attractiveness of global liberalism. It is this contemporary avatar of the universalist message of the Enlightenment that occupied the attention of the Triglav Circle on 4 April, 1998.

For its critics, this ethos of modernity is dominated by a culture of self-interest, the emergence of market societies and excessive materialism. Questions about the moral basis of these phenomena and about broadening the intellectual scope of the modernity ethos are attracting increasing attention in Cambridge, Paris, and in many other academic centers in the world. Such questions are raised:

How will society be able to understand distributive justice when it is totally committed to the importance of liberty? How can the emphasis on rationality leave room for other important values such as compassion and empathy, especially for the marginalized, the poor, and for the otherwise under privileged? How could a culture obsessed with individual rights address correctly issues of responsibility and duty? These issues should be of particular relevance to the affluent and to those who have easy access to information and power.

The discussion of the Circle concerned the following topics:

• The legacy of Enlightenments
• Facets of progress and change since the 18th century
• Religious and non-European sources of Enlightenment
• Enriching the dimensions of contemporary political and economic thinking
• Institutions to govern a global culture
• Virtues and responsibilities of the public intellectual
• Valuing a diversity of cultures
• Marking paths to the future

II. The Legacy of Enlightenments

Though diverse in their components and orientations, the intellectual movements flourishing in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany in the 17th and 18th century are generically referred to as the Enlightenment. From John Locke to Montesquieu and Voltaire, and from David Hume to Adam Smith, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Emmanuel Kant, the philosophers of the Enlightenment believed that human beings were naturally endowed with the faculty of Reason, which, when properly cultivated through the acquisition of knowledge, would guide them toward happiness and self-realization. Societies ruled by reason would be harmonious, and prosperous, because Law, rather than the arbitrary power of monarchs deriving their legitimacy from God, would regulate social mores, economics, and politics. Amazed by the discoveries of Newton and other prominent thinkers, the European gentlemen of the 18th century saw no limits to human progress. They were convinced that, after centuries of fear, prejudice, and ignorance, human beings would be able to take possession of themselves, of their destiny, and of the natural world in which they lived.

While there are great variances in the writings of Enlightenment thinkers concerning the moral quality of human nature, the existence of a super human power or deity, the relevance of history and views on political theory, there are certain ideas shared by virtually all the Enlightenment fathers that formed the foundation of what is commonly called “the legacy of the European Enlightenment.” These ideas are the following:

Faith in reason defined as a logically connected structure of laws and generalizations susceptible to demonstration or verification and capable of reaching the truth in all domains of human inquiry.
Conviction that nature or the world is a single whole, subject to this structure of laws discoverable by human intelligence. The laws governing inanimate matter are in principle the same as those which govern plants, animals, and sentient beings.

Belief that these general laws could become the foundations of a rational, happy, just, and self-perpetuating human society.

Conviction that human nature is fundamentally the same in all times and places and that all human beings are capable of improvement and of possessing virtue.

View that the attainment of universal human goals, such as the search for happiness and liberty, would bring about social harmony and progress through the power of the logically and empirically guided intellect.

Assertion that human misery, vice, and folly are mainly due to ignorance defined as insufficient knowledge of the laws of nature.

These ideas provided the intellectual foundations for social revolutions that took place in the 17th and 18th centuries first in England, then in America and France, and later in Germany, Italy, and Russia.

Although the Enlightenment is commonly understood to be a uniquely western phenomenon, it has not been the privilege of one culture. Even before the Western European Enlightenment, a comparable intellectual awakening or revival had occurred in the Middle East and in China. In Japan, Enlightenment occurred independently but simultaneously with western Europe. In a global society it is important to recognize the different revelations of reason.

The period of Enlightenment in the Muslim world occurred between the 9th and 13th centuries, corresponding to the Dark Ages in western Europe. Comparison of the western and Islamic perspectives on Enlightenment is complicated by the different historical time periods in which these movements took place. During the Middle Eastern Enlightenment, scientist/philosophers and some moralists grappled with the scientific and technological discoveries of that epoch,
giving at the same time thought to the issues that these would raise for humanity and for a monotheistic society. The influence of poetry, reason and revelation, and the coming to grips with the relationship between the secular and the religious were facilitated by proximity to Greece and concomitant access to the classic texts. Some Muslims claim that the European Renaissance would not have happened without those texts and interpretations.

Because of other historical circumstances, including invasions resulting in destruction of urban centers where intellectual renaissances occurred, and other external and internal political problems, the Islamic world slipped into a dark age just as Europe was enjoying the full day of its Enlightenment. In subsequent years, the Ottoman Empire borrowed heavily from European intellectual thought. Today, aside from the fundamentalist movement, many segments of society in the Middle East and the wider Islamic world are bound in significant measure through the heritage of European colonialism to western principles and values. The reality of today’s Muslim world is that it is emerging out of a post-colonial period with all the associated problems. Most Muslim societies, whether they are in India or Pakistan or the Middle East or other parts of the world, technically belong to the Third World. They are poor societies seeking improvements in the living conditions of people. In that respect, they are accepting unquestioningly western ideas on the virtues of technologies and market principles. The questioning of the premises of the western Enlightenment is to a large extent a privilege of the affluent.

On the other side of the Eurasian continent, William McNeil, the world historian, often situates modernity rising from Sung China in the 10th to the 12th centuries. The synthesis that came about in that period of Chinese civilization was based on a highly integrated political and metaphysical thought of neo-Confucianism. It was a synthesis of metaphysical, cosmological, and political ideas, including social equity, embedded in a new coherent framework. This new intellectual movement occurred within the context of a highly sophisticated economic system based on the market, the building of the Silk Road, and a period of flourishing multiculturalism. Urbanization was commonplace. It is later in the Ming Dynasty, after the Chinese had already developed the compass and printing and other things which influenced the Middle East and Renaissance in Europe, that there was a self conscious decision in China to limit expansionism to take care of what was needed in the Empire.

During Japan’s Edo era in the 17th and 18th centuries, a form of Enlightenment was unfolding. The thinking is notably embodied in a philological interpretation of the classical Japanese text of Mabuchi Kamo. Philosophical thinking, however, was divorced from material scientific progress even though such advances were occurring independently of European influence [with the exception of some exchanges with Dutch scientists from whom were obtained texts in the fields of medicine and natural science]. Science or knowledge, reason, and rationality were conceptualized as spiritual phenomena, but not as they had been in earlier epochs when they were thought to be controlled by supernatural and enigmatic forces. Other philosophers in the Edo era, for example, Lanshoi Goi, however, took on a more empirical approach in writing a book criticizing Shintoism and denying a spiritual dimension to life.

The Japanese Enlightenment generally brought relief from Shinto, Buddhist, and Confucian forms of control but did not introduce the concept of individual rights as they were conceived in the west. While social movements were occurring at that time, for example, protests against taxes and poverty, the Enlightenment writings did not give rise to social revolutionary ideas. However, some strains of this eastern Enlightenment were linked to Japanese humanism wherein equality between men and women was found to be important in the minds of at least a few prominent thinkers. Education was highly prized. In this era there were many schools for the young, literacy was very high, and Encyclopedias were even produced for common people.

III. Facets of Progress and Change Since the 18th Century

The global society now stands at a junction of vast changes. The nation-state system is fading as regionalism and globalization emerge in the wake of dramatic waves of economic liberalization and technological advances in transportation and in electronic communications networks. At the same time, there are many environmental threats to human survival. The natural environment is under siege as the world’s pressure on natural resources mounts to meet the demands of billions of people aspiring to material well-being. In the light of these growing concerns, as well as, a growing economic and cultural malaise there is cause, as there was in the 17th century, to re-examine the philosophical and theoretical foundations, east and west, of modern society, economy, and government. The process is perhaps more complex than it was for the Enlightenment philosophers of centuries past.

Today, in addition to government power, and some spiritual power in terms of influence of churches, there is also a very strong third power — that of the private sector, above all the productive and service industries, in particular in finance and the media for information dissemination. The nature and strength of this third power were virtually unknown and unpredictable at the time of the Enlightenment. Moreover, contemporary thinkers must consider the world as a planetary whole, and they are dealing with principles and concepts that are time-honored and remain valid in their own psyches and that of the modern world.

The Enlightenment faith in progress, reason, and individualism may have lost some of its persuasive power in the modern West, but it remains a standard of inspiration for intellectual and spiritual leaders throughout the world. It is inconceivable that any modern project, including those in ecological sciences, does not subscribe to the theses that the human condition is improvable, that it is desirable to find rational means to solve the world=s problems, and that the dignity of each person as an individual ought to be respected. Enlightenment as human awakening, as the discovery of the human potential for global transformation, and as the realization of the human desire to become the measure and master of all things is still the most influential moral discourse in the political culture of the modern age; over decades it has been the unquestioned assumption of the ruling minorities and cultural elites of the developing countries, as well as the highly industrialized nations. T.W.

While the values of liberty, progress, and reason remain sacrosanct, seeking to enrich the Enlightenment legacy prompts a reexamination of the essence of its concepts in terms of their ethical and spiritual contents. Many contemporary applications and ideological appropriations of Enlightenment ideas have serious flaws. The flaws make it difficult to secure an all-embracing sense of social justice and obstruct the adaptation of necessary measures to protect the environment and insure a sustainable future for all forms of good life. The task of reconsidering the contemporary content and implications of these values includes (1) reinterpretation, adaptation, or modification of their political and economic applications for the greater good of humanity, and (2) determining what values, principles, and ideas need to be substantively augmented or added in order to realize a fuller potential of the philosophical promises of Enlightenment and of the human spirit.

A caveat to this endeavor is the recognition that most of the frequently used concepts in our discourse of the human condition are intrinsically abstract and thus subject to a variety of interpretations B progress, individualism, community, development, and the art of living being some examples. Enlightenment mentality is another example. The usefulness of these concepts lies, however, not in the discovery of a singular “right interpretation”, but in the discussions and controversies they provoke, leading to new insights and perspectives.

Gifts of the Western Enlightenment
….the python of human forward motion and progress was fed a pig in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. The python has been spending the last three hundred years metabolizing the pig. Most of us only know human experience in this shape, a long thin part, a large item in the middle, and the rest of the python. We have been raised and educated to see the pig and the python as the python…. Most of us as we teach and learn and go about modern society almost do not look at the animal because we know its shape. …We may need to look at the python again. … At the present time, if we actually looked at the python, we would see a more sleek animal, stronger for having metabolized that pig. … Modern life is dramatically stronger for all of us because of the Enlightenment. The wonderful moment we are at right now is the moment of the python stronger and healthier for having devoured the pig. We must notice what can be done now that the python and the pig are one healthier item. C.G.

The metaphor of the python and the pig represents human progress and achievement thanks to the revolution in human thinking that was fostered by circumstances and inspired by the ideas of certain 17th and 18th century philosophers in Western Europe. The systematizing, rationalizing, efficiency optimizing structures of modern times are gifts of the Enlightenment.

The scientific spirit that promoted the elimination of political, moral, and legal injustices and the absurdities of earlier ages inspired the notion of progress in almost every sector of human life. This approach to human nature and human affairs has been extraordinarily successful. Throughout the world, though obviously more in some regions than in others, human beings of all races and genders have gained in autonomy and comfort. Societies have become more complex, more open, more prosperous, and better equipped with all sorts of tools, techniques and machinery with which to broaden their choices and experiences of human life. Ignorance and illiteracy have recessed. Infant mortality has been dramatically reduced and large numbers of comparable indicators are available to prove that progress has been achieved in terms of material comfort, individual autonomy, and the mastering of technical knowledge.

Particularly successful has been the instrumental rationality, symbolized by the laboratory and the factory. The work on lens grinding enabled the Dutch to place their ships in distant harbors; often, faster, and more efficiently than the British, Spanish, and Portuguese ships leaving Europe. Lens grinding was perfected by the Dutch and then moved into the hands of Descartes who had earlier announced in a French gazette that these items would permit humankind to look infinitely out into the universe and infinitely into matter. Now we have reached a point of being able to look into the human genome to find that human beings share a huge percentage of DNA. This field of scientific progress has given each human being to the other as brothers and sisters in a way that was scientifically negated for the last three hundred years because of inadequate understanding and knowledge over which humankind has now gained mastery.

Beyond material progress: other dimensions of the Western Enlightenment legacy
But is there more than scientific, technological and economic progress to show as the heritage of the Enlightenment? The answer is complex and in dispute. The philosophers and scholars collectively credited for the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries were realizing and adapting to changes and possibilities facilitated by discoveries in natural science and by the rise of an educated middle class. Concomitantly, they were reacting to limitations on individuals imposed during earlier periods of absolutism and ignorance. They never claimed to have discovered a coherent system of ultimate truth. The following questions remained open: How is social progress to be defined? Is it simply more things such as automobiles and electronic gadgets? Or is there something else to it? A humanist dimension — something deeper for which to use technology, insight, and philosophy?

The first secular critic of the Enlightenment, George Haman, a contemporary and friend of Emmanuel Kant, expressed fundamental concerns about the writings of his enlightened peers. He saw the basic weakness of the Enlightenment philosophy as its singular basis in science, reason, and analysis. For Haman, this emphasis was an abstraction from a much broader reality. For him, all abstractions are, and must be in the end, arbitrary. Abstract reason and science thus offer only a truncated view of human possibilities. Moreover, they reduce the rich variety of the universe to a bleak uniformity, “which itself is a form of not facing reality, attempting to imprison the universe in some prefabricated logical envelope – an insult to creation.” Subsequent scholars have found the Enlightenment legacy just that: “an abstraction from a much broader reality.”

In addition, notice should be taken of the social conditions under which the Enlightenment occurred:

It should be stressed that the period of Enlightenment was characterized by the presence of enlightened authoritarian leaders who provided the means whereby it was possible for true artists to carry on their creative activities and for culture to be developed on a non-commercial basis. Frederick the Great, for example, brought several talented people to the court including Mozart and Bach who wrote the theme for the huge fugue cycle that represents still today the highest achievement of musical literature. The work of these artists perhaps is the only living legacy of that period. Art and culture are the monuments which human civilization has left. I think now especially of my children’s culture. The absence of truly aristocratic social groups with a tradition for supporting the arts and culture will be a problem for the 21st century. While it is imperative to fight hunger and poverty, one should also be aware that when poverty is destroyed, there is also the danger that wealth is destroyed. If culture will be ruled by the common taste, then it will decline. This century may bear this statement out, judging from the vast amount of material dominating the television screens today, and even the cinema. J. J.

Whether the Enlightenment legacy has a singular rational/reason dimension focused on the world as human sense perceives it or whether it also has moral and spiritual dimensions is unclear. As the legacy passed down through the centuries via interpretation and omission into various ideological embodiments, it is the instrumental rationality or pragmatic dimension that gave expression to what most people understand the Enlightenment to represent. Certainly other dimensions influenced and were evident in the writings of many of its original philosophers including Voltaire, Locke and Smith.

Close readings of the original writings provoke others to suggest that the Enlightenment writings have indeed many dimensions that have not been developed. The following comments are illustrative:
For future security and well being, society must go beyond instrumental rationality and into the philosophical and spiritual aspects of the Enlightenment. Philosophy of the Enlightenment, that which we would call right reason cannot exist in this world without the instrumental rationality aspect of the Enlightenment. Unfortunately, the philosophical or right reason side of the Enlightenment is being eclipsed by the globalization of production and distribution which was the other aspect of the Enlightenment. The good life now is an extension of the material component of the Enlightenment and is defined by the production of goods and services. That peculiar word commonly called development has come to mean the spread of material prosperity at the expense of the spiritual dimension. Even in the United States, competition from forces that are part of this globalization are cutting down on the dialogue, the philosophical dimension, and the right reason that accompanied the Enlightenment itself. D.P.

…the last three hundred years of progress can be likened to a beautiful bird; think of an eagle, with one good wing and that wing of rationalizing, systematizing, efficiency optimizing structures of modernism which we have worked on assiduously, trained hard, redesigned the feathers, that wing is working but when the bird tries to fly with one good wing, it runs around in a circle….The crippled wing is the wing of the human spirit and is not graspable by the rationalizing, systematizing, efficiency optimizing structures. It is the wing that is responsible for the virtue of humankind, and the protection of other forms of life and the physical environment. It is that wing that must be strengthened, brought out into the open to be seen as a functioning part of what constitutes the spirit of humanity. With both wings human progress will soar to its great potential giving meaning and quality to human life that exceeds physical comfort and well being. C.G.

If, indeed, the Enlightenment had two wings, it is necessary to understand what happened to cause the second wing to atrophy. The second wing was inherent in humanism, the overall movement to which the Enlightenment became the center piece. The Enlightenment linked science and the concept of individualism to the overall movement. The great father of humanism was Erasmus, who when asked what was the purpose of life, simply responded; “to serve God.” In so doing, according to Erasmus, one is happy. For this humanist, the need was to integrate the knowledge offered by the natural scientists, notably Galileo, with whom he agreed spiritually, into the overall scheme of meaning. He also stressed the importance of freedom for the individual. It is later in the actual processes of political liberation and the Industrial Revolution that the vertical dimension, humankind’s relation to a higher power outside of itself, i.e., the power of the second wing, seems to have been gradually forgotten or even deliberately abandoned.

Darker sides of Western led progress
Although there have been efforts to use the other wing, these have not been very successful. They translated themselves into nationalism, backwardness, or the wrong way of being religious. At the end of the day, society has said it is better to be rational and focus on material progress – money and economic efficiency. Progress is what you can quantify in only those terms and all other things are subordinate. The results have not been an unmitigated victory for rationalism. In summary, the basic strengths of the Enlightenment, to free people from religion and to separate state and church, and to believe in the strengths of individualism are so positive and so strong that the other wing really could not develop. R.L.

Just after the Berlin Wall came down a businessman tells of going over to East Germany to talk about capitalism, which had been very successful and so on. He felt a certain dilemma because he perceived that in some ways he was preaching greed whereas communism in a sense had been about sharing. The source of his dilemma went back to this sense of moral and spiritual values. What I came to realize is that capitalism works well when it has a moral basis; you have to have that involved in making agreements and in considering what business is all about. Capitalism in its worse forms, which you often see in Latin America and Eastern Europe, has become a rapacious thing. The absence of this moral dimension really worries me. I think when we say the world is really better, it is on one dimension, but worse on the other. F.A.

The full realization of the potential of the Enlightenment ideas as either a unidimensional or multidimensional philosophy is far from complete. There are still great inequalities, violence, and poverty. The material benefits of progress remain inaccessible to billions of people.
A great deal of data for the last twenty years on African countries show that about half of these countries experienced an overall decline in Gross Domestic Product per capita. Even by conventional Enlightenment definitions of progress these countries do not measure up. To be kept in mind is that a good portion of the world is not making progress of any kind. D.P.

Many thinkers who have been promoting progress through the fuller realization of the human spirit have often been marginalized and dismissed as irrationalists and romantics. Without question, some of the most powerful work that advanced the Enlightenment was done on behalf of capitalism, not on behalf of philosophy. It should not be forgotten that much of what people talk about when they praise progress over the last 300 years is largely based on evidence from industrial countries. While things have gotten better in industrial countries, a neo-imperialist argument could be made that it is the rest of the world that is supporting the industrialized societies in the style to which they have become accustomed.

In the evolution of “enlightened societies” reason and rationality alone have been unable to eradicate racism, intolerance, and contempt for the other from the human psyche. Entire communities and cultures have been destroyed through various forms of colonialism, imperialism and mercantilism. The legacy of colonialism is still fresh in the minds of many Third World countries. It manifests itself in such expressions of hostility and frustration: “You were exploiting us and are now exploiting us and you will always exploit us.” In talking about declarations, such as the Earth Charter, and their intended responsibilities, people especially in the southern part of the world have a lot of mistrust and say, “this is nice, this work belongs to the rich man club, when I get rich you can come back.”

Any number of reactionary movements have colored the view of whatever the Enlightenment represents. For many people in non-western societies, Enlightenment is synonymous with the “west” and “western hegemony.” There is even danger that some anti-western reaction will lead to “the baby being thrown out with the bath water.” The good of the Enlightenment is the baby being jettisoned as evidence of western imperialism. And, this occurs despite the sure gains to be made out of what Enlightenment movement brought in freeing human ingenuity and self-expression. In the Middle East this has occurred. The Enlightenment of the West has been thrown out in some societies because it represents ideas that powerful Muslim factions do not claim as their own and for which many people were made to suffer in earlier eras. Here women conforming to a certain dress code are not only identifying themselves with their own religion but also identifying themselves with what are their unique values.

In the United States, there are young kids who kill each other for sneakers, not because of hunger or because they do not have money, but because they simply want the sneakers at that second. There are people who will kill their parents, their teachers, and their peers, and show no remorse. There is something happening in affluent societies along with progress which gives indications of a collapse of vestiges of moral and spiritual dimensions which confounds modern societies. So yes, cars run better and women are healthier after birth and so on and so forth, but what kind of life will there be if there is no human regard for each other? There remains only a minimum of trust in societies between the rich and the poor and even between people in the same class. How does a government promote trust? There is really no clear answer. It will take time, humility, patience as well as listening to the other. In this situation, the public intellectual also has a strong role to play.

Progress cannot be stopped but it can be controlled by the knowledge of where it is leading and by analyzing what steps need to be taken to influence it. The question is which is it more important to have, material power or moral influence? While material power may be preferred by many, “influence” is really the stronger, because it leads to a more tremendous power that can permanently change trends. Material power is imported from without. Progress cannot be stopped, what matters is how to assimilate it and adapt to it without losing the moral values in existing cultures.

A summary: observations of John Kenneth Galbraith
Over the last three hundred years, over the span of time that we associate with the Enlightenment, we have of course had an extraordinary change in the economic situation and there can be no doubt that [a combination of] economics, economic institutions, and economic aspiration has been the driving force for change. But, there is a great deal of debate as to what those forces really are.
Is it capitalism? The pursuit of self interest? Education? Is there a role of the state that has been important here? If I express my own feelings, it is that very much has been accomplished by the simple release of human beings to there own pursuit of happiness, contentment, and well-being. We should remind ourselves that until about three centuries ago there had been very little change, ever, in the human condition, and much of that stagnation had been related to the fact that only a small minority of the people were able to express their own aspiration in life.

Institutional restraints, serfdom and slavery, and the stalwart control of custom had kept the great majority of people under some kind of restraint. And, this is not ancient history; some of it comes to our own time. I was born closer to the Civil War and the struggle over slavery in this country then we are now to World War II. And, the stamp of restraint imposed by a slave structure is something that is still visible in some parts of this republic. But then, however it has come about, we have had this enormous improvement in what is called well-being.

We have come, and I think to the dissatisfaction of quite a few here today, to think of well being as the measure of civilized change. It isn’t. One can hardly deny its importance. One can hardly deny the commitment that many people have to it. But I hope, as an economist, that we are not too captured by the economic measure of success which is before us every day in the newspapers, on the television and wherever.

There are aspects of this well being which cannot give us satisfaction. There is first the enormous inequality which is increasing. Everybody here — I urge to be aware of the very unequal conditions that exist, particularly here in the United States. There can be no pride in the fact that we are the worst case.

There is next the fact that, with increasing general well being, there is clearly a strong change in public attitudes. People increasingly, as they acquire a certain measure of income and wealth, attribute that to themselves and to their own qualities in life and are, therefore, less inclined to be sympathetic to the people who are not part of that well being. It is quite wonderful, if you are well off, to attribute that to your own intelligence, or in some cases, perhaps, to your own personal beauty, and say that those who are less-well off and those who are poor are the righteous victims of their own inadequacy. This is an attitude which I cannot but think has been increasingly important in modern times and increasingly a factor here in the United States, in our politics and elsewhere in the fortunate countries. The possibility exists that it may be better to be poor in a poor country than to be poor in a rich country.

The other two facts associated with this are first, the continuation of the disgraceful poverty in our great cities: poverty that is insufficiently on our conscience, insufficiently a concern, insufficiently an obligation of the state. Think how much better our cities would be if everyone had a basic safety net; if there were no struggles against starvation and, if there were help and care for the children. Is there any reason why a rich country cannot provide such a safety net? There is no such reason.

The second and final thing is the fact that, in national terms, this well-being is very badly distributed. There are fortunate countries and regions: here in North America, in Europe, and to some extent elsewhere. But, in much of the world, there is still gross and nearly universal poverty. We are insufficiently aware that human beings, whether in Central Africa or Fifth Avenue, are still human beings and that our obligation to all those human beings is not less.

There are problems that cannot be doubted as to what we can do. I came back from years of government service of one sort or another after WWII to find we had a large number of students here at Harvard from the poor countries and they were studying the sophisticated models of a rich country. And, I initiated, at that time, what was among the first courses in economic development anywhere in the country, and I’ve been with that problem ever since.

It is an incredibly difficult problem. We still do not have good answers. Some of the problems I used to think lie with the governments of the less fortunate countries. The essence of economic development, as I have already indicated, is that individuals be free and protected in their pursuit of their own well being. That is something that, for example in much of Africa, just does not exist…and in some parts of Asia. So, when we take satisfaction in our well being and when we follow the example of my profession in measuring well-being by the increase in Gross Domestic Product or, God forbid, by what is happening on the stock exchange, I hope that you will all have a deep innate suspicion of economic ideas as being not the last word in human aspirations.

IV. On Enlarging the Moral and Spiritual Dimensions of Contemporary Political and Economic Thinking.

While many of the Western Enlightenment thinkers were deeply spiritual, and/or highly moral persons, those dimensions of their thinking have not been a significant part of the legacy of the Enlightenment, notably as it is expressed in the globally prevailing ideology of western liberalism.

Noting the seriousness of this observation and its implications for contemporary social problems, Vaclav Havel has written:

…I am persuaded that this crisis and the increasingly hypertrophic impersonal power itself is directly related to the spiritual condition of modern civilization. This condition is characterized by loss: the loss of metaphysical certainties, of the experience of the transcendental, of any super-personal moral authority, and of any kind of higher horizon. It is strange but ultimately quite logical that when man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension and man began to lose control of it.

Obsessions with the processes that advance increased production, personal profit and consumerism as the only hallmarks of development that has ensued since the industrial revolution has largely obscured an essential link between human life and the ethereal essence of the universe, lending meaning to human life. It is the loss of a sense of life’s fuller meaning that constitutes a major obstacle to sustainability. Though an atheist, Marx observed that obsessive materialism would destabilize human existence. Through an ironic interplay of ideas, he envisaged materialism and anthropocentrism operating at cross purposes and thereby limiting the horizons of human experience. All our invention and progress are seen to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and in stultifying human life into a material force. In short, the ultimate logic of such progress is that Pinocchio becomes the master of Geppetto. It is problematic when people esteem themselves capable of satisfying all their aspirations to find a credible way for humanity to counter the increasingly monopolistic material vision of life.

It is a common view among contemporary critiques of modern politics that there is much need for some kind of “dimension of the human spirit” to public and private life in the dominant culture to counter excessive concern for material wealth and temporal power. This recognition was explicitly stated in the Declaration issuing from the UN Social Summit held in Copenhagen, March 1995. The Declaration called on governments to respond effectively to material and spiritual needs at all levels of society. Governments also committed themselves to inter alia, a Aspiritual@ vision for social development based on human dignity, rights, equality, respect, and democracy.

The concept spirituality has multiple meanings including the following contained in the Random House Dictionary:

• of or pertaining to the spirit or soul as distinguished from physical nature.
• of or pertaining to the supernatural.
• of or pertaining to the spirit as the seat of the moral and religious nature
• of or pertaining to sacred things or matters; religious, devotional, sacred
• of or belonging to the church, ecclesiastical
• of or relating to the conscious thoughts and emotions.

All of these definitions in one way or another find and echo in contemporary discourse on enriching the concept of social development and progress.

To facilitate communication there is need to distinguish the concepts of religious and spiritual, meaning of and pertaining to the human spirit. For Christians and especially perhaps for Catholics spiritual is closely aligned with a search for moral values whereas religious is often associated with faith in a supreme being. For a scholar of Islam that distinction is very hard to make unless reference is being made to a set of laws or ritualistic practices. Islam means surrender to God and a true Moslem is living in the spirit and the secular at all times. Given the vast number of dictionary definitions of spiritual it may be ventured that the words spirit and spiritual have become umbrella concepts connoting a multitude of aspects of the non-material, the intangible substance of life. Religious is a more clearly defined concept with strong institutional overtones.

The spiritual dimension of things must come to mind through muse, revelation, and intuition. It is the spirit that generates a sense of beauty in the beholder, imparts courage in a materially desperate situation, and feelings of affection between individuals. The spirit is reflected in serenity and nobility. Its opposite is the appreciating of all forms of human activity and relations in terms of material or economic efficiency. Spirit is something that speaks in silence only to those who take the time to listen. When focused on efficiency and expediency there is no time to entertain things spiritual. In this context these concepts refer only to the Good. Both concepts on the other hand are subject to darker uses in the every day world, as for example, a religious cult preaching human sacrifice or evil spirits at work in the mind. B.B.

The reinsertion of “spirit” into the public political discourse has largely been the work of the environmental movement, and in particular, its more radical advocates. The deep ecologists and the Gaiists have brought to the public conscience images of a living and feeling earth, which could only be fully grasped or experienced through spirit as conscience thought and emotion or by attributing to nature qualities of sacredness and religiousness. Religious institutions and philosophers have subsequently been tapped to lend support to this vision and to find justification in their holy writings for reverence for nature. Religious thinkers and writings have many rich ideas and resources that can be used to inspire a deeper reverence for life and a greater sense of responsibility. They also can play a major role in protecting the environment in non litigious societies. Religious proscriptions and exhortations can substitute for law.

Now, the issue of the human spirit has broadened as increasing numbers of thinkers perceive a form of moral entropy gaining ground in market societies. Those seeking a moral or spiritual dimension are united, it would seem, in a quest to bring back a combined sense of goodness, grace, wisdom and dignity into what would be a humane society, interrelated in a sustainable way with nature.

But the debate on this subject is not without serious pitfalls. There is always the danger of excessive fervor, militancy, self-righteousness, and pride that accompanies the conceit of believing that one holds the key to truth and has a mission to save the world. Fundamentalism is another problem that would warn many to avoid the topic all together. The largest pitfall is the fear that by introducing such a concept one will again introduce the evils intendant in religious sectarianism; the evils that prompted some “Liberal fathers” to advise that church and state must be separated and led to the virtual irrelevance of spirit in contemporary western societies.

The multifarious views on the human spirit discerned in contemporary discourses can be classified into three broad perspectives.

1. The first is positivist and materialist and is lodged in a scientific mindset. The earth and the universe form a composite of organic and inorganic matter. Humankind is the most advanced product, so far known, of a continuous and progressive process of evolution starting perhaps from the fortuitous stringing together of protein molecules in a warm, primeval mud. The nature of the universe and humankind will ultimately be discernable in matter and explainable through natural science. The locus of the spirit is somewhere in the ether of the brain. All human knowledge is acquired through the physical senses and honed by the human environment, interpreted or not by abstract deduction and the exercise of logic. Materialist Enlightenment philosophy and secular humanism are most consistent with this perspective. Ethics and morality may be transmitted socially through maternal type love and social education processes and may be conditioned by certain neurons in the brain. The spirit that exists in the brain may be the source of humankind’s neurologically stimulated instinct for seeking the good and the ideal. Building the human capacity to express this part of human corporeality is the way to wholeness in the person and in society. There is no dualism in this perspective.

2. The antithesis of this perspective is the wholly transcendental and incorporeal conception of life and the universe. The apparent materiality of man and the physical universe is but a temporal objectification of the human senses. Life is, in and of itself, wholly spiritual, infinite, and eternal. Being is in the bosom of the Infinite Mind cum Consciousness and Intelligence. To find one’s spiritual dimension one must have recourse to one’s Higher and Real self, of which the ego is but a channel for the reflection of Infinite Light. According to this perception, the spiritual dimension on the human plane is the reflection of the Infinite consciousness. Each human has recourse to its Real being through prayer, meditation, intuition, inspiration, and revelation and remains instinctively intuned with Life as he/she lives unselfishly expressing humility and dignity and seeks the beautiful and the good in their human life experience. Ethics and morality are inherent in this mindset. Certain expressions of Stoicism, Gnosticism, non-western religions, and natural religion are consistent with this outlook.

3. The third perspective divides humankind between the poles of materiality and metaphysical transcendence and explains the abyss as the ultimate mystery of human life. Both are real. The life experience swings back and forth between the two poles. Through faith, fear, and/or love, the human seeks understanding and through ritual attempts to approach the superior Consciousness which should guide and protect the conscience of the mortal creature. Each creature has a soul which may or may not be embodied in the body. It is the soul that longs to find its ties to nature and the cosmos and instinctively cares for the other. It expresses itself in human relationships. This is the most common understanding among those concerned with the spiritual dimension of life. Spiritual humanism and most mainstream religions share this perspective.

These three perspectives share common ends that transcend the mental rigor of skepticism and scientific certitude and reach to the heart. Despite their differences proponents of each view share enough common ground to build ethical and moral systems aimed at sustaining the human society in balance with the natural environment. They are all holistic in their appreciation of the world and other forms of life. B.B. [Thoughts on Enriching the Enlightenment]

The following sections offer specific ideas for enriching the contemporary discourse on progress and development from more spirit oriented Enlightenment traditions.
Reflections on Benedictine spirituality and modernity

In Boethius’ consolation of philosophy, having discussed with him for a while the situation he was in, Lady philosophy clearly says to him, “You know where you have come from, but you do not know where you are going.” This is one issue for today. It is a question that demonstrates discussion of destiny and aspirations and where the world is headed. It was in the enlightened period that humankind decided to take charge of its destiny in a way that it had never done before — to define it and to set out on its path on its own in a certain sense, without regard for previous things which might have been considered as superstition, dangerous, or simply wrong. This separation of where humanity had come from and where humanity was going may be part of today’s problem. J.F

If Saint Benedict were to be asked for his view on today’s obsession with material comforts, he would speak about stewardship. Human beings are stewards of this world with the responsibility to protect the whole spectrum of nature. No creation of God belongs to any generation. What human beings consume today is what they have inherited from those who have passed before them. The notion of stewardship incorporates a strict sense of caring for what exists and passing it along in a condition better than it was received.

The notion of stewardship means, in fact, that there is liable not to be a blade of grass unless humans take responsibility for protecting the earth. In counter distinction to the Benedictine notion of stewardship, again, is the concept of deep ecology and a variety of indigenous perspectives which must be seen in another setting. These perspectives argue more for the integrity of creation in itself. That is not simply a matter of the human shepherding creation in the Benedictine sense, but it is a matter of realizing the mutuality of creation.

Considering technological progress, Benedict would point to the artisans of the monastery. One of the characteristic features of the Benedictine monastery is its architecture and the use of arches. The arch represents technological advance — an advance that is an opening up, a lifting of the mind and a bidding that all eyes be caste upward. If a criticism were to be given of modern technological progress it is that its thrust is not related to the notion of beauty. According to Benedictine spirituality, progress in the use of tools and skills is meant to uplift the mind, not simply to make things easier or more comfortable. Though the later is not wrong, it should not be the goal in itself.

With St. Benedict, the artisan’s work was part of what he did within the context of an entire life, which was in Benedict’s scheme, a balance between work and prayer. Thus, the notion of work for Benedict was an incorporated notion; it was part of an entire life seen in regard to the community, and not just the individual. What the artisan did as work was to create something that was fulfilling for himself and also for everyone else.

There is strong concern for individuals in the rule of St. Benedict. The enhancement of individual rights according to Benedictine spirituality derives from the recognition of the sacred in every person. It is the sacredness which merits individual rights and it is in honoring the sacred that these rights are to be exercised. The rule, written in the sixth century, provides that all people, but especially monks, are responsible to recognize the presence of Christ in the poor, in the guest, in the sick, and in the elderly.

While in many of today’s societies there is concern for a number of groups of people, those who seem to fall most by the wayside are the children. The idea of the child was preeminent in the mind of St. Benedict. Passages in his Rule were written specifically for the protection of children. The rule provided that they be cared for tenderly by appointed officials. According to Benedictine spirituality each individual is a child of God.

In Benedictine tradition, intellectual discourse is for the discovery of ideas, but that is only half of the work. There is need to distinguish between intellectual conversations and moral conversations as Benedict and Augustine agreed. While a person may know what is the right thing to do, it does not mean the person will do the correct thing, because the moral virtues that are required to do so are more than simply knowing, they involve courage, fortitude and discipline. These may be stimulated by theater, art, and music, which are potent media for projecting such ideas of values, ethics, and spirituality. According to Shakespeare, the play is the thing. The morality plays of the medieval period gave expression to this use of the stage. But if theater, art, and music are to continue to uplift the human race, as Benedict intimated, their power and influence must be recognized, because their impact can also be very destructive. The present negative influence of television on children’s behaviors is clear, reflecting untamed technological progress.
Eco Ethica inspired by Japanese philosophy

To foster sensitivity towards the needs and circumstances of other persons, the development in childhood of the power of imagination is essential. In this connection, creativity is also vital to enhance. Creativity is the most important factor for the next generation, if technological progress is to be guided in paths that avoid its demerits. This creativity must be fueled with something from transcendental consciousness and nature requiring imagination to be perceived. N.H.

A group of present day philosophers led by Professor Tomonobu Imamichi is conducting an international search for a new philosophy appropriate for modern times. Developed by Imamichi in 1975, Eco Ethica is a contribution of Japanese contemporary thought to the search for new principles of morality to meet the conditions created by modern technology. Eco means oikos in Greek (house), its outside and inside. Translating this idea to eco ethica, eco refers not only to the inter-sidereal cosmic environment of existence, but also nano, the micro cosmic space in immanent-corporeality, simply stated as the space in the cell between the cell wall and the nucleus. Modern technology has affected human surroundings, from the global and even inter-planetary environment, to the most minute micro biotic space.

Three areas of focus in this philosophy are the phenomena of time, shadows, and creative imagination. A major preoccupation of technological advance is the reduction of time needed to perform functions by streamlining processes and increasing efficiency. However, as Pascal earlier noted, man is a thinking animal and thinking requires time. Time is the essence of cautiousness and caution is critical for human survival. While machines change and operate at increasing speeds, the human brain remains as nature made it, and thus operates at the same speed required to think thoroughly. When time is reduced and lost with more efficient technological advancements important thinking time is at risk of being lost. Without adequate time devoted to thinking, human beings gradually deteriorate into more primitive beings.

A characteristic feature of the present technological conjuncture is the uniformization of forms through the process of mass production. For example, the camera, the telephone, and tape player are all encased in what would appear to be the same black box even though they have different functions and in the past appeared in different shapes. As things are losing their individual forms for the sake of efficiency, the same may be said of the human being. The rich diversity of individualities is melted into uniform literary and arithmetical information projected in films, on television shows, and for the computer screen. Computerized human information data is the shadow of the person and it would seem that the human shadow is more important than the living being in the information society. Society believes they can understand and know persons without ever meeting any of the human beings in question. This is the demonic face of the contemporary information society, which is encouraged by human genome projects and other research that finds massive similarities in human DNA, as if these were the only determinants of human personality.

At the same time, the merits of shadow phenomena are found in the domain of art. There are many positive expressions in the computer arts on the conditions of humanity. Such information on levels of literacy, net income per capita and income distribution is necessary to improve the economic situation of humankind.

Islam and the rejection of secularism
Enlightenment should not be called Enlightenment if it is only rational. Enlightenment of human beings does not just come with their reasons being broadened or their visions being expanded; Enlightenment has to be moral, spiritual, rational and completely humanistic. Only then would it deserve to be called Enlightenment. N.V.

The decoupling of church and state that accompanied the European Enlightenment has generally not occurred in the Islamic world. The Prophet Mohammed was a secular ruler while being at the same time the Prophet of Islam. As the ruler, he fought battles and established a state. From the beginning, the Prophet of Islam insisted that people not only live in this world, but live in the best way in this world. He did not allow the sacred to be apart from the world nor the people of the world to say Awe cannot be rooted in the sacred because we have to move on.@ Therefore, this dichotomy present in the West between the secular and spiritual realms technically does not exist in the Middle East.

A positive thing that has come out of the anti-western rhetoric and dialogue in the Middle East is that the unquestioning acceptance of everything that has come out of progressive societies is now being challenged. Such questions are being entertained: Must progress be in western terms? Does it have to be in particular scientific terms? Does it have to be in accordance with the economic gauge of western consumerism? What is the measure of progress for the Muslim world?

The major criticism of the European Enlightenment from the Islamic perspective is the dichotomy or compartmentalization of knowledge. In the Muslim world, all knowledge is supposed to be regarded from a holistic perspective. Islamic ideals are humanist ideals, built on the belief that there is no dichotomy between the secular and the sacred. For example, with the accumulation of wealth comes the responsibility of using it for the poor, the unfortunate, the orphans, and the widow. The people pray five times a day, but those acts alone are insufficient if the people do not participate in the community and somehow carry out their social responsibilities. Thus, responsibility to God is inseparable from responsibility to other humans and the environment. Individual self interest must be pursued with the best of whatever God offers. Reason that makes the latest scientific discovery must see that discovery also as one window of God’s greatness. Individual well-being may be pursued for one’s own good, but not without exercising self-control for the larger good of the community. The most important principles that guide society are social responsibility, honesty, and generosity.

The individual is seen to flourish only in the context of a community. The community takes precedence over individual self interest and if these are in conflict, resolution must come about through a personal sense of responsibility. Thus, referring to the work of the lens grinder mentioned as an example of the progress which European Enlightenment has brought, a Muslim would say that the lens grinder must move beyond genetics and go to the soul which is inherent in each human being. All truth is not revealed through the lens of the microscope. While science can inform humankind by what mechanisms they think, this information does not explain everyday experience and the practical knowledge gained in human society. Moreover, the question remains whether the brain generates the thought or the thought stimulates and builds the capacity of the brain. If the soul and the genetic person are not balanced, then even if the lens grinder tells us that all beings share 100% of their DNA, individual thoughts remain unpredictable.

So, if there is something to come out in terms of a different attitude, hopefully it won’t be romanticized, hopefully it will not just be romantic, but will be a new blend of things that might come.
Towards a possible synthesis?

The great civilizing force of China 200B.C. – 200A.D. , the Han synthesis, set in motion a continuing civilization, the longest continuing on the globe. In a self-conscious way the Han intellectuals went to study the text, the tradition, and the culture that preceded them to select from earlier Confucian texts, Taoist texts, Ying Yang texts and others what type of political synthesis would hold as well as keep this civilization going. And what they came to was a synthesis that was deeply embedded in concepts of cosmology — an orientation to a universe of human, earth, and societal, and political relations in multilayered sense rooted in a conception of the universe from which stemmed all directionality even the seasons of life and climate. All of these ideas and phenomena were highly integrated and self-consciously chosen. Today society may also be in a similar type of selection process making a new synthesis and a new reconstruction. M.E.T.

A cosmological perspective in early Islam continuing to this day is that all of us are Muslims and we’re all doing Islam. For a plant to grow upwards is its natural inclination and that is Islam. J.F.

A major issue is the absorption of the concept of modernization into the concept of homogenization (in terms of human rights, global market and even road signs) and the challenge thereto by the question of cultural diversity. Society may appeal to a transcending vision of the globe as a way of uniting intellectual thought, or spiritual resources for the development of the common humanity. It may go back to neolithic periods to imagine the possibilities of a more unified human community in terms of cosmological, linguistic and cultural orientations. The world of today, however, is shaped by a form of homogenization rooted in the Western industrialized states.

We the peoples of the United Nations are all, by virtue of modernization, children of the Western Enlightenment – benefitting from it in all empirical spheres of education, science, transportation, communication and health. However, it would appear impossible for every society on the planet to attain the life style epitomized as the American Dream. Thus, there is tension between the dream and the absence of the possibilities of attaining it. To deal with this tension, it is necessary to explore cultural institutions that will enable societies to develop a different and fuller understanding of both the negative implications of the dream, and a broader vision of Enlightenment, progress, and purpose. T.W.

In this effort, such Enlightenments must be considered:
• the Enlightenment of the Christian spread of liberation,
• the Enlightenment of the Buddhist idea of self-knowledge
• the Enlightenment of the Islamic notion of the glorification of God, and
• the enlightened understanding of one’s relevance to the world as exemplified by many indigenous peoples, i.e. the Enlightenment of human knowledge.

The question is how do you bring about reduction in the power of the prevailing message of Western Enlightenment and usher in these other forms of enlightening vision whose impact would be to render less aggressive, less dominating, and less exclusionary the practice of the dominant culture.

The question is not necessarily one of forced homogenization under the weight of the economic power of the West, but can be seen as the result of accepting Enlightenment ideas as part of the common heritage of humankind. No country has a monopoly on ideas. Countries are free to adopt or not ideas they consider to be in their own best interest. If China adopts capitalism, it is not because it is forced to, but because it is attractive, and the idea is free for the taking.

V. Institutions to Govern a Global Culture
Before one considers institutions it is necessary to characterize the nature of the future global society. Will it be a universal village or a global society? The institutional implications of this distinction are significant.

Globalism versus universalism
For some the term universal has a positive and normative content. Things that are simply found everywhere such as Coca Cola or MacDonald=s restaurants do not belong to this conception of universal even if these commercial undertakings are found all around the globe. Placement of things or businesses do not create a universal phenomenon anymore than colonialism created a universal society. Moreover, what is often claimed to be a global village is in fact a common culture based on economics, technology and perhaps, aspirations for the good life. As a real village, it is but an illusion because there is at this point no worldwide sense of community. Moreover this “village” lacks the necessary other components to render it a universal phenomenon according to a normative definition. Perhaps this “village” is beginning, however, to prepare the ground for universality. J.B.

The concept of universal would refer to something globally understood, aspired to or accepted as, for example, general principles of law common to all countries. Universal implies a notion of sharing, of knowing that there is something in common or even of trying to have something more in common. An example of a universal idea is the golden rule stated positively or negatively: thou shall not do to others what you do not want other to do to you as is often stated by Professor Tu Weiming. It has been a fundamental aspect of all kind of philosophies, as is the concept of human rights, or of civil and political rights.

Another aspect of universal is the notion of working together to take care of common problems. Obviously, what the world has started to do with environment problems is a wonderful example of responsibility and concern which is shared by most governments. Universal implies sharing ideas on what should be done in a variety of domains. This notion of the universal as a community held together by reciprocal obligations and duties is something that has to be developed progressively with great care and humility. It is based on the ideas that power is service, that power is responsibility and that the more power one has, the more responsibility one has or the more wealth one has, referring back to Islam or to Christianity, the more obligations to the ‘other’ one has.
What political institutions are appropriate in a universal society?

Globalization is the concept also commonly used to capture the image of the “borderless world.” If one looks at the globe today, one does not see emerging a universal culture based on norms and shared responsibilities but a borderless world. This phenomenon is giving rise to a world history of humankind as compared to comparative histories of peoples of the world. Whether one likes it or not, globalization is a fact of life, brought about by technology, the economy and ideological preferences for capitalism and democracy. As George Bush has said, “now we are heading to a new world order, market plus democracy, all around the globe.” R.L.

A condition for the evolution of a universal culture is that a lot of thought be given to the notion of democracy, and to political processes and institutions starting with the very traditional state to the emerging type of political process called the civil society. Considerable intellectual effort has to be given to understanding what will be the meaning of a democracy at the world level.

The formula market plus democracy means democracy in all nation states around the globe. But everywhere nation states, democratic or otherwise, are failing to fulfill their functions. This is not a problem of political leadership, weak or strong, but of circumstances created by technological advances in all fields. Globalization means permeated national borders. Today traditional national frontiers protect but weakly all states despite their enormous differences in stages of development, in political priorities, and in cultural backgrounds. No state can singularly control or contain information flows, commercial flows, migrations, international crime, or destruction of the environment.

The nature of one of the present dilemmas for world governance is the following. Democracies are established within the confines of states. All governments are based on the territorial notion of states and are elected by citizens of their territorial confines. Elected officials are accountable only to their constituents in the nation state. But precisely in a ‘borderless world’ where national frontiers are so permeated by overflowing problems, for example, air and water pollution, global markets, free movements of labor, and free electronic communications; territorial governments are increasingly ineffective and consequently less credible when they make campaign promises. As a result, they enjoy less confidence.

This dilemma is rendered more complicated and acute when governments attempt to take joint or cooperative measures to resolve their shared problems and the citizens of each participating state have only minimal if any impact on the outcomes which will ultimately affect their lives. When, for example, ministers from different nation states go around the world, meet somewhere and then agree on a common approach to certain problems; they come home from these international parliaments only to be accused of accomplishing their work in a non-democratic fashion. Ministers are told they should not make commitments in international fora, but instead should only bind their people to commitments in their own parliaments because that is democracy. But, to repeat, the permeation of borders creates transcendent problems that only can be resolved in international fora. Thus, a global weakening of political effectiveness is generated.

To preserve democracy there is an absolute need for a great diversity of institutions. Obviously, the United Nations is an essential component of such a system of political institutions. A grand diversity of other institutions at the local level, at the national level, and at the global level is also necessary; nevermind the complexity such a number of different and even of overlapping institutions such a system would imply. Such a system alone could fill the need not only to preserve freedom and diversity, but also to deal in the best way possible with the great multiplicity of problems facing the world. This multiplicity of institutions, however, can only function properly if there is a minimum of shared values and norms among those governing those institutions and those supposed to benefit from them. J.B.

The rise of the civil society is partly a reaction to globalization and an expression of democracy at the global level. Many people, especially in the West, believing that governance in the world is deteriorating, seek institutions outside the traditional political system to deal with global problems. Non traditional institutions are formed at local and global levels. One example is the non-governmental organization, Green Peace. Institutional manifestations of civil society are in both religious and cultural movements. These groups often articulate their opinions and communicate with each other in the same way businesses, the markets, and other sectors of society do through modern information and communication technology. These manifestations of civil society express opinions about values and work in many practical ways to bring their voice to public attention. “Manifestations of the civil society” serve to put pressure on governments and businesses. They are increasingly effective. With good intellectual leadership, they can make a difference because they are concerned, they are acting jointly through organizations and other institutional forms generated by social movements with the intent to bring about change in the interest of the common good.

A major stumbling block
What makes the development of institutions and channels very difficult is the assumption since the fall of the Berlin Wall that the political disintegration of eastern European countries represented the triumph of the free market. There is nothing more wrong or disruptive to the idea of a global village with moral values than the view that the abandonment of Marxist-Leninist ideology by various eastern European republics somehow was brought about by free market forces. This explanation is too simplistic and dangerous. It is attractive to Americans and so much within its self- interest to perpetuate, that it is going to take some time before this myth is set aside. S.S.

One can take the view that unless and until there is a retrenchment or a collapse of free markets, unless the Dow Jones Index comes down to something less then 3,000 or the Asian crisis is in fact a real crisis and the Japanese economy bottoms out, there will be no rectifying of the moral basis for the global village. The allure of material comforts, the fascination with the automobile, the satisfaction and smugness in the knowledge that markets work for material enrichment is simply too great.

VI. Virtues and Responsibilities of the Public Intellectual

Although the idea of the intellectual in the modern west emerged in Tsarist Russia in the 19th century, [the public intellectuals of today, from the East or the West] tap a broader cultural source for their self-definition. Entomologically, the term intellectual is derived from the social stratum of the Russian intelligentsia. In their conception, an intellectual is an activist, if not a revolutionary, who is politically concerned, socially engaged and politically sensitive. Neither philosopher nor prophet, the public intellectual is, however, a reflective person with a farsighted vision who is dedicated to the creative transformation of society from within.

The East Asian idea of the educated person offers the best reference for the discussion of public intellectuals in the public domain of the globalized society. In the Confucian tradition, concern from politics, engagement in society and sensitivity in cultural matters as salient features of being educated. Scholar officials in China, Samurai in Japan, and the yangban in Korea were supposed to be responsible not only for their own self-cultivation but also for the regulation of families, governance of states, and peace under Heaven. In short, they were obliged by their power, status and influence to serve as guardians of the social fabric. They shared a common faith in the improvability of the human condition and the efficacy of a communitarian effort to bring about peace and prosperity. Motivated by a strong moral sense to transform the world from within, they tried through exemplary teaching, to inspire an ever expanding network of people to involve themselves in the educational process of human flourishing. T.W. [The Humanities and the Public Intellectual]

Virtues of the public intellectual
The role of the intellectual as a critic of society is essential. There is an absolute necessity to look at what lurks in the shadowy implications of actions that have an impact on the welfare of society. To carry out this function properly, the critic must possess or respect a number of traditional and perhaps not so traditional virtues.

The first is humility. The second is the will to seek truth. The common skepticism and cynicism that pervade the modern world are totally incompatible with the function of the responsible intellectual; not everything is equal and not everything is interesting. One should be happy to be wrong when one’s prediction of some negative occurrence proves to be wrong. One should also recognize the great responsibility one has to the world when one has the necessary talent to offer some vision and wisdom and be willing to devote considerable time to thinking and reflection.

The third virtue is to be able to recognize and respect continuity between private virtues and public action. One of most questionable dichotomies in western culture is the implicit distinction between the way one accomplishes his/her daily task and his/her responsibility in public life. In all contemporary struggles, for example the fight against corruption, there is no apparent solution possible unless it is realized that there is a continuum between private and public actions.

Specific roles to be filled by public intellectuals
Political processes around the globe need to be reinforced. Public intellectuals, those who have the background and opportunity to carefully study issues and have the will to seek and communicate suggestions for solutions, can strengthen new governance processes. In academic circles, they can promote the concept of holism, which is to see problems, events, and issues in their fuller contexts. This is different from an earlier Enlightenment tradition which favored dividing intellectual thinking into self-contained disciplines.

In related fashion, the public intellectual should explain the need for inclusive thinking. Increasingly since the 18th century, society has operated along the lines suggested by Adam Smith, according to which each person or institution seeking his/her own good would contribute to the greater good of society. This approach led to the present organization of societies on foundations of open markets with governments charged with minimal functions of preserving rights and freedoms and providing security for the system. This approach yielded considerable creativity and general well being so long as the markets remained openly competitive and easily accessible within caring and mutually supportive communities. But the global market is not generally inclusive of all peoples and societies. Society cannot lose sight of the need to ensure that the interests and perspectives of those outside the market be considered. Thus while society needs independent and self-seeking institutions to insure creativity, it also has need for a good amount of inclusive thinking. “Holism” expresses the intellectual aspect of this problem. Inclusiveness implies coordinating efforts.

Another task for the public intellectual is to explain the precautionary principle laid down in Rio De Janeiro. The precautionary principle is simply this: given ignorance about the consequences of new technologies and new initiatives, one better take precautionary actions to prevent serious unknowable and unforeseeable potential consequences. This approach is fundamentally different from traditional economical thinking with its implicit confidence in the technological progress and its calculations of interest rates based on the most productive use of scarce capital and assumed increases of productivity. These rates take no account of potential negative externalities. The reasoning of the public intellectual ecologists, for example, is different. They are not prepared to take risks that there will always be new technologies to solve problems of scarcity, damage to the environment, and so on.

The precautionary principle puts a systematic check on economic thinking.
The public intellectual can also play a vital role in preserving cultural diversity. People need help to protect their roots and to preserve their own identity. If people have lost their cultural identity and their unique institutions they cannot express themselves and they lose their sense of self esteem and even sense of purpose. Diversity in culture is the source of creativity and is the power of its expression. One of the most outstanding features of American colleges and universities, at least in these last ten years, has been the debate on inclusion, especially with respect to culture and what one ought to study in any curricula involving a study of cultures, and the debate is this; whether or not western civilization has an exclusive monopoly on civilization and the study of cultures or whether, at least in the American context, study of civilization ought not to be broadened to at least include one of the other dominant aspects of American culture; contributions made by the slaves and the former slaves, the continent of Africa, the so called Afro-centric idea.

Through the devices formulated and refined during the western Enlightenment, and earlier in different regions of Asia [before the 13th century], the leadership of the public intellectuals can be brought to bear creatively to get institutions like the financial markets of the world to begin a discourse with the public and its social institutions so that there is a junction in society between its wealth and its culture, so as to create an enlightened and humane global society.

VII. Valuing a Diversity of Cultures

The cultural nuances of the world are comparable to a magnificent tapestry, with all the colors that give strength and pleasure, not only at home but also in the whole world. What is culture worth? V.F.

It is a well-known fact that the world is losing languages every day. Losing languages also means losing culture. In Iceland, for example, there are 280,000 people, a very small nation but it so happens that the people of this country speak a language that has not changed for eleven hundred years. Icelandic is the Latin of the north. It also happens to be a very poetic language, very rich in vivid concepts. It is in the vernacular of this language that the sagas are written. The sagas are the great literary heritage of the Nordic countries. This great poetry in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth century has been preserved in manuscripts.

Although the Icelandic people who have inherited these manuscripts are few, they have nevertheless derived a great deal of strength from them over the centuries. They have given these people a voice in the world. Inspired by their traditions and their sagas they have become somebody in this huge world. Of course, Icelanders as peoples of many other smaller nations have a sense of inferiority vis a vis the peoples of larger and more powerful nations. Stirred by their sagas however they soon forget their relative smallness and consider themselves the world itself. The fact, is, one never asks how many heads are behind something that is true, because for something found to be true and something found to be of value, it is never asked whether it is the view of thousands or of millions of people. V.F.

In today’s world where the prime mover of civilization has become the economy, values have changed in such a way that the smaller entities are pressured to think that strength lies in the economy, in military might and pecuniary fortunes. Identity, however, creates the culture. The benefit of diversity is that every artist has the opportunity to create his or her culture in his or her language. Strength actually lies in knowing oneself, and lies in having roots, knowing where one wants to go, and having a voice. Identity is linked to that voice; identity comes from within. If identity is imposed from the outside, then identity is lost.

Culture cannot be measured in monetary terms. The Iceland experience is also instructive here. One economist in Iceland, last year, analyzed how much money would be saved in Iceland if the Icelandic language would be dropped and English adopted as the national language. English is commonplace in Iceland as it is too expensive to dub the vast amount of English television and electronic transmissions into Icelandic. There has been a great deal of concern because children watching television are bilingual but cannot read well. The economist discovered that there would initially be a large investment to train the first generation but there would be immediate savings from not having to teach Icelandic. The economic returns in this investment would appear at once. However, the economist underscored that this was purely theoretical. He did not advocate abandoning the Icelandic language in the interest of saving monetary resources because he esteemed culture to be worth something more than money.

The cultural heritage of Iceland reflected in the sagas, poems and literature by artists in the expression of their mother tongue is both valuable and rewarding. This is a truth for every nation cherishing its integrity. A Nobel Prize winner, a 20th century saga writer, gave expression and honor to this idea. He noted that when a nation stops cherishing its uniqueness and independence, and is swept into superpower nationhood, the world is impoverished. Referring to Iceland he said, “when the last old woman who can recite in Icelandic verse is dead, then the world has become poorer and the superpower that swallowed us would not be left any richer for it.” V.F.

Measures to protect diversity
The problem with developing institutions and channels to promote diversity can be examined in the first instance in the American context. Here, the institutions responsible, on the one hand, for economic and communal development, and the other for the promotion of culture including arts, language, music, and the use of leisure time, hardly communicate with each other. This problem may be illustrated by using two different, but extremely influential institutions in the U.S., Wall Street and the Black church.

Wall Street is that collection of capital markets that funds and finances technological progress, land development and the industrial superstructure. The Black church is a single creation embracing the National Baptist Convention USA and the African Methodist Episcopal church. Its most prominent characteristics are its focus on spirituality, its real grasp of a sense of redemptive suffering and its continuing regard for the non-material in life.

Important contributions each of these institutions have made towards inclusion in society are reflected in the US government’s reaction to the bombing of the World Trade Center and to the bombings of the black churches. In both instances, effective legislation or actions were taken forthwith and resources provided to repair the damage.

Yet, the only time that these institutions communicate with each other, if at all, is through culturally diverse individuals who participate in both institutions. But, even then, the communication is during very exclusive times: work week on Wall Street or Sunday morning in the Black church. If there could be found, at least in the American context, a vehicle through which Wall Street and the Black church could dialogue, society would have come a long way toward achieving the beginning of the kinds of discussions that would change the complexion of a complicated society.

On a more positive note nurturing the civil society in Europe is considered the way to protect diversity in Europe. In the future of Europe, the civic society will play a strong role in which the cultural diversity of regions, languages and cultures are to be protected. Yet, the Europeans will feel that they belong to a unique common civilization vis a vis the rest of the world. Beyond a monetary-fiscal union, it is not intended to transfer more power to Brussels from the nation-states. The civil society will take more time to develop in a Europe, economically and materially linked, but wherein each nation-state lives according to its own identity in an open relationship. To this end the organizations of the civil society need nurturing and support. Life on the whole, through the advances of service and technology, and the open market-place, has vastly improved material living standards over the past sixty years for most all societies and there is reason for optimism.

Yet, one can question whether a common culture on one level is a viable possibility for the future in Europe. For many centuries in this millennium, Europe was organized under a single religious order which deteriorated into warring units and was gradually succeeded by a political order of units called nation-states, and then there were wars. Now it is economics, technology, business organizations and their countervailing groups and organizations of civil societies that are emerging as the binding body politique not only in Europe but also in the rest of the world.

It is difficult to predict what this new order will bring. But something is going awry with this order as witnessed by financial market failures in Asia, Latin America, and Russia. Moreover, there is a looming environmental crisis which is exacerbated by the more than doubling of the world population, the concomitant threat to food and water resources and the natural environment, as these billions aspire to the level of living attained by the most affluent that gives cause of great concern.
Future rivalries will be based on economic and environmental survival. The question is; what organizations will deal most effectively with these issues: nation-states, profit oriented business organizations, civil society, international organizations? Perhaps religions should be considered again. They have proved to be remarkably resilient over the past 2000 years.

Social consensus and development
“A major problem in considering channels and institutions for effective governance is the building of a social consensus from the grassroots up.” J.D.

Development has not worked in many parts of the world because masses of people have been governed by elites according to the mandates of culturally foreign systems. These governments could not relate to the general populations and their grassroots needs, and cannot make the best use of the wealth of their human resources. It is vital to consider the basic socio-cultural foundations of societies when constructing development projects for economic or social progress on local, national, and international scales. In South East Asia, Malaysia or Indonesia, for example, the questions to be posed are whether it is the people or their elite institutions which are working for economic development: whether the development targets are located in macro-level institutions serving the elite according to their moral and ethical norms or whether they are at the micro-level according to peoples time honored customs and aspirations. A closer look would probably show that the strongest base to build on is at the micro-level. The thrift, skills, and habits of working together are so positive that by relying and nurturing them those economies will grow.

VIII. Marking Paths to the Future

As described above, there are enormous hurdles to be overcome, sensitivities to be protected, and the human spirit to be ennobled, before the global village can even aspire to becoming an “enlightened universal community.” While a totally different philosophy is not advocated, there are many ideas for further thinking and action.

The need for a unifying myth
There is need for a new unifying myth to understand human commonality that is scientifically based but also has the inspirational quality to suggest that if humanity is in a 4.5 billion year old process on the planet, in a larger universe of meaning, then there is need for an evolutionary ethic consistent with that extraordinary process. Work is underway on this project. This initiative is promoted by a movement focused on the epic of the evolution of society which has just recently been formed and is building on ideas drawn from the works of E.O. Wilson, Thomas Barry, Niles Eldridge, and others in the scientific and the humanities communities. At the Field Museum in Chicago in November 1997, leading scientists and humanists came together to present these ideas and to suggest ways in which this type of dialogue can take place.

A better understanding of history
The Bosnian conflict has to do with historical memory. For a while it was under control but now historical memory has worked towards sustaining conflict. Whether memory stops at six hundred years, one thousand years, or beyond, perceptions are sustained by myths of that period. If one goes back six thousand years, they will find a different myth. In the Balkans, there were no Muslims, no Christians, but there were all sorts of people speaking related languages; they came from different tribes of Indo-Europeans. By going back to earlier times justification for grudges that support divisions in peoples= consciences may be lost. Introducing the concepts of history older than the currently known history is extremely important. While European languages have spread all over, they are all the same at an earlier point in history. Changing the myths and memories will take a couple of generations, but myths can be unlearned. If they were learned they can be unlearned. O.Y.
History is an important aspect of every child’s education. In the United States, children learn early on in their careers about the colonists and their struggle for independence from the monarchy. Just as the children of the United States learn of their forefathers, the children of other nations learn of theirs. In the Balkans, the children learn about the Bogamills, the Turks, and the Ottoman Empire.

History affects the way people act because of the popular beliefs it causes. Every child within the Balkans learns of a war that occurred in the Balkans over seven hundred years ago when the Turks invaded and a portion of the population became Islamic, and are seen as traitors. One of the problems within the Balkans is that when history started to be written in the 18th century, it was written with a nationalistic view point and this distorted the good aspects of the Ottoman Empire because they were overlooked, meaning the ideals were overlooked.

The notion of common humanity is to be attained through a better understanding of history which will demonstrate the unfounded oasis of contemporary conflicts. History should be taught in a way that avoids emphasizing mistakes and prejudices.

Sense of purpose in life
When there was no separation between reason and conscience, somebody like Erasmus could say that the purpose of life was to serve God. Today the questions: What is the objective of life? And, what are we here for?,– are certainly important in trying to enrich human lives and cultures.

Related to that is also a conviction that humankind should not be simply manipulated, pushed, or guided by technology but should try to orient its future, rather than submit to the inevitable, that is, to refuse the determinism that appears to mold and control modern culture.

A reconstruction movement
Such a movement is necessary to overcome the loss of the vertical dimension of humanism occurring as the Enlightenment trajectory took off, decoupling religion, spirituality, and the sacred from science, technology, progress, and materialism. Reconstruction means to go back and reexamine the Enlightenment, bring back the lost pieces, and fill in where there were no pieces. At the same time, it means to reexamine the history of religion, seeking the positive impact of study and commitment to the sacred and the spirit on human communities.

Balance between integration and identity
While the globalizing tendencies of the human community and the whole notion of the emergence of a global community is widely accepted in many parts of the world, the social and political reality of this phenomenon is not simply integration, interconnection, intercommunication, and interchange, but also the emergence of sharp differences and the play of outright discrimination. The globalization process somehow intersects with the continuous presence and even the more intense association with the primordial past; ethnicity, language, gender, land, age, class, and religious orientation. In this complex interplay between globalization and localization — integrating and communicating on the one hand and the search for identity and rootedness on the other — the world has to be able to think in both perspectives and to seek out the possibilities for fuller integration, rather than to tolerate the tension-driven conflicts between these two processes. For these reasons, researchers are exploring long term reflections rooted in all forms of human spirituality and ethical considerations as an integral part of the discourse on development, science and technology, capitalism, and human rights.

Code of conduct for sustainability
The three current trends of capitalism, scientific and technological progress, and the human rights discourse are very much focused on the present and, for the future, on the gratification of what modern human beings ought to have. There is not enough consideration for the questions of distributive justice, of sympathy and empathy, and of the notion of ritual — especially rituals that have helped societies to sustain and develop over the ages. Nor is there much attention to the question of responsibility and the group spirit.

Is technology going to shape the future without guidance or is society going to use a value system of some sort to shape technology itself? How can humankind enlighten itself as it approaches the twenty-first century? Can science, economics, development, and right reason co-exist? Where will human codes of conduct come from for the twenty-first century and how can they be evaluated? Perhaps an evolutionary type of reasoning is the place to start to lay out a code of conduct for the future.

Codes reflect values. The values for the 21st century should be aimed at maintaining ecological security and a certain ecological equilibrium between humankind and everything else on the earth.
Future equilibrium must be based on four kinds of harmonies that reflect traditional values essential to the survival of the human race throughout the next couple hundred years. These four harmonies constitute a source of values for the future. The first harmony is between homo sapiens and nature; that is the maintenance of equilibrium between people and their material demands from nature. Second, there is the harmony between human beings and micro organisms of which there are millions; some are useful and others are pathogenic. The third is the harmony between homo sapiens and other species; the so-called vanishing species dimension. Finally, there is the harmony between different human populations as they are brought together by globalization.

Another source of values comes from the belief that there is an evolutionary faculty in human consciousness. Even more primitive human beings, historically, adopted value systems because of evolutionary factors and their experience with the physical environment. The acknowledgment of human rights as aspirations for people permits people to choose collectively how to organize themselves in the face of existing limitations with the help of science and technology. The species– homo sapiens, has the confidence and is in a position to define rights and responsibilities. Since people are conscious of themselves, understand the world in which they live, and now understand that they can have aspirations and enjoy an abundance that is unprecedented in human history, their higher aspirations should become a strong source of values as humanity moves into the twenty-first century.

Twelve years ago when I became Prime Minister of the Netherlands, we had a substantial problem in terms of the economy, including rising unemployment, a large budget deficit, and similar typical European welfare state problems. We tried to improve that. If you come around now in the Netherlands you don’t see this problem at all. There is low inflation and a very small budget deficit and there is no unemployment. But there is something strange going on: the average number of hours that the people work in the Netherlands at paid jobs is substantially lower than in other matured economies, especially in the United States.

I will not say we are poor because our efficiency per hour is higher than in the United States. So we are a modern country in that sense, but we have developed a model in which people are not really going to the utmost to maximize their personal income. We have many families with one and a half jobs, so they are not maximizing their income potential. It means that there is a lot more time for non paid work and, also, for cultural activities. My point is that the “Dutch model” suggests that it is possible to convince each other that you have more quality to life if you do not maximize your Gross National product.

This is not accepted wisdom. People find it strange but, nevertheless, there is the beginning of change in the dominant mentality in one country. Perhaps this is possible for other countries. R.L.

The universality of human rights
The extension of human rights throughout the world is desirable but not simple. Debate continues on the universality of human rights. In a world where cultures are at differing levels of consciousness, how is it possible to impose a homogenized view on other peoples? In some religions, for example, it was not only accepted, but also seen as honorable, to sacrifice an adolescent member of one’s family. Western civilization views this practice as barbaric and wrong. However, to that group of religious people, it was part of a long standing tradition. Should not have this been seen as their right to their own religious practices? Who outside of each particular culture has a right to decide on the absolute value of one right or another? One answer is that cultural relativeness has limits beyond which it cannot be tolerated for humanity=s sake. Humankind has come together to say that certain principles, rights and values are fundamental for all human beings, e.g. that all people have the right not to be tortured. These have been declared by international consensus, specifically in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the subsequent treaties, signed and ratified by a large plurality of states.

I always find it interesting that on this question of rights and duties, when we speak of individuals we always start with the word rights and when we talk of institutions we always start with the word duties. Perhaps what we need to do is when we speak of individuals, start with the concept of duties and let rights emerge from the sense of duty that we have as members of the human race. I don’t know if that leads to a global awareness, but it seems to me we tend to start with rights and then duties take a second seat; when, however, it concerns what someone owes us, our view shifts a bit. J.F.

Rights should not be claimed without acknowledging some sense of duty as well. All too often the parallelism between right and duty is forgotten. It can help lead humankind to a much needed, broader consensus on what is truly a universal right. Perhaps what is required in such consensus building is a minimum amount of accepted responsibilities that are voluntarily assumed but are, at the same time, delicate enough so as not to jeopardize established rights. Without a consensus on morality, this process is reduced to a slow-going venture. In the end, all people are free, in certain fundamental ways, no matter what their culture may dictate.

Notes prepared by Barbara Baudot, Secretary and Coordinator of the Triglav Circle.