Sermon for 6 March 2005, 1st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois
FROM INTERNATIONALISM TO GLOBALISM
Ronald J. Glossop
I. Introduction
A. The title for this sermon, "From Internationalism to Globalism," could also have been "The Meaning of the Twenty-First Century."
B. On several occasions, including just last month, I have made reference to Kenneth Boulding's very significant 1964 book titled The Meaning of the Twentieth Century in which he emphasizes the point that the twentieth century is the time in human history when the second great transition, that is, the industrial revolution, spreads to the whole world instead of reaching only a small part of it as occurred in the nineteenth century.
C. That industrial revolution, that change from an agrarian society to an industrial society based on scientific knowledge of how nature works, changed much more than the way that goods are produced. It also changed the kinds of goods that are produced and available to us.
1. New means of transportation (steam engines for ships & trains, automobiles, bicycles, airplanes, and jet planes) changed the distances people could and would travel.
2. New means of communication (telegrams, telephones, radios, films, televisions, tape recorders, the internet, and cell phones) changed the ways people could communicate with each other, and especially changed the distances over which they could communicate.
3. As we often say, "Modern technological innovations in the fields of transportation and communication are making the world smaller every day."
D. Technological changes have also provided new ways for people to gain even more new information about how nature works.
1. In 1964 when Boulding wrote The Meaning of the Twentieth Century he could note (on p. 8) that "something like 90 percent of all the scientists who have ever lived are now alive," and that percentage has certainly increased during the past 40 years.
2. By the way, he also noted (also on p. 8) that "about 25 percent of the human beings who have ever lived are now alive," and that percentage has also increased since then.
E. These changes brought about by new scientific knowledge and the new products of industrialization have in turn produced other changes in how we think about ourselves, about how we organize ourselves politically, and how we communicate with each other.
II. Before specifically addressing the transition from internationalism to globalism, let me digress a moment to comment on the nature of transitions generally.
A. A basic point in Marxist philosophy not often discussed is his observation that small and gradual changes in quantity can produce large and relatively rapid changes in quality.
1. A common example of this would be the changes that take place in water as it is cooled or heated. Water can be cooled gradually and almost imperceptibly until suddenly it changes from a liquid to a solid, to ice. At the other end of the spectrum water can be heated bit by bit for some time until somewhat suddenly it begins to boil. It becomes steam. In both cases gradual changes in quantity, in degrees of heat, produce sudden changes in quality, a transition from one kind of thing to another.
2. The phenomenon of gradual changes in quantity giving rise to somewhat sudden changes in quality can also be observed in growing things, often posing difficult problems in pin-pointing when the change in quality has occurred. For example, at exactly what point does a boy become a man or a girl become a woman. For another example, at exactly what point does a fetus become a viable fetus.
B. I mention this point so that you will not expect that we can find some moment to which we can point to and say, "That is the year when internationalism gave way to globalism." These social changes are gradual, but that does not mean that they are not real. There is a real difference between water and ice and between water and steam. There is a real difference between a boy and a man, between a girl and a woman. And there are real differences between the internationalism of the 20th century and the globalism of the 21st century, a distinction I will shortly explain (though I am quite aware that many people use these terms "internationalism" and "globalism" as if there were no difference between them).
III. To provide context for my discussion of the difference between the social phenomena of internationalism on the one hand and globalism on the other, I want to discuss the still earlier social phenomenon of nationalism, focusing on three aspects of it.
A. One aspect of nationalism is how individuals think of themselves, how they identify themselves. From the Middle Ages up to 1500 most people in Europe would have identified themselves on the basis of their religion, that is, "I am a Christian" or "I am a Jew" or "I am a Muslim." During the next 150 years the identification would probably be narrower: "I am a Catholic" or "I am a Lutheran" or "I am a Calvinist."
1. The Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648 marks an important shift in the system of identification in Europe. That war, which began as a religious war between Catholics and Protestants, ended as an international war between nation-state and nation-state.
2. After 1648 Europeans were more likely to identify themselves as Swedes or Italians or Spaniards or Dutchmen or Frenchmen, that is, by nationality rather than religious faith.
B. A second aspect of nationalism, closely related to the previous point, is which language a person is accustomed to using. As time passes and a larger proportion of people learn how to read and write and in that way are able to gain information beyond what their own family and acquaintances tell them, the question of which written language one has learned becomes more important, so control of the educational system is more important to nationalism.
C. The third aspect of nationalism, also closely related to the previous points, is the focus of political loyalty. If a war starts between one king's army and another king's army, which side would you want to win? If you had to fight, to which side would you give your support.
1. As already noted, after 1648 this political loyalty would often be more important than one's religious commitment.
2. As time passed these three aspects of nationalism became more and more difficult to separate from one another. The political authorities would determine which language would be used, especially in schools, and the social environment would lead people on the basis of both language and political loyalty to identify themselves even more with their nation-state.
D. Just as the transition from an agrarian society to an industrialized society did not take place everywhere at the same time, so the transition from nationalism to internationalism has not taken place everywhere at the same time.
1. Internationalism came to Europe much earlier than to the United States. The first international governmental organization was the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, created by the Europeans in 1815. The second international organization was the European Commission of the Danube created in 1856.
2. The first worldwide international organization was the International Telegraphic Union. It was established in 1865 and incorporated into the International Telecommunication Union in 1932. Its work was much more important in Europe than other parts of the world.
3. The formation of the European Union has moved Europeans toward internationalism, but there is still much nationalistic restraint on that effort toward integration. The nationalism there is being overcome to a large extent by the feeling that integration is necessary to compete with the United States and China, but the language problem has not yet been solved.
4. The United States, separated by oceans from both Europe and Asia, tended to view internationalism as applying mainly to its domination of Latin America as exemplified by the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.
5. One indication of the extent to which nationalism has remained the prevailing outlook in the United States is the fact that it is one of two countries in the world (the other is the Sultanate of Brunei) which still does not use the International System of Units (the metric system) of measurement, despite the fact that Congress adopted a law in 1866 which says that no contract using the metric system can be invalidated by a court. Also official statements and laws supporting or requiring use of the metric system in this country have been adopted in 1964, 1975, and 1988 (World Almanac & Book of Facts, 2005, p. 342).
5. Despite some movement toward internationalism, nationalism is still a very powerful force in Europe and even more elsewhere as nations continue to compete with each other economically and for status in all areas (science, entertainment, sports, art, literature). One should not forget that the two world wars were motivated by struggles for status between Germany and Britain, between Japan and China, and between Russia and Germany while the Cold War was a struggle for top status between the Soviet Union and the United States. We can see similar struggles for top status now developing between the U.S. and China, between India and China, and between Europe and the U.S. Nationalism is hardly a spent force.
IV. But let us look to the future. The key difference between internationalism and globalism is between perceiving the world as composed of a collection of nation-states and perceiving it as a single planet where national boundaries are relatively insignificant.
A. The appropriate image for internationalism is a map of the world or even a globe where the different countries are in different colors, each one bordered by a solid black line. The appropriate image for globalism is the photo of Earth taken from space where there are no national boundaries and the unity and solitariness of the planet is most evident.
B. It might help to recall that the word "internationalism" comes from Latin terms meaning "between" or "among" nations. In this framework people do not relate directly to each other as individuals but interact with each other by means of national representatives. Crossing a national boundary will usually mean getting inspected, being subject to different laws, using a different language, and using different money.
C. Although it is not possible to point to some single moment when the transition from internationalism to globalism takes place, it seems that a significant development relevant to this transition was the photographing of the Earth from space which was done in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
D. We are living in the age of globalization. That term "globalization" is usually taken as applying to the domination of the global economy by transnational corporations, and that shift certainly is a major factor in the way that the global society is changing. It is these corporations more than any other institutions that are operating in a world without borders.
E. But we are also witnessing globalization, that is, the progressive elimination of national borders, in virtually all facets of human life: disease (avian flu, HIV/AIDS), the internet, music, science, education, crime (drug trafficking, smuggling people and weapons across national boundaries, pirating patents and copyrighted material), athletics, tourism, and so on. Consider how a growing proportion of people are even marrying across national borders, including some members of this congregation.
F. Another aspect of globalism is the concern for preservation of the environment of the whole Earth. When we think of problems such as global warming and depletion of the ozone layer and depletion of nonrenewable resources, it is obvious that national governments focused on limited geographical areas and acting separately in terms of national interest have no chance of dealing successfully with these problems which are global in scope.
B. The second aspect of internationalism versus globalism concerns language use. With internationalism one accepts the situation that different nations and different nationalities use different languages and that communication will require interpreters and translators, possibly assisted now by various kinds of modern technology. This internationalism will also function better if individual persons learn to use several different national languages. In the case of globalism there must be one common language for all Earthlings, not only to facilitate communication but also to sustain community solidarity. Consider the difficulties that occur when there is no single language for the whole society such as with Quebec in Canada, the Basques in Spain, the Hungarians in Romania, or the present difficulty in trying to create a European Union.
1. One also cannot ignore the connection between identity and language use. When people do not use the same language, it is difficult for them to view themselves as belonging to the same community.
2. When one begins to think of one language for the whole Earth, the natural question to ask is, Which language would it be?
a. At the moment, it seems that English is on its way to becoming the single language for the whole world, but the proportion of the world's population which uses English as its first language is declining, from about 10 percent in 1950 to about only 6 percent now. There are two and a half times as many who people who use Mandarin Chinese as their first language (and the economic influence of China in the world is increasing rapidly), and the native speakers of Spanish now outnumber the native speakers of English. Furthermore their influence within and outside the United States is growing.
b. There is a justice problem with using any existing national language. The speakers of that national language are a minority of the world's population, but they are given a great advantage in international meetings. This injustice arouses resentment, as is now occurring in much of the world against the use of English in international contexts.
c. The logical solution to this world language problem is to use a created language which is no one's native language but which as been designed to be easy to learn and to use. That was the aim of Polish physician L. L. Zamenhof when he created Esperanto and gave it to the world in 1878, just 2 years after the invention of the automobile driven by an internal combustion engine. Unfortunately, Esperanto has not received as much attention as cars, but it has not been forgotten. The use of Esperanto has spawned a movement of idealists committed to the welfare of a global community based on a common language which at the same time will permit the preservation of national languages for national communities. The development of the internet has now given that movement new life.
C. The third aspect of the internationalism-versus-globalism distinction is the locus of political loyalty. In internationalism the primary loyalty of individuals is to the national governments. International policy-making organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations and the World Health Organization and the Universal Postal Union and the International Atomic Energy Association may be created to deal with international problems, but these organizations are to assist cooperation among the national governments, not individuals. In globalism the primary loyalty of individuals would be to some global government, some world federation which is over the national governments, similar to the way that our national government is over the state governments. Individuals may have a greater commitment to the welfare of the whole global community than to their own national government, but until the political institutions are changed they are likely to face obstacles as they try to act in accord with that commitment. They can try to work through various non-governmental organizations, but they may find it difficult to get around the restraints placed on them by their own national governments. National governments typically require primary loyalty to themselves, and don't reliquish that requirement until they decide to become part of a larger political unit, as is now occurring in Europe as the various countries there agree to become part of the European Union. Globalism will be fully implemented only when the various national governments of the whole world are integrated into a world federation.
VI. So the question for each of us now is, Are we ready to make the transition from inter-nationalism to globalism?
A. Are we ready to think of ourselves primarily as Earthlings, as citizens of the world, and only secondarily as Americans?
B. Are we ready to learn Esperanto (or some other global language other than English) which can form the linguistic support for our commitment to the global community?
C. Are we ready to support political institutional change from the internationalistic United Nations to a global democratic world federation? And are we ready in the meantime to give our financial support and energy to globally oriented non-governmental organizations such as Citizens for Global Solutions, Earth Action, World Beyond Borders, Amnesty International, the World Federalist Movement, Association of World Citizens, Doctors Without Borders, the International Association for Religious Freedom, the Universal Esperanto Association, the Sierra Club, the World Constitution and Parliament Association, and so on?
D. Whether we ourselves are ready to make this transition or not, are we ready to help our children and grandchildren make it?
E. Are we, and they, ready for the global community of the twenty-first century?
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