Sermon for 6 July 2008, 1 st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois
THE GOAL OF WORLD COMMUNITY: PEACE AND LIBERTY
Ronald J. Glossop
I. Introduction
A. The sixth of the seven purposes and principles affirmed and to be promoted by the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association is “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.”
B. Today I want to limit our discussion to the concepts of “world community,” “peace,” and “liberty.” Next month the focus will be on “justice” and “for all.”
II. To say that we wish to affirm and promote “ world community” indicates a desire to create and support a sense of community which includes everyone on the planet Earth, not just those who live in our country or who share our ethnic culture or who use our language.
A. The awareness of the need for this goal was undoubtedly advanced by that now well-known photo of the Earth from space from the late 1960s, a photo that shows the Earth with no national boundaries and quite alone against the black night sky of space.
B. That photo probably helped popularize the widely used expression “ Spaceship Earth,” an expression that unfortunately seems now to have faded from general use.
C. The sense that Earthlings indeed constitute a single global community was intensified by the concern about the destruction of the protective ozone by the chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) from spray cans and leaky air conditioners, but that danger has now been rather well addressed by the development of alternative propellents and refrigerants.
D. The present dangers from global warming are again making us aware of our common global community, but unfortunately that profound metaphor “Spaceship Earth” no longer enjoys the popularity that it once did.
E. Another imminent danger for our global community comes from the possible use of nuclear weapons. During the Cold War Russians and Americans generally focused only on the consequences of a nuclear exchange for their own countries, but the rest of the world was very conscious of the fact that a nuclear exchange would be a disaster for the whole planet and not just for those who might initiate the catastrophe.
F. Our world community needs a unifying symbol around which it can rally, and there have in fact been several designs for an Earth flag, a flag that emphasizes the need to preserve the environment of the whole world.
G. Another flag to represent the world community of humans is the United Nations flag, a flag of an institution that represents 192 of the 200 national goverments in our world. The difficulty is that at the same time that flag reminds us of the fact that the world community lacks a real global democratic government focused on what is good for the whole Earth rather than just the welfare of national governments and their leaders, sometimes even at the expense of their own peoples.
H. At this time in human history we are in fact living through a fundamental shift in our human community from the inter-nationalism of the 19th and 20th centuries to the globalism of the 21st century. To better understand that distinction think of a globe or a map of the world where the different countries are different colors and where each is separated from the others by a black line as the image for inter-nationalism. On the other hand, the image for globalism is the photo of Earth from space I mentioned earlier where there are no black lines for national borders and where the common destiny of all aboard Spaceship Earth is immediately obvious.
I. Another aspect of this gradual transition from inter-nationalism to globalism is our self-identity. It is very difficult for us to move from the loyalty to our countries called patriotism to that higher loyalty to all of humanity called humatriotism. Look at all the static Barack Obama is getting on grounds that he is not patriotic enough.
J. I know that for political reasons he is not likely to do it, but I would like to hear him say that, although he is concerned about the fate of this country, he is even more concerned about “ The Fate of the Earth,” the title of Jonathan Schell’s 1982 book that called attention to the nuclear disaster facing humanity if we don’t get rid of all nuclear weapons. But it is disappointing to me that Schell focuses so much attention on trying to get rid of the nuclear weapons while saying virtually nothing about subordinating patriotism to humatriotism or the need to modify the existing anarchic international system of nation-states with their unlimited national sovereignty. Schell fails to deal with the issue of why nations and national leaders feel that they need to have nuclear weapons (as well as other kinds of weapons). The individual states of the United States don’t feel they need such weapons. They have political and judicial ways for resolving their disputes. Why can’t it be the same way with the nations of the world?
K. Subordinating loyalty to the national community to loyalty to the global community is a big part of the identity problem, but there is another even more sensitive aspect of the identity problem. I refer to the connection between language and identity. If we humans are going to think of ourselves as members of a single global community, we will need to have a common global language in addition to the over 6,000 tribal and national languages we now have. We can continue to use our tribal languages, but we will need a global language not only for purposes of communication but even more for a sense of global solidarity.
L. Many say that we already have a global language, English. But less than 5% of the world’s population speaks English as their first language (slightly fewer than Spanish) while almost 14% speak Chinese as their first language. Much of the world is learning English, but as a second or third language, and very often with resentment. We need a somewhat easily learned global language which is no one’s national language.
M. When I say “we” I mean not only the world generally. I also mean the Unitarian-Universalist Association. Just over a week ago at the national UUA General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale I learned that there are now UUs in 40 different countries including the Philippines, India, Hong Kong, Kenya, Pakistan, and Cuba! Most of our material is available only in English, and the denomination has begun to produce translations into Spanish and other national languages. But UUs are headed toward the same situation that now exists in the European Union where there are 24 official languages and 40% of the budget is consumed by language translation and interpretation costs and where the issue of which language(s) to use is a great hindrance to community solidarity.
N. One of the things I was trying to do at the UUA General Assembly was to encourage this denomination, in line with its commitment to its sixth principle, to start using the world language Esperanto within our world-wide church and to begin now to teach it to our young people all over the world. As you may know, we have already started teaching Esperanto to our young people in this congregation. I am hoping to be able to use Esperanto to arrange connections with young UUs in other parts of the world such as Hungary, Transylvania in Romania, Hong Kong, and Cuba to be a demonstration project on how to move our globally expanding denomination beyond its reliance on English and eventually a great number of other national languages.
O. I know that some people will ask, “Why do we or our children need to learn another language?” and “What is the connection between religion and language learning?” My answer is that our commitment to building global community cannot be fulfilled if we just assume that the other 95% of the world must learn English in order to participate.
P. Let me close this section on building world community by noting how important our international non-governmental organizations are in helping with this task. We can do our part not just by the work we do within our Unitarian-Universalist community but also by supporting organizations such as Heifer International, Doctors without Borders, Citizens for Global Solutions, the Sierra Club, the Universal Esperanto Association, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and so on.
III. Now I want to shift our attention to that word “ peace” in our sixth principle.
A. Many of you may know that at its General Assembly in St. Louis two years ago, the Unitarian-Universalist Association committed itself to study the issue of whether the UUA should adopt a Statement of Conscience to become a “peace church,” that is, a church committed to nonviolence like the Quakers and the Mennonites. The draft statement by the Commission on Social Witness is to be released on November 1, 2008 and then the final version will be presented and considered for adoption at next year’s UUA General Assembly in Salt Lake City. For further information you can go to the Peacemaking Home Page at <www.uua.org/peacemaking> or to the Advocacy and Social Justice home page at <www.uua.org/socialjustice>.
B. The wording of the question is, “Should the Unitarian Universalist Association reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war to resolve disputes between peoples and nations and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means?”
C. Some of you know that a substantial proportion of my teaching at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville was devoted to implementing a Peace Studies program and to teaching a course called “The Problem of War and Peace.” After team-teaching the course for several years with faculty from several different departments, I decided to write a text for it called Confronting War . The first edition was published in 1983, the second in 1987, the third in 1994, and the fourth and final edition in 2001. That book takes a problem-solving approach to dealing with the war problem.
D. The first and very crucial step in solving any problem is to get clear on exactly what the problem is. Once that is done one can keep from going off in all kinds of wrong directions regardless of how popular they are. One is also in a better position to judge whether particular proposals really solve the problem.
1. I think one of my main contributions to dealing with the war problem is the definition of “war” which I developed: “War” is “ large-scale violent conflict between organized groups which are or which are aiming to become governments over some territory.”
2. This definition makes it clear that violence between one group and another is warfare only when it is large-scale, though one obviously has to decide where to draw the line between small-scale and large-scale. But once that line is drawn one can begin to answer questions such as when and where the amount of warfare increases or decreases, for example, was there more warfare in the 20th century than in the 18th century or the 16th century?
3. This definition also makes it clear that not all conflict is warfare. When I tell people that my aim is to get rid of war, I often get the response, “You just can’t get rid of all conflict.” My response is, “Who said anything about getting rid of all conflict? In fact, I think that sometimes conflict can be a good thing. We don’t need to get rid of all conflict in order to get rid of war. We merely need to develop other ways of resolving conflict between groups.”
4. Even more important is the point that war is between group and group, not between separate individuals. In warfare individuals are enemies only because they belong to groups which are at war with each other. Consequently, a proposal to end war by having individuals commit themselves to nonviolence is not relevant to the problem. The problem of war is not an ethical problem about how individuals are to conduct themselves but rather a problem in social philosophy about how groups should interact with each other to resolve their conflicts of interest.
5. The most important part of this definition of “war” is the goal being pursued in warfare, namely, the acquisition of political power, that is, control of the policy-making and enforcement of it, which is what a government does. This point coincides completely with the well-known view of Carl von Clauzewitz that “ war” is a mere continuation of politics “by other means.” All the media attention on how a war is being fought, what weapons are being used, what heroic actions are being done, who the particular leaders are, what strategies are being used, and so on miss the main point of what the war is about.
6. The last part of the definition indicates that wars are about who controls a given territory. Sometimes we have wars within a nation to determine who will rule that country. Sometimes we have wars between two or more countries to determine where the national boundary or boundaries will be. But in the last century the territory in question in some wars has been control of the Earth as a whole. That is why they are called world wars and why the winners set up rules that apply to the whole world.
E. What I find very interesting is what happens when one changes just one word in this definition of “war.” Let us change the word “violent” to “nonviolent.” Then we have this definition: Something (what is it?) is “large-scale nonviolent conflict between organized groups which are or which aim to become governments over some territory.” That seems to be a rather good definition of the political process within democratic countries. The election next November is a battle in a process which is a substitute for war . It will determine what policies this country will be pursuing during the following four years. In this election is there large-scale conflict? Are there opposing groups? Is the goal of the opposing groups gaining control of the government of this country? Yes, yes, and yes. Here we have the alternative to war.
1. So a democratic political process within a nation-state is a good example of an established alternative to war for peacefully resolving major conflicts between organized groups which are seeking political power over some territory. We know this from our own national experience, and many other democratic nations know it from their own national experience. It isn’t perfect. We had our civil war, and other democracies have experienced large-scale violence, especially before the democratic traditions get well established. But there is a great deal of evidence that political democracy is the way to eliminate war.
2. It seems to me that we need to take the lesson of what works within countries and apply it at the global level. We need to work toward the development of a democratic world federation as a way of eliminating war and militarism and weapons of mass destruction from the world. It won’t be easy, but it is the arrangement that experience shows us works.
F. I hope that the UUA will move away from focusing on the first part of the question about whether the denomination should forswear all kinds of personal violence and participation in war and instead direct its attention to the second part of the question concerning what we as UUs should be doing to bring about a nonviolent world of peace with justice.
IV. Let me now turn our attention to “ liberty,” the next term in our sixth principle.
1. For example, does it harm others if I openly express opinions with which they disagree? Does it harm others if their children hear opinions with which they themselves disagree? Might it harm others if I do things of which they disapprove even though that behavior does not otherwise hurt others?
2. Should I be free to do things which are likely to be harmful to myself (like smoking cigarettes or not wearing a seat-belt while driving or not wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle) as long as these actions do not harm others?
3. Does the government have a right to require things like immunization and accepting blood tranfusions in the case of great blood loss if individuals are opposed to such measures?
4. Does the government have a right to restrict the number of children couples can have in order to deal with an overpopulation problem that is likely to be harmful to everyone in the long run?
V. It should be evident that the sixth principle of promoting “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all” will not be easily accomplished. It is not something that we can do quickly. But that is the kind of goal we need, isn’t it? It is a goal that will keep challenging us and our children and our grandchildren and even generations after that. But it also a goal that challenges us now at this critical moment in human history as we live through the shift from inter-nationalism to globalism.
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