A.  At present much of the news media is focused on events in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Palestine.  The central clash seems to be
between Islamists, that is, Muslim extremists, on the one hand and the
United States and its allies on the other.

    B.  My intent is to look at our present situation from <underline>a
wider and longer perspective.

</underline>        1.  I want to consider the situation of <underline>the
global community as a whole</underline>, not just the view from the
United States.

            a.  Let me mention in passing a point to which I will return later,
that is the arrogance of this country.  Residents of the United States
refer to ourselves as "Americans," as if the other residents of North &
South America are not also Americans.              b. The "World Series" of
baseball is of teams from the U.S. plus a couple from Canada.  Teams
from Japan, Cuba, Korea, and other countries are not  included.

            c.  Despite its title, at least 95% of <underline>The World
Almanac</underline> is confined to information about the United States


            d.  The U.S. wants other countries to follow our rules (for example,
with regard to how to deal with terrorists) but we don't want to abide
by global rules such as eliminating all anti-personnel landmines,
halting all testing of nuclear weapons, abiding by the U.N. Law of the
Sea Treaty, creating a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) to
prosecute individuals (including national leaders) who commit war
crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity.

        2.  I also want to consider the <underline>long-term
situation</underline> of the global community, not only what is
happening at the beginning of 2002.


II.  What are the current developments which are most important to the
global community in the long term?

    A.  One matter which should be mentioned is the tremendous
<underline>growth in material wealth</underline> that is now occurring
in our world.

        1.  This growth in wealth was especially apparent in the U.S. during
the 1990s, but it is occuring throughout much of the world and over a
period of many decades.  The current economic slow-down is but a brief
interval which should soon be reversed again.

            a.  The gross national product/gross domestic product/gross national
income of the United States went from $6.7 trillion in 1994 to $9.25
trillion in 1999.  That is a 38 % increase in just five years!  This
figure for the United States is very important because the U.S.
accounts for over a fourth of the world's total output, and it has
almost twice the national income of China, second in the world now that
Hong Kong is included.

            b.  <underline>Industrialization is spreading</underline>.  The
rapidity of the change in wealth-making in the world can be brought
home by noting that in 1999, 3 of the 5 largest economies were Asian
countries (namely, No. 2 China, No. 3 Japan, and No. 5 India) while the
only European country in the top five was No. 4 Germany.  Further
evidence of rapid change is the fact that No. 13 South Korea topped No.
14 Russia, and No. 15 Indonesia topped No. 16 Australia while in North
America No. 10 Mexico topped No. 11 Canada.

            b.  In the world as a whole the gross product increased 2.6 % in
just one year from 1998 to 1999, and even per capita income increased
1.2 % during that year.

        2.  For the longer term perspective, we can consider the very
optimistic but well argued scenario given by Peter Schwartz and Peter
Leyden in their article "The Long Boom:  A History of the Future,
1980-2020," published in <underline>Wired Magazine</underline> for July
1997, also available on the internet at
<<www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.07/longboom.html>.  This article was
written before last year's slow-down, but the arguments presented for
an unprecedented long-term boom are still persuasive.

            a.  Schwartz and Leyden note:  " . . . .[W]e are watching the
beginnings of a global economic boom on a scale never experienced
before.  We have entered a period of sustained growth that could
eventually double the world's economy every dozen years . . . .  We are
riding the early waves of a 25-year run of a greatly expanding economy
that will do much to solve seemingly intractable problems like poverty
and to ease tensions throughout the world.  And we'll do it without
blowing the lid off the environment."

            b.  In this article, they spell out "<underline>the five great waves
of technology</underline>" that are fueling this 40-year economic boom
-- (1) personal computers, (2) telecommunications, (3) biotechnology,
(4) nanotechnology, and (5) alternative energy sources.  The first two
waves started in 1980, and have already produced readily perceived
results.  Bio-technology really gets going with the completion of the
Human Genome Project just last year.  The new technology related to DNA
not only means tremendous advances in the area of human health but also
in agriculture.  The fourth element, nanotechnology or the art of
constructing things one atom at a time, means that tiny new things will
be able to do things now done only by large objects and in a crude way.
Minature computers will be able to do computations now done only by
large ones.  New energy sources will become available in time to
overcome pollution problems as well as too much reliance on oil.

            c.  Schwartz and Leyden also foresee cultural and political changes
that will result in great technological advances in Asia, in China and
India as well as Japan.  European integration will be especially
helpful to southern Europe and Russia.  And before 2020 the prosperity
can be expected to  extend even to Latin America and Africa.

            d.  Especially important for long-term change is the fact that these
technological changes will have an impact on education and government
procedures.

            e.  As these various changes take place, it will become evident to
everyone throughout the world that prosperity depends on inclusiveness
and respect for diversity.

            f.  The vision of Schwartz and Leyden views the U.S. as the "great
innovator nation."  They say that "the United States is paving the way
for other developed nations and, eventually, the rest of the nations of
the world."  Furthermore, "the United States serves as steward of the
idea of an open society," a fundamental base for the future progress of
the whole global society.

    B.  Accompanying the tremendous growth in material wealth and
providing a great stimulus for it is a <underline>huge increase in the
amount of knowledge about the world</underline> acquired by humanity
and the new technology based on it.

        1.  This increase in knowledge is especially evident in the
<underline>biological sciences</underline>.

            a.  The Human Genome Project has greatly advanced our knowledge
about our genetic nature, and has laid the foundation for unimaginable,
even scary, advances in genetic engineering.  It also provides
important new information for understanding how the evolution of life
forms on earth has proceeded.

            b.  This new knowledge in the field of biology is going to present a
challenge to some pre-scientific ways of thinking about the relation
between humans and the rest of nature.  For example, there is likely to
be greater interest in improving and prolonging this life and greater
doubt about the existence of any life-after-death.

            c.  There will also be great moral challenges about how to make use
of this new knowledge as we go from treating various kinds of illnesses
and defects to designing off-spring who won't even need to be treated.

        2.  There will also be great advances in our knowledge of the past,
of the nature and extent of the space-time universe, of the basic
principles of physics (especially of the very small), and of the
relations which exist between our brains and our minds.

    C.  One of the most difficult problems now confronting humanity but
one which gets far too little attention is the <underline>growing
gap</underline> in both material goods and available knowledge between
some who are fortunate and others who lack access to this rapidly
increasing wealth and knowledge.  As that gap widens, it will become
more and more difficult for individuals in one group to have any
empathy with individuals in the other group.  Moral concern may become
narrowed to one's own group of haves or have-nots.  The notion of a
genetically superior "master race" may be hard to challenge.  How will
we react if superior knowledge plus use of biotechnology actually
permits some part of humanity to become a "master race"?


III.  Becoming more narrowly focused on the current political state of
the global community, we can observe that <underline>the United States
is basically dominating the whole world</underline> and that this
situation is gradually arousing some resentment.

    A.  As already noted, the U.S., with less than 6 % of the world's
population, accounts for over 25% of the world's economic product.  It
is responsible for over a third of the military spending in the world
and has a military budget which exceeds the next 10 countries combined.
The economic dominance of the United States has made American ways of
doing things known everywhere while American films and music and TV
networks have produced a U.S.-dominated global culture.  Because of
U.S. influence, English is the dominant international language.
Basically, "globalization" is just another word for "Americanization."
The U.S. uses various international organizations such as the United
Nations, NATO, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), and so on as instruments for
controlling the world.

    B.  Resentment can come in the form of direct violent attacks on the
symbols of U.S. dominance as occurred on September 11 at the World
Trade Centers and the Pentagon.

        1.  These attacks are carried out by "terrorists," by people who
oppose us but who would have no chance of winning a traditional war
against us.

        2.  But furthermore they are carried out by ignorant people who lack
understanding of us and our concerns.  Even the better educated leaders
such as Osama bin Ladin are zealots who do not understand how out of
touch with reality their own beliefs are.

        3.  President Bush is right that defeating such committed enemies
will take a long time.  On the other hand, in the long run there is no
chance that these extremists will prevail militarily or otherwise.

        4.  What the United States must consider is the social and
intellectual conditions that lead people to commit themselves to
fighting against us.  We need to realize that people who feel they have
no chance to live a decent life and who are propagandized to accept
Medieval doctrines rather than being educated about the world are more
likely to be manipulated into dedicating themselves to the use of
violence against us.

    C.  Resentment can also come <underline>from our own
allies</underline> who are beginning to become concerned about our
overwhelming superiority in military technology and who dislike the
uncooperative attitude of the U.S. toward international agreements and
international institution-building such as the landmines treaty, the
nuclear test-ban treaty, the ABM Treaty, the U.N., the Law of the Sea
Treaty, and the creation of the ICC.  A difference of opinion about
whether the death penalty is ever appropriate is another factor in this
conflict between the U.S. and its European allies.

        1.  It is not an accident that the European governments are becoming
ever more ready to support of the full integration of Europe and the
creation of a European military force that would operate separately
from NATO.

        2.  A recent newspaper article (Dec. 16, 2001) about the European
Union noted:

"In terms of population and gross domestic product, this enlarged
European Union would be bigger and richer that the United States.  And
that is largely the point, as the EU's top politicians stated plainly
thoughout this meeting."

        3.  Other traditional allies such as Canada, Australia, and Japan
have indicated that they are ready to move forward in opposition to our
anti-U.N., anti-global views.

    D.  <underline>Russia</underline> has temporarily found accommodation
with our anti-terrorist effort since they have been battling the same
Muslim fundamentalists for years in Afghanistan and Chechnya.  They
also are getting their economy in order now and are ready to accept a
place as the only nuclear power that is close to being on a par with
the United States.  They are moving toward accepting a role in NATO in
order to be a part of Europe and not vulnerable to Chinese
expansionism.  Russia has great potential in the long term due to its
abundant supply natural resources of many different kinds.

    E.  <underline>China</underline> is slowly moving forward, confident
that eventually it will overtake the U.S. economically and thus will no
longer need to be subservient to us.  There is little doubt that the
Chinese would like to reincorporate Taiwan into their country, but it
seems to me that they will be patient and will not attempt to do this
militarily if it means outright war against the U.S.  I see the Chinese
as focused on improving their own society and aiming to show that they
can create a superior society more worthy of imitation than that of the
U.S.  As long as the people of Taiwan don't themselves want to be part
of China, the government of China will view that as a failure on their
part.  The Han Chinese view themselves as a superior people but not in
a military sense.  It is worth remembering that in the Confucian view,
soldiers have a very low social status.  Soldiers are viewed as
individuals who are unable to make productive or beautiful things that
make life better.

    F.  <underline>Japan</underline> is struggling economically at the
moment after doing very well in the 1980s when the U.S. was handicapped
by the military spending required by the Cold War.  it can be expected
that the Japanese will redesign the fundamentals of their political and
economic system to more nearly approximate that of the U.S., but they
can also be expected to borrow from the Chinese system, especially if
that system seems to be doing better than U.S.  The Japanese have
traditionally been great imitators and duplicators of what they regard
as superior.

    G.  <underline>India</underline> is poised to emerge as one of the
main powers in the world, assisted greatly in their modernization by
the familiarity of their upper classes with the English language.  As
previously noted the gross national income of India is already fifth in
the world, and their democratic political system is working out the
details of a truly multi-ethnic society.

    H.  <underline>Brazil</underline> is another emerging giant whose
gross national income already is ninth in the world, and which can be
expected to dominate South America despite its use of the Portuguese
language rather than the Spanish used in most of the rest of Latin
America.

    I.  <underline>Mexico</underline> also has great potential and has the
great advantage, which for so long was a great disdvantage, of being
right next to the United States.  The gross national product of Mexico
is already tenth in the world, ahead of South Korea, Russia, Indonesia,
Australia, Turkey, and Argentina.

    J.  In the Middle East, huge progress is possible if the struggle
between Israel and its Arab neighbors can be brought to an end.  Israel
is a modern industrialized state which is 26th in the world in per
capita income.  The future of this region also will depend much on the
ability of the Arab countries and their strong conservative religious
communities to accommodate to industrialization. 

    K.  It seems that Africa will be the last continent to enter the
industrialized modern world, but an integrated, somewhat
industrialized, resource-rich <underline>South Africa</underline> can
lead the way here.  South Africa's gross national product is already
23rd in the world, ahead of Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, and
Greece.


IV.  One big problem for the global community which I have not
mentioned yet is <underline>global pollution</underline>.

    A.  The failure of the United States to cooperate in addressing this
problem is another source of conflict with the Europeans.  They are
ready to accept the idea that the less-developed countries should not
be required immediately to adopt the same anti-pollution standards as
the richer countries.  The United States, on the other hand, insists
that the rules must be absolutely the same for everyone.

    B.  Meanwhile this disagreement allows the global situation to
continue where the less-developed countries compete against each other
in a "race to the bottom" as they try to attract industry with the
promise of lax pollution controls.

    C.  Unfortunately, the less-developed countries themselves are so
eager to attract any industry they can that they work in the World
Trade Organization to oppose efforts to preserve the environment or to
protect workers from mistreatment.

    D.  Undoubtedly, new technologies are being developed that can reduce
the amount of pollution, especially in the areas of energy conservation
and new forms of energy production.  The problem is that use of these
technologies needs to be encouraged by governments, and right now most
of the national governments are not willing to do that.

    E.  The fact that the worsening of these environmental problems
usually happens only gradually means that government action tends to be
postponed indefinitely.

    F.  The prospects for action to deal with global pollution do not look
good, especially so long as the United States does not make it a
priority.

    G.  Real action in this area is going to require some outstanding
leadership both in this country and the world or some kind of sudden
catastrophe that wakes everyone up.


V.  Another big problem which should be mentioned is
<underline>population growth</underline>.

    A.  As is generally known, this problem is greatest in the poorer
countries.

    B.  Unfortunately, population growth in many poor countries may be
checked to some extent by the spread of HIV/AIDS.

    C.  It is becoming evident to almost everyone that two of the main
ways of controlling excessive population growth are to promote economic
development and to support the education of women.  As people become
richer, they have fewer children.  Societies which reach high levels of
development often face the problem of too low a birth rate.  And as
women become better educated, they quickly cut back on the number of
children they have.

    D.  Because governments do want to promote economic development and
because women are little-by-little getting more education, it seems
that this population problem eventually will get solved.

    E.  The big challenge is to deal more actively with this problem, and
a big part of doing that is addressing the widening gap between the
rich and the poor mentioned earlier.


VI.  Finally, let me discuss a problem for the global community not
usually mentioned because of its controversial nature, namely, the
problem of <underline>the continuing influence of conservative dogmatic
religious groups</underline> which propagandize their members to
continue accepting as true ideas about the world which happened to come
into the minds of some humans hundreds of years ago but which we now
can be confident are false.

    A.  It is dangerous to allow young people to be indoctrinated to
accept only the ideas of these dogmatic religious groups rather than to
be educated to think for themselves.

    B.  Traditional religions are based on the acceptance of some
authority instead of trying to think critically for oneself.

    C.  In virtually every religion there are some dogmatic groups that
get carried away with the importance of this authority and seek to keep
the religion "pure" from all other influences and to keep their young
people from even hearing other ideas.  We see this happening whether we
look at Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Shintoism, Hinduism, or a
"secular religion" such as Communism.  One can see the influence of
these dogmatic religious groups in wars and violence all over the
world, not only in al Quaeda but also in the dispute between the
Israelis and the Palestinians, between Pakistan and India, in Northern
Ireland, in the Philippines, and so on.

    D.  Many of these dogmatic groups keep conflicts going by refusing to
accept even reasonable compromises and by using violence against those
who have different ideas.

    E.  To deal with this problem, we need to recognize the importance of
philosophy, that is, thinking critically for oneself, in the education
of all children in all societies.  There is <underline>no right to
indoctrinate</underline> your children in your own beliefs.  Society
should maintain that every human has a right to think for himself or
herself, and that neither parents or any religious community should
have the power to nullify this right of every human being to
self-development.


VII.  Conclusion

    A.  For my concluding thought on the state of the global community,
let me return to that optimistic article in <underline>Wired
Magazine</underline> by Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden.

    B.  "We're forming a new civilization, a global civilation, distinct
from those that arose on the planet before.  It's not just Western
civilization writ large -- one hegemonic culture forcing itself on
others.  It's not a resurgent Chinese civilization struggling to
reassert itself after years of being thwarted.  It's a strange blend of
both -- and the others. . . . .In 2020, information technologies [will]
have spread to every corner of the planet.  Real-time language
translation is reliable.  The great cross-fertilication of ideas, the
ongoing, never-ending planetary conversation has begun.  From this, the
new crossroads of all civilizations, the new civilization will
emerge."

    C.  I would only question (1) their lack of any serious consideration
of the political aspects of the global society as a whole (at one point
they do say, "Many young people say that the end of the nation-state is
in sight" but they never so much as mention the United Nations let
alone the possibility of a democratic world federation) plus (2) their
readiness to rely on computer translation rather than having everyone
on earth learn a common language.  It would be rather strange not be
able to communicate with others face-to-face and not to be able to sing
songs with them.  Technological translation might be helpful, but
talking through a cell phone even when you are directly in front of the
other person hardly seems to be a satisfactory basis for communication
in the global community.

    D.  We need the new technology and its consequences so persuasively
described by Schwartz and Leyden, but we also need sensible global
governmental structures (yes, a democratic world federation) and
sensible policies on matters such as language use (yes, the use of a
common neutral language such as Esperanto).