Our collective moment of reckoning
By Arash Fazli
Over the past few years, humanity has been forced to adapt to an unprecedented state of global uncertainty, arising from multiple, interlocking crises. The COVID-19 pandemic, our collective drift towards the catastrophic consequences of climate change, increasing geopolitical instability and inter-state conflict, the breakdown of trust in institutions of governance, and the rise of political extremism have all rocked the foundations of the present social, economic, and political order and have profoundly undermined confidence in a future of peace and prosperity.
In response, many statespeople and leaders of thought have called for bold changes. There seems to be consciousness that, while incremental adjustments to existing systems can mitigate the impact of these crises and to some extent help us adapt to them, overcoming such challenges will call for a more fundamental reorganization of our collective lives. Unless we learn to live and work together in greater unity, with a much deeper consciousness of our underlying oneness despite our diverse identities; unless we establish a far more just economic and social order; unless we are able to bring humanity into far better balance with the biosphere, hopes for a prosperous and flourishing future will remain out of reach. The real bold changes our world needs are thus at the level of establishing balance, justice, and oneness in the essential relationships that sustain human life.
While such principles are often extolled at the level of rhetoric, the suggestion that we reorganize our collective lives based on them would be dismissed by many as a form of naivete. The iron rule that continues to shape thinking and policy making in politics and economics is the pursuit of self-interest. Assuming human beings to be inherently self-interested, numerous social systems that underpin the present global order have been structured as rules-based contests, pitting individuals or groups against one another in the pursuit of their own well-being.
Such arrangements were intended to ensure that the best and most popular ideas would prevail and that society would benefit from increasing innovation, efficiency, and creativity. But the individualistic and materialistic assumptions underlying these systems give rise to and perpetuate many of the modern world’s most pressing challenges, including gross disparities between the rich and poor, the isolation and alienation resulting from weakening of the social fabric, the degradation of the environment, loss of cultural diversity, and a growing sense of moral cynicism and nihilism. Further, these systems, which were created in response to realities of the 17th and 18th centuries, are clearly outdated in the globalized, highly interconnected, and technologically advanced world of today.
Building a world that is united, just, and reflective of our interconnectedness with nature will require a new understanding of human nature. Such an understanding would not deny our material nature, which is a product of physical evolution. Yet it would take seriously our capacity to transcend baser instincts and to find meaning, purpose, and joy in the cultivation of moral virtues and in fostering harmonious and loving relationships with each other.
Further, when the human world is considered as an organic, interconnected system, it becomes apparent that the principles best suited for collective thriving within such a system are those that are in sync with, and not against, its inherent interdependence. Such principles of reciprocity and mutuality can be found in the relationship between elements in any organic entity. Unlike the rest of nature, however, in the human world this process of cooperation and collaboration is not the outcome of an involuntary, self-regulating process. For human beings, it involves the element of conscious choice. It is this choice that makes the attainment of ever higher degrees of oneness and justice a uniquely moral achievement, involving the willingness to harmonize individual aspirations and interests with the long-term interests of the collective.
The sobering consequences of ignoring these higher principles is becoming everyday more apparent. The COVID-19 pandemic could have ended if nations would have come together to ensure that people in all countries were vaccinated. Yet, such a coordinated global response did not materialize to the extent necessary. In many societies, due to a breakdown of trust in institutions of governance and in the scientific establishment, significant segments of the population continue to resist vaccinations and public health protocols, with the result that the virus continues to circulate and mutate, imperiling everyone’s wellbeing. Or take the case of climate change. The world knows that to avoid the worst effects of global warming, we will need to make rapid and drastic changes to the way we live, grow our food, organize our economies, and interact with nature. Yet, the competitive race for economic and military dominance has kept nations locked into a pattern of maintaining the status quo to such an extent that even the possibility of systemic change seems inconceivable. A similar situation prevails in the realm of geopolitics, where the world drifts towards instability because countries seem incapable of rising above the momentary calculations of narrowly defined self-interests.
What the above examples make clear is that the presumed dichotomy between national interest and the welfare of humanity as a whole is a false one that arises out of a short-term and narrow perspective. When viewed from a broader perspective, unencumbered by parochialism and short-term time horizons, the welfare of a nation or group can be seen to be inextricably bound up with the welfare of the whole.
One of the cruelest consequences of the paradigm of contest and self-interest is that it has crippled human imagination and made alternative possibilities for organizing society, based on moral principles, seem inconceivable. History shows, however, that paradigmatic change in the moral order is not an anomaly. To the contrary, it is a discernible pattern that regularly accompanies periods of profound crisis. Every moral victory achieved in humanity’s process of collective development was inconceivable in a previous stage of development.
The feudal world of the 19th century, for example, where education and privileges were restricted to aristocratic segments of society, could never have imagined a day when every human being, at least in principle, would enjoy equal human rights and education would be available to all. A century ago, when the world was still divided by competing empires, it would have been hard to imagine that a new world order would emerge where numerous peoples, including some of the most subjugated, would achieve political freedom and form their own state. And yet that world has come about. Imagine what possibilities lie ahead.
Eventually our reasons to embrace profound change will be not just moral or ideological, but rather a matter of pragmatic necessity. Continuing to assert self-interest as the sole guiding principle of national and international relations is a recipe for division and myopic action. At some point, turning to our ideals will no longer be a matter of preference or a mere option to be pursued, but a necessity. A critical question before the present generation, then, is whether we will wait for even more destructive effects of climate change, another world war, or some other catastrophe to force us to organize our collective lives around these high moral principles, or whether we will choose to do so proactively, as an act of collective will. This may well be our moment of reckoning, when history compels us to once again define for ourselves who we are as a human race and what we choose to be our collective destiny.
Arash Fazli is Assistant Professor and Head of the Bahá'í Chair for Studies in Development at Devi Ahilya University, Indore. He previously worked as a journalist with The Hindu and The Times of India and as a Principal Researcher with the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity.