Dear Lexi,

It is time for a radical rethinking, but we are unlikely to do it.

One source for conflict is the attitude that Marxism, Christianity and Islam take. "We know what is best for the world. All we have to do is spread our ideas, and there will be a better world. How can we best spread our ideas?"

If they could only change it to: "We know what is best for the world. However, we must face the reality that everybody is not going to see it our way no matter what we do. How can we best live with those who will not accept our ideas?"

Dear David F.,

You're right.

We have a communication problem between tribes
who implicitly and explicitely perceive the
world in different ways.

Unfortunately there is a tendency on so many
people's parts to think that their way is the right
way and that people who disagree with them are bad.
That they are on the right path, and that their
path is the only path.
Yet a healthy, vital society is not one in which
we all agree. It is one in which those who disagree
can do so with honour and respect for other people's
opinions, and an appreciation of our shared humanity.
Without personal commitment to the attributes of
fair play and integrity, we're in grave danger.

If more and more nuclear weapons are built, and if more
sophisticated means of delivering them are devised,
and if more and more nations get control of these vile
devices, then surely we risk our own destruction.

As I've stated in the past, if ways are found to reverse
that process, then we may be able to divert unprecedented
energy and resources to the real problems that face us,
including poverty, disease, overpopulation, and the
devastation of our environment.

We can only hope and trust that our ultimate choice will
be to enhance the life on this planet on which we live.
But I'm not sure how good our prospects are while all over
the world hundreds of thousands of scientists and
engineers devote their skills to planning new and more
efficient ways for humans to kill one another and millions of
workers labour to manufacture instruments of death; and
tens of millions of soldiers train for combat.

From a moral and even an economic point of view, this
vast investment of human ingenuity and energy seems like
such a tragic waste.

Lexi

"Yet a healthy, vital society is not one in which we all agree"... quite so, as I said above, it is the friction between ideas, good bad and downright silly, that causes us to 'progress', the basis of praxis as I understand the phrase.

"It is one in which those who disagree can do so with honour and respect for other people's opinions, and an appreciation of our shared humanity", oh my gawd, 'honour and respect for other people's opinions'.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean there.

If you said, 'understand that others have opinions that may differ to ones own' I could handle that for a replacement for 'honour'.

But 'respect' is a hard one. I most certainly do not 'respect' a lot of the opinions put forward here. Some are total balderdash, and I could never 'respect' them at all.

That said, I do realise that others (wrong though they are, of course) might feel that about my opinions posted here and I certainly would not expect them to 'respect' my views either.

It is this rather silly idea we seem to carry from one age to another, that there is a 'solution' to our woes, real or imagined, and I doubt there is.

It seems to have its roots in the various quite childish notions of paradise and heaven that we inflict on ourselves, and while we can only dream of what they might be after death, there is a determination to create a trial run down here on Earth.

Oh folly! What a wasteful and dangerous idea.

Whilst ever we all talk at cross-purposes, our purposes will remain cross, too much of the time.

The answer is no to transcend. Not while the world has religion in varying aspects. Like the AU indig; never mingled, and still one tribe cannot understand the other. We are stuck with what we have, and that will probably end mankind, all in the name of disunity of association.

The principle that will unite the people of the world is when all respect and love unconditionally.

Is it likely to happen? Probably never!

I don't like our chances of transcending tribalism.

Here's Arthur Koestler on the subject (under a header titled "The Curse of Language"):

"...the enormous range of intra-specific differences between human individuals, races and cultures; a diversity without parallel among other species. In Huxley's list of man's biological "uniquenesses", this wide range of variety in physical appearance and mental attributes actually occupies first place...what matters in our context is that these differences and contrasts were a powerful factor of mutual repellence between groups; with the result that the disruptive forces have always dominated the forces of cohesion in the species as a whole....The people of the neighbouring village were simply not considered con-specifics....one would imagine that the dawn of abstract, consceptualised thought, its communication by language, and its preservation by cumulative records would have counteracted these fratricidal, species-disrupting tendencies. In actual fact, the cliche about the unifying power of verbal communication represents only half the truth...In the first place is the trivial fact, while language facilitates communication within the group, it also crystallises cultural differences, and actually heightens barriers between groups....Among humans, the separative, group-estranging forces of language are active on every level: nations, tribes, regional dialects, the exclusive vocabularies and accents of social class; professional jargon...An emotionally maladjusted species, we have the uncanny power of turning every blessing, including language, into a curse."