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23 January 1995
To the National Spiritual Assemblies
of the &Baha'is throughout the world
Dear Friends,
As the twentieth century rapidly approaches its end, there is a
marked acceleration in the efforts of governments and peoples to reach
common understandings on issues affecting the future of humankind. The 1992
Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, the 1993
World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, the 1994 International Conference
on Population and Development in Cairo, the forthcoming March 1995 World Summit
for Social Development in Copenhagen, to be followed in September by the Fourth
World Conference on Women in Beijing, are conspicuous indications of this
acceleration. These events are as capstones to the myriad activities taking
place in different parts of the world involving a wide range of nongovernmental
organizations and networks in an urgent search for values, ideas and practical
measures that can advance prospects for the peaceful development of all
peoples. In this endeavor can be discerned the gathering momentum of an
emerging unity of thought in world undertakings, the realization of which our
sacred scriptures describe as one of the lights of unity that will illumine the
path to peace. The &Baha'is around the world are, of course, heartened by such
hopeful trends and will continue increasingly to lend moral and practical
support to them as opportunities allow.
In view of the intensive attention being given to the issues of social
and economic development since the Earth Summit in Brazil, we requested the
&Baha'i International Community's Office of Public Information to prepare a
statement on the concept of global prosperity in the context of the &Baha'i
Teachings. This statement is now ready for distribution. We are therefore
very pleased to send each of you herewith a copy of "The Prosperity of
Humankind" and to commend it to your use as you pursue activities that enable
you to interact with governments, organizations, and people everywhere. Our
confident hope is that the statement will assist you to foster understanding
of this important topic among the members of your communities and thus vitalize
their contribution to the constructive social processes at work throughout
the planet.
With loving &Baha'i greetings,
Enclosure
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THE PROSPERITY OF HUMANKIND
To an extent unimaginable a decade ago, the ideal of world peace is
taking on form and substance. Obstacles that long seemed immovable have
collapsed in humanity's path; apparently irreconcilable conflicts have begun
to surrender to processes of consultation and resolution; a willingness to
counter military aggression through unified international action is emerging.
The effect has been to awaken in both the masses of humanity and many world
leaders a degree of hopefulness about the future of our planet that had been
nearly extinguished.
Throughout the world, immense intellectual and spiritual energies are
seeking expression, energies whose gathering pressure is in direct proportion
to the frustrations of recent decades. Everywhere the signs multiply that the
earth's peoples yearn for an end to conflict and to the suffering and ruin from
which no land is any longer immune. These rising impulses for change must be
seized upon and channeled into overcoming the remaining barriers that block
realization of the age-old dream of global peace. The effort of will required
for such a task cannot be summoned up merely by appeals for action against
the countless ills afflicting society. It must be galvanized by a vision
of human prosperity in the fullest sense of the term -- an awakening to the
possibilities of the spiritual and material well-being now brought within
grasp. Its beneficiaries must be all of the planet's inhabitants, without
distinction, without the imposition of conditions unrelated to the fundamental
goals of such a reorganization of human affairs.
History has thus far recorded principally the experience of tribes,
cultures, classes, and nations. With the physical unification of the planet
in this century and acknowledgement of the interdependence of all who live on
it, the history of humanity as one people is now beginning. The long, slow
civilizing of human character has been a sporadic development, uneven and
admittedly inequitable in the material advantages it has conferred.
Nevertheless, endowed with the wealth of all the genetic and cultural diversity
that has evolved through past ages, the earth's inhabitants are now challenged
to draw on their collective inheritance to take up, consciously and
systematically, the responsibility for the design of their future.
It is unrealistic to imagine that the vision of the next stage in the
advancement of civilization can be formulated without a searching reexamination
of the attitudes and assumptions that currently underlie approaches to social
and economic development. At the most obvious level, such rethinking will
have to address practical matters of policy, resource utilization, planning
procedures, implementation methodologies, and organization. As it proceeds,
however, fundamental issues will quickly emerge, related to the long-term goals
to be pursued, the social structures required, the implications for development
of principles of social justice, and the nature and role of knowledge in
effecting enduring change. Indeed, such a reexamination will be driven to
seek a broad consensus of understanding about human nature itself.
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Two avenues of discussion open directly onto all of these issues,
whether conceptual or practical, and it is along these two avenues that we
wish to explore, in the pages that follow, the subject of a strategy of global
development. The first is prevailing beliefs about the nature and purpose of
the development process; the second is the roles assigned in it to the various
protagonists.
The assumptions directing most of current development planning are
essentially materialistic. That is to say, the purpose of development is
defined in terms of the successful cultivation in all societies of those means
for the achievement of material prosperity that have, through trial and error,
already come to characterize certain regions of the world. Modifications in
development discourse do indeed occur, accommodating differences of culture and
political system and responding to the alarming dangers posed by environmental
degradation. Yet the underlying materialistic assumptions remain essentially
unchallenged.
As the twentieth century draws to a close, it is no longer possible
to maintain the belief that the approach to social and economic development to
which the materialistic conception of life has given rise is capable of meeting
humanity's needs. Optimistic forecasts about the changes it would generate
have vanished into the ever-widening abyss that separates the living standards
of a small and relatively diminishing minority of the world's inhabitants from
the poverty experienced by the vast majority of the globe's population.
This unprecedented economic crisis, together with the social breakdown
it has helped to engender, reflects a profound error of conception about human
nature itself. For the levels of response elicited from human beings by the
incentives of the prevailing order are not only inadequate, but seem almost
irrelevant in the face of world events. We are being shown that, unless the
development of society finds a purpose beyond the mere amelioration of material
conditions, it will fail of attaining even these goals. That purpose must
be sought in spiritual dimensions of life and motivation that transcend a
constantly changing economic landscape and an artificially imposed division
of human societies into "developed" and "developing".
As the purpose of development is being redefined, it will become necessary
also to look again at assumptions about the appropriate roles to be played by
the protagonists in the process. The crucial role of government, at whatever
level, requires no elaboration. Future generations, however, will find almost
incomprehensible the circumstance that, in an age paying tribute to an
egalitarian philosophy and related democratic principles, development planning
should view the masses of humanity as essentially recipients of benefits from
aid and training. Despite acknowledgement of participation as a principle, the
scope of the decision making left to most of the world's population is at best
secondary, limited to a range of choices formulated by agencies inaccessible
to them and determined by goals that are often irreconcilable with their
perceptions of reality.
This approach is even endorsed, implicitly if not explicitly, by
established religion. Burdened by traditions of paternalism, prevailing
religious thought seems incapable of translating an expressed faith in the
spiritual dimensions of human nature into confidence in humanity's collective
capacity to transcend material conditions.
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Such an attitude misses the significance of what is likely the most
important social phenomenon of our time. If it is true that the governments
of the world are striving through the medium of the United Nations system to
construct a new global order, it is equally true that the peoples of the world
are galvanized by this same vision. Their response has taken the form of a
sudden efflorescence of countless movements and organizations of social change
at local, regional, and international levels. Human rights, the advance of
women, the social requirements of sustainable economic development, the
overcoming of prejudices, the moral education of children, literacy, primary
health care, and a host of other vital concerns each commands the urgent
advocacy of organizations supported by growing numbers in every part of
the globe.
This response of the world's people themselves to the crying needs of
the age echoes the call that &Baha'u'llah raised over a hundred years ago:
"Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your
deliberations on its exigencies and requirements." The transformation in the
way that great numbers of ordinary people are coming to see themselves --
a change that is dramatically abrupt in the perspective of the history of
civilization -- raises fundamental questions about the role assigned to the
general body of humanity in the planning of our planet's future.
I
The bedrock of a strategy that can engage the world's population in
assuming responsibility for its collective destiny must be the consciousness
of the oneness of humankind. Deceptively simple in popular discourse, the
concept that humanity constitutes a single people presents fundamental
challenges to the way that most of the institutions of contemporary society
carry out their functions. Whether in the form of the adversarial structure
of civil government, the advocacy principle informing most of civil law, a
glorification of the struggle between classes and other social groups, or the
competitive spirit dominating so much of modern life, conflict is accepted as
the mainspring of human interaction. It represents yet another expression in
social organization of the materialistic interpretation of life that has
progressively consolidated itself over the past two centuries.
In a letter addressed to Queen Victoria over a century ago, and employing
an analogy that points to the one model holding convincing promise for the
organization of a planetary society, &Baha'u'llah compared the world to the
human body. There is, indeed, no other model in phenomenal existence to which
we can reasonably look. Human society is composed not of a mass of merely
differentiated cells but of associations of individuals, each one of whom is
endowed with intelligence and will; nevertheless, the modes of operation that
characterize man's biological nature illustrate fundamental principles of
existence. Chief among these is that of unity in diversity. Paradoxically, it
is precisely the wholeness and complexity of the order constituting the human
body -- and the perfect integration into it of the body's cells -- that permit
the full realization of the distinctive capacities inherent in each of these
component elements. No cell lives apart from the body, whether in contributing
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to its functioning or in deriving its share from the well-being of the whole.
The physical well-being thus achieved finds its purpose in making possible the
expression of human consciousness; that is to say, the purpose of biological
development transcends the mere existence of the body and its parts.
What is true of the life of the individual has its parallels in human
society. The human species is an organic whole, the leading edge of the
evolutionary process. That human consciousness necessarily operates through
an infinite diversity of individual minds and motivations detracts in no way
from its essential unity. Indeed, it is precisely an inhering diversity that
distinguishes unity from homogeneity or uniformity. What the peoples of the
world are today experiencing, &Baha'u'llah said, is their collective coming-
of-age, and it is through this emerging maturity of the race that the principle
of unity in diversity will find full expression. From its earliest beginnings
in the consolidation of family life, the process of social organization has
successively moved from the simple structures of clan and tribe, through
multitudinous forms of urban society, to the eventual emergence of the
nation-state, each stage opening up a wealth of new opportunities for the
exercise of human capacity.
Clearly, the advancement of the race has not occurred at the expense of
human individuality. As social organization has increased, the scope for the
expression of the capacities latent in each human being has correspondingly
expanded. Because the relationship between the individual and society is a
reciprocal one, the transformation now required must occur simultaneously
within human consciousness and the structure of social institutions. It is in
the opportunities afforded by this twofold process of change that a strategy of
global development will find its purpose. At this crucial stage of history,
that purpose must be to establish enduring foundations on which planetary
civilization can gradually take shape.
Laying the groundwork for global civilization calls for the creation
of laws and institutions that are universal in both character and authority.
The effort can begin only when the concept of the oneness of humanity has been
wholeheartedly embraced by those in whose hands the responsibility for decision
making rests, and when the related principles are propagated through both
educational systems and the media of mass communication. Once this threshold
is crossed, a process will have been set in motion through which the peoples of
the world can be drawn into the task of formulating common goals and committing
themselves to their attainment. Only so fundamental a reorientation can
protect them, too, from the age-old demons of ethnic and religious strife.
Only through the dawning consciousness that they constitute a single people
will the inhabitants of the planet be enabled to turn away from the patterns of
conflict that have dominated social organization in the past and begin to learn
the ways of collaboration and conciliation. "The well-being of mankind,"
&Baha'u'llah writes, "its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until
its unity is firmly established."
II
Justice is the one power that can translate the dawning consciousness
of humanity's oneness into a collective will through which the necessary
structures of global community life can be confidently erected. An age that
sees the people of the world increasingly gaining access to information of
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every kind and to a diversity of ideas will find justice asserting itself as
the ruling principle of successful social organization. With ever greater
frequency, proposals aiming at the development of the planet will have to
submit to the candid light of the standards it requires.
At the individual level, justice is that faculty of the human soul that
enables each person to distinguish truth from falsehood. In the sight of God,
&Baha'u'llah avers, justice is "the best beloved of all things" since it permits
each individual to see with his own eyes rather than the eyes of others, to
know through his own knowledge rather than the knowledge of his neighbor or his
group. It calls for fair-mindedness in one's judgments, for equity in one's
treatment of others, and is thus a constant if demanding companion in the daily
occasions of life.
At the group level, a concern for justice is the indispensable compass
in collective decision making, because it is the only means by which unity
of thought and action can be achieved. Far from encouraging the punitive
spirit that has often masqueraded under its name in past ages, justice is the
practical expression of awareness that, in the achievement of human progress,
the interests of the individual and those of society are inextricably linked.
To the extent that justice becomes a guiding concern of human interaction,
a consultative climate is encouraged that permits options to be examined
dispassionately and appropriate courses of action selected. In such a
climate the perennial tendencies toward manipulation and partisanship are
far less likely to deflect the decision-making process.
The implications for social and economic development are profound.
Concern for justice protects the task of defining progress from the temptation
to sacrifice the well-being of the generality of humankind -- and even of the
planet itself -- to the advantages which technological breakthroughs can make
available to privileged minorities. In design and planning, it ensures that
limited resources are not diverted to the pursuit of projects extraneous to
a community's essential social or economic priorities. Above all, only
development programs that are perceived as meeting their needs and as being
just and equitable in objective can hope to engage the commitment of the masses
of humanity, upon whom implementation depends. The relevant human qualities
such as honesty, a willingness to work, and a spirit of cooperation are
successfully harnessed to the accomplishment of enormously demanding collective
goals when every member of society -- indeed every component group within
society -- can trust that they are protected by standards and assured of
benefits that apply equally to all.
At the heart of the discussion of a strategy of social and economic
development, therefore, lies the issue of human rights. The shaping of such a
strategy calls for the promotion of human rights to be freed from the grip of
the false dichotomies that have for so long held it hostage. Concern that each
human being should enjoy the freedom of thought and action conducive to his or
her personal growth does not justify devotion to the cult of individualism that
so deeply corrupts many areas of contemporary life. Nor does concern to ensure
the welfare of society as a whole require a deification of the state as the
supposed source of humanity's well-being. Far otherwise: the history of the
present century shows all too clearly that such ideologies and the partisan
agendas to which they give rise have been themselves the principal enemies of
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the interests they purport to serve. Only in a consultative framework made
possible by the consciousness of the organic unity of humankind can all aspects
of the concern for human rights find legitimate and creative expression.
Today, the agency on whom has devolved the task of creating this
framework and of liberating the promotion of human rights from those who
would exploit it is the system of international institutions born out of the
tragedies of two ruinous world wars and the experience of worldwide economic
breakdown. Significantly, the term "human rights" has come into general use
only since the promulgation of the United Nations Charter in l945 and the
adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights three years later. In
these history-making documents, formal recognition has been given to respect
for social justice as a correlative of the establishment of world peace. The
fact that the Declaration passed without a dissenting vote in the General
Assembly conferred on it from the outset an authority that has grown steadily
in the intervening years.
The activity most intimately linked to the consciousness that
distinguishes human nature is the individual's exploration of reality for
himself or herself. The freedom to investigate the purpose of existence and
to develop the endowments of human nature that make it achievable requires
protection. Human beings must be free to know. That such freedom is often
abused and such abuse grossly encouraged by features of contemporary society
does not detract in any degree from the validity of the impulse itself.
It is this distinguishing impulse of human consciousness that provides
the moral imperative for the enunciation of many of the rights enshrined in
the Universal Declaration and the related Covenants. Universal education,
freedom of movement, access to information, and the opportunity to participate
in political life are all aspects of its operation that require explicit
guarantee by the international community. The same is true of freedom of
thought and belief, including religious liberty, along with the right to hold
opinions and express these opinions appropriately.
Since the body of humankind is one and indivisible, each member of
the race is born into the world as a trust of the whole. This trusteeship
constitutes the moral foundation of most of the other rights -- principally
economic and social -- which the instruments of the United Nations are
attempting similarly to define. The security of the family and the home,
the ownership of property, and the right to privacy are all implied in such
a trusteeship. The obligations on the part of the community extend to the
provision of employment, mental and physical health care, social security, fair
wages, rest and recreation, and a host of other reasonable expectations on the
part of the individual members of society.
The principle of collective trusteeship creates also the right of
every person to expect that those cultural conditions essential to his or her
identity enjoy the protection of national and international law. Much like
the role played by the gene pool in the biological life of humankind and its
environment, the immense wealth of cultural diversity achieved over thousands
of years is vital to the social and economic development of a human race
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experiencing its collective coming-of-age. It represents a heritage that must
be permitted to bear its fruit in a global civilization. On the one hand,
cultural expressions need to be protected from suffocation by the materialistic
influences currently holding sway. On the other, cultures must be enabled to
interact with one another in ever-changing patterns of civilization, free of
manipulation for partisan political ends.
"The light of men", &Baha'u'llah says, "is Justice. Quench it not with
the contrary winds of oppression and tyranny. The purpose of justice is the
appearance of unity among men. The ocean of divine wisdom surgeth within this
exalted word, while the books of the world cannot contain its inner
significance."
III
In order for the standard of human rights now in the process of
formulation by the community of nations to be promoted and established
as prevailing international norms, a fundamental redefinition of human
relationships is called for. Present-day conceptions of what is natural and
appropriate in relationships -- among human beings themselves, between human
beings and nature, between the individual and society, and between the members
of society and its institutions -- reflect levels of understanding arrived at
by the human race during earlier and less mature stages in its development.
If humanity is indeed coming of age, if all the inhabitants of the planet
constitute a single people, if justice is to be the ruling principle of social
organization -- then existing conceptions that were born out of ignorance of
these emerging realities have to be recast.
Movement in this direction has barely begun. It will lead, as it unfolds,
to a new understanding of the nature of the family and of the rights and
responsibilities of each of its members. It will entirely transform the role
of women at every level of society. Its effect in reordering people's relation
to the work they do and their understanding of the place of economic activity
in their lives will be sweeping. It will bring about far-reaching changes in
the governance of human affairs and in the institutions created to carry it
out. Through its influence, the work of society's rapidly proliferating
nongovernmental organizations will be increasingly rationalized. It will
ensure the creation of binding legislation that will protect both the
environment and the development needs of all peoples. Ultimately, the
restructuring or transformation of the United Nations system that this movement
is already bringing about will no doubt lead to the establishment of a world
federation of nations with its own legislative, judicial, and executive bodies.
Central to the task of reconceptualizing the system of human relationships
is the process that &Baha'u'llah refers to as consultation. "In all things it
is necessary to consult," is His advice. "The maturity of the gift of
understanding is made manifest through consultation."
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The standard of truth seeking this process demands is far beyond
the patterns of negotiation and compromise that tend to characterize the
present-day discussion of human affairs. It cannot be achieved -- indeed, its
attainment is severely handicapped -- by the culture of protest that is another
widely prevailing feature of contemporary society. Debate, propaganda, the
adversarial method, the entire apparatus of partisanship that have long been
such familiar features of collective action are all fundamentally harmful to
its purpose: that is, arriving at a consensus about the truth of a given
situation and the wisest choice of action among the options open at any given
moment.
What &Baha'u'llah is calling for is a consultative process in which the
individual participants strive to transcend their respective points of view,
in order to function as members of a body with its own interests and goals.
In such an atmosphere, characterized by both candor and courtesy, ideas belong
not to the individual to whom they occur during the discussion but to the
group as a whole, to take up, discard, or revise as seems to best serve the
goal pursued. Consultation succeeds to the extent that all participants
support the decisions arrived at, regardless of the individual opinions
with which they entered the discussion. Under such circumstances an earlier
decision can be readily reconsidered if experience exposes any shortcomings.
Viewed in such a light, consultation is the operating expression of
justice in human affairs. So vital is it to the success of collective
endeavor that it must constitute a basic feature of a viable strategy of
social and economic development. Indeed, the participation of the people on
whose commitment and efforts the success of such a strategy depends becomes
effective only as consultation is made the organizing principle of every
project. "No man can attain his true station", is &Baha'u'llah's counsel,
"except through his justice. No power can exist except through unity.
No welfare and no well-being can be attained except through consultation."
IV
The tasks entailed in the development of a global society call for
levels of capacity far beyond anything the human race has so far been able to
muster. Reaching these levels will require an enormous expansion in access
to knowledge, on the part of individuals and social organizations alike.
Universal education will be an indispensable contributor to this process of
capacity building, but the effort will succeed only as human affairs are so
reorganized as to enable both individuals and groups in every sector of society
to acquire knowledge and apply it to the shaping of human affairs.
Throughout recorded history, human consciousness has depended upon two
basic knowledge systems through which its potentialities have progressively
been expressed: science and religion. Through these two agencies, the race's
experience has been organized, its environment interpreted, its latent powers
explored, and its moral and intellectual life disciplined. They have acted as
the real progenitors of civilization. With the benefit of hindsight, it is
evident, moreover, that the effectiveness of this dual structure has been
greatest during those periods when, each in its own sphere, religion and
science were able to work in concert.
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Given the almost universal respect in which science is currently held,
its credentials need no elaboration. In the context of a strategy of social
and economic development, the issue rather is how scientific and technological
activity is to be organized. If the work involved is viewed chiefly as the
preserve of established elites living in a small number of nations, it is
obvious that the enormous gap which such an arrangement has already created
between the world's rich and poor will only continue to widen, with the
disastrous consequences for the world's economy already noted. Indeed, if most
of humankind continue to be regarded mainly as users of products of science and
technology created elsewhere, then programs ostensibly designed to serve their
needs cannot properly be termed "development".
A central challenge, therefore -- and an enormous one -- is the expansion
of scientific and technological activity. Instruments of social and economic
change so powerful must cease to be the patrimony of advantaged segments of
society, and must be so organized as to permit people everywhere to participate
in such activity on the basis of capacity. Apart from the creation of programs
that make the required education available to all who are able to benefit from
it, such reorganization will require the establishment of viable centers of
learning throughout the world, institutions that will enhance the capability
of the world's peoples to participate in the generation and application of
knowledge. Development strategy, while acknowledging the wide differences of
individual capacity, must take as a major goal the task of making it possible
for all of the earth's inhabitants to approach on an equal basis the processes
of science and technology which are their common birthright. Familiar
arguments for maintaining the status quo grow daily less compelling as the
accelerating revolution in communication technologies now brings information
and training within reach of vast numbers of people around the globe, wherever
they may be, whatever their cultural backgrounds.
The challenges facing humanity in its religious life, if different
in character, are equally daunting. For the vast majority of the world's
population, the idea that human nature has a spiritual dimension -- indeed that
its fundamental identity is spiritual -- is a truth requiring no demonstration.
It is a perception of reality that can be discovered in the earliest records of
civilization and that has been cultivated for several millenia by every one of
the great religious traditions of humanity's past. Its enduring achievements
in law, the fine arts, and the civilizing of human intercourse are what give
substance and meaning to history. In one form or another its promptings are a
daily influence in the lives of most people on earth and, as events around the
world today dramatically show, the longings it awakens are both
inextinguishable and incalculably potent.
It would seem obvious, therefore, that efforts of any kind to promote
human progress must seek to tap capacities so universal and so immensely
creative. Why, then, have spiritual issues facing humanity not been central
to the development discourse? Why have most of the priorities -- indeed most
of the underlying assumptions -- of the international development agenda been
determined so far by materialistic world views to which only small minorities
of the earth's population subscribe? How much weight can be placed on a
professed devotion to the principle of universal participation that denies
the validity of the participants' defining cultural experience?
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It may be argued that, since spiritual and moral issues have historically
been bound up with contending theological doctrines which are not susceptible
of objective proof, these issues lie outside the framework of the international
community's development concerns. To accord them any significant role would
be to open the door to precisely those dogmatic influences that have nurtured
social conflict and blocked human progress. There is doubtless a measure of
truth in such an argument. Exponents of the world's various theological
systems bear a heavy responsibility not only for the disrepute into which faith
itself has fallen among many progressive thinkers, but for the inhibitions and
distortions produced in humanity's continuing discourse on spiritual meaning.
To conclude, however, that the answer lies in discouraging the investigation
of spiritual reality and ignoring the deepest roots of human motivation is a
self-evident delusion. The sole effect, to the degree that such censorship has
been achieved in recent history, has been to deliver the shaping of humanity's
future into the hands of a new orthodoxy, one which argues that truth is amoral
and facts are independent of values.
So far as earthly existence is concerned, many of the greatest
achievements of religion have been moral in character. Through its teachings
and through the examples of human lives illumined by these teachings, masses
of people in all ages and lands have developed the capacity to love. They
have learned to discipline the animal side of their natures, to make great
sacrifices for the common good, to practise forgiveness, generosity, and
trust, to use wealth and other resources in ways that serve the advancement
of civilization. Institutional systems have been devised to translate these
moral advances into the norms of social life on a vast scale. However obscured
by dogmatic accretions and diverted by sectarian conflict, the spiritual
impulses set in motion by such transcendent figures as Krishna, Moses, Buddha,
Zoroaster, Jesus, and Muhammad have been the chief influence in the civilizing
of human character.
Since, then, the challenge is the empowerment of humankind through a vast
increase in access to knowledge, the strategy that can make this possible must
be constructed around an ongoing and intensifying dialogue between science and
religion. It is -- or by now should be -- a truism that, in every sphere of
human activity and at every level, the insights and skills that represent
scientific accomplishment must look to the force of spiritual commitment and
moral principle to ensure their appropriate application. People need, for
example, to learn how to separate fact from conjecture -- indeed to distinguish
between subjective views and objective reality; the extent to which individuals
and institutions so equipped can contribute to human progress, however, will be
determined by their devotion to truth and their detachment from the promptings
of their own interests and passions. Another capacity that science must
cultivate in all people is that of thinking in terms of process, including
historical process; however, if this intellectual advancement is to contribute
ultimately to promoting development, its perspective must be unclouded by
prejudices of race, culture, sex, or sectarian belief. Similarly, the training
that can make it possible for the earth's inhabitants to participate in the
production of wealth will advance the aims of development only to the extent
that such an impulse is illumined by the spiritual insight that service to
humankind is the purpose of both individual life and social organization.
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V
It is in the context of raising the level of human capacity through the
expansion of knowledge at all levels that the economic issues facing humankind
need to be addressed. As the experience of recent decades has demonstrated,
material benefits and endeavors cannot be regarded as ends in themselves.
Their value consists not only in providing for humanity's basic needs in
housing, food, health care, and the like, but in extending the reach of human
abilities. The most important role that economic efforts must play in
development lies, therefore, in equipping people and institutions with the
means through which they can achieve the real purpose of development: that
is, laying foundations for a new social order that can cultivate the limitless
potentialities latent in human consciousness.
The challenge to economic thinking is to accept unambiguously this
purpose of development -- and its own role in fostering creation of the means
to achieve it. Only in this way can economics and the related sciences free
themselves from the undertow of the materialistic preoccupations that now
distract them, and fulfill their potential as tools vital to achieving human
well-being in the full sense of the term. Nowhere is the need for a rigorous
dialogue between the work of science and the insights of religion more
apparent.
The problem of poverty is a case in point. Proposals aimed at addressing
it are predicated on the conviction that material resources exist, or can be
created by scientific and technological endeavor, which will alleviate and
eventually entirely eradicate this age-old condition as a feature of human
life. A major reason why such relief is not achieved is that the necessary
scientific and technological advances respond to a set of priorities only
tangentially related to the real interests of the generality of humankind.
A radical reordering of these priorities will be required if the burden of
poverty is finally to be lifted from the world. Such an achievement demands a
determined quest for appropriate values, a quest that will test profoundly both
the spiritual and scientific resources of humankind. Religion will be severely
hampered in contributing to this joint undertaking so long as it is held
prisoner by sectarian doctrines which cannot distinguish between contentment
and mere passivity and which teach that poverty is an inherent feature of
earthly life, escape from which lies only in the world beyond. To participate
effectively in the struggle to bring material well-being to humanity, the
religious spirit must find -- in the Source of inspiration from which it
flows -- new spiritual concepts and principles relevant to an age that seeks
to establish unity and justice in human affairs.
Unemployment raises similar issues. In most of contemporary thinking,
the concept of work has been largely reduced to that of gainful employment
aimed at acquiring the means for the consumption of available goods. The
system is circular: acquisition and consumption resulting in the maintenance
and expansion of the production of goods and, in consequence, in supporting
paid employment. Taken individually, all of these activities are essential to
the well-being of society. The inadequacy of the overall conception, however,
can be read in both the apathy that social commentators discern among large
numbers of the employed in every land and the demoralization of the growing
armies of the unemployed.
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Not surprisingly, therefore, there is increasing recognition that the
world is in urgent need of a new "work ethic". Here again, nothing less than
insights generated by the creative interaction of the scientific and religious
systems of knowledge can produce so fundamental a reorientation of habits and
attitudes. Unlike animals, which depend for their sustenance on whatever the
environment readily affords, human beings are impelled to express the immense
capacities latent within them through productive work designed to meet their
own needs and those of others. In acting thus they become participants, at
however modest a level, in the processes of the advancement of civilization.
They fulfill purposes that unite them with others. To the extent that work is
consciously undertaken in a spirit of service to humanity, &Baha'u'llah says,
it is a form of prayer, a means of worshiping God. Every individual has the
capacity to see himself or herself in this light, and it is to this inalienable
capacity of the self that development strategy must appeal, whatever the nature
of the plans being pursued, whatever the rewards they promise. No narrower a
perspective will ever call up from the people of the world the magnitude of
effort and commitment that the economic tasks ahead will require.
A challenge of similar nature faces economic thinking as a result of the
environmental crisis. The fallacies in theories based on the belief that there
is no limit to nature's capacity to fulfill any demand made on it by human
beings have now been coldly exposed. A culture which attaches absolute value
to expansion, to acquisition, and to the satisfaction of people's wants is
being compelled to recognize that such goals are not, by themselves, realistic
guides to policy. Inadequate, too, are approaches to economic issues whose
decision-making tools cannot deal with the fact that most of the major
challenges are global rather than particular in scope.
The earnest hope that this moral crisis can somehow be met by deifying
nature itself is an evidence of the spiritual and intellectual desperation
that the crisis has engendered. Recognition that creation is an organic whole
and that humanity has the responsibility to care for this whole, welcome as
it is, does not represent an influence which can by itself establish in the
consciousness of people a new system of values. Only a breakthrough in
understanding that is scientific and spiritual in the fullest sense of the
terms will empower the human race to assume the trusteeship toward which
history impels it.
All people will have sooner or later to recover, for example, the
capacity for contentment, the welcoming of moral discipline, and the devotion
to duty that, until relatively recently, were considered essential aspects of
being human. Repeatedly throughout history, the teachings of the Founders of
the great religions have been able to instill these qualities of character in
the mass of people who responded to them. The qualities themselves are even
more vital today, but their expression must now take a form consistent with
humanity's coming-of-age. Here again, religion's challenge is to free itself
from the obsessions of the past: contentment is not fatalism; morality has
nothing in common with the life-denying puritanism that has so often presumed
to speak in its name; and a genuine devotion to duty brings feelings not of
self-righteousness but of self-worth.
The effect of the persistent denial to women of full equality with men
sharpens still further the challenge to science and religion in the economic
life of humankind. To any objective observer the principle of the equality of
the sexes is fundamental to all realistic thinking about the future well-being
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of the earth and its people. It represents a truth about human nature that has
waited largely unrecognized throughout the long ages of the race's childhood
and adolescence. "Women and men", is &Baha'u'llah's emphatic assertion, "have
been and will always be equal in the sight of God." The rational soul has no
sex, and whatever social inequities may have been dictated by the survival
requirements of the past, they clearly cannot be justified at a time when
humanity stands at the threshold of maturity. A commitment to the
establishment of full equality between men and women, in all departments of
life and at every level of society, will be central to the success of efforts
to conceive and implement a strategy of global development.
Indeed, in an important sense, progress in this area will itself be a
measure of the success of any development program. Given the vital role of
economic activity in the advancement of civilization, visible evidence of the
pace at which development is progressing will be the extent to which women gain
access to all avenues of economic endeavor. The challenge goes beyond ensuring
an equitable distribution of opportunity, important as that is. It calls for
a fundamental rethinking of economic issues in a manner that will invite the
full participation of a range of human experience and insight hitherto largely
excluded from the discourse. The classical economic models of impersonal
markets in which human beings act as autonomous makers of self-regarding
choices will not serve the needs of a world motivated by ideals of unity and
justice. Society will find itself increasingly challenged to develop new
economic models shaped by insights that arise from a sympathetic understanding
of shared experience, from viewing human beings in relation to others, and from
a recognition of the centrality to social well-being of the role of the family
and the community. Such an intellectual breakthrough -- strongly altruistic
rather than self-centered in focus -- must draw heavily on both the spiritual
and scientific sensibilities of the race, and millenia of experience have
prepared women to make crucial contributions to the common effort.
VI
To contemplate a transformation of society on this scale is to raise both
the question of the power that can be harnessed to accomplish it and the issue
inextricably linked to it, the authority to exercise that power. As with all
other implications of the accelerating integration of the planet and its
people, both of these familiar terms stand in urgent need of redefinition.
Throughout history -- and despite theologically or ideologically inspired
assurances to the contrary -- power has been largely interpreted as advantage
enjoyed by persons or groups. Often, indeed, it has been expressed simply in
terms of means to be used against others. This interpretation of power has
become an inherent feature of the culture of division and conflict that has
characterized the human race during the past several millenia, regardless of
the social, religious, or political orientations that have enjoyed ascendancy
in given ages, in given parts of the world. In general, power has been an
attribute of individuals, factions, peoples, classes, and nations. It has
been an attribute especially associated with men rather than women. Its
chief effect has been to confer on its beneficiaries the ability to acquire,
to surpass, to dominate, to resist, to win.
+P 14
The resulting historical processes have been responsible for both ruinous
setbacks in human well-being and extraordinary advances in civilization. To
appreciate the benefits is to acknowledge also the setbacks, as well as the
clear limitations of the behavioral patterns that have produced both. Habits
and attitudes related to the use of power which emerged during the long ages
of humanity's infancy and adolescence have reached the outer limits of their
effectiveness. Today, in an era most of whose pressing problems are global in
nature, persistence in the idea that power means advantage for various segments
of the human family is profoundly mistaken in theory and of no practical
service to the social and economic development of the planet. Those who
still adhere to it -- and who could in earlier eras have felt confident in
such adherence -- now find their plans enmeshed in inexplicable frustrations
and hindrances. In its traditional, competitive expression, power is as
irrelevant to the needs of humanity's future as would be the technologies of
railway locomotion to the task of lifting space satellites into orbits around
the earth.
The analogy is more than a little apt. The human race is being urged
by the requirements of its own maturation to free itself from its inherited
understanding and use of power. That it can do so is demonstrated by the fact
that, although dominated by the traditional conception, humanity has always
been able to conceive of power in other forms critical to its hopes. History
provides ample evidence that, however intermittently and ineptly, people of
every background, throughout the ages, have tapped a wide range of creative
resources within themselves. The most obvious example, perhaps, has been the
power of truth itself, an agent of change associated with some of the greatest
advances in the philosophical, religious, artistic, and scientific experience
of the race. Force of character represents yet another means of mobilizing
immense human response, as does the influence of example, whether in the lives
of individual human beings or in human societies. Almost wholly unappreciated
is the magnitude of the force that will be generated by the achievement of
unity, an influence "so powerful", in &Baha'u'llah's words, "that it can
illuminate the whole Earth."
The institutions of society will succeed in eliciting and directing
the potentialities latent in the consciousness of the world's peoples to the
extent that the exercise of authority is governed by principles that are in
harmony with the evolving interests of a rapidly maturing human race. Such
principles include the obligation of those in authority to win the confidence,
respect, and genuine support of those whose actions they seek to govern; to
consult openly and to the fullest extent possible with all whose interests are
affected by decisions being arrived at; to assess in an objective manner both
the real needs and the aspirations of the communities they serve; to benefit
from scientific and moral advancement in order to make appropriate use of the
community's resources, including the energies of its members. No single
principle of effective authority is so important as giving priority to building
and maintaining unity among the members of a society and the members of its
administrative institutions. Reference has already been made to the intimately
associated issue of commitment to the search for justice in all matters.
Clearly, such principles can operate only within a culture that is
essentially democratic in spirit and method. To say this, however, is not
to endorse the ideology of partisanship that has everywhere boldly assumed
democracy's name and which, despite impressive contributions to human progress
in the past, today finds itself mired in the cynicism, apathy, and corruption
+P 15
to which it has given rise. In selecting those who are to take collective
decisions on its behalf, society does not need and is not well served by
the political theater of nominations, candidature, electioneering, and
solicitation. It lies within the capacity of all people, as they become
progressively educated and convinced that their real development interests
are being served by programs proposed to them, to adopt electoral procedures
that will gradually refine the selection of their decision-making bodies.
As the integration of humanity gains momentum, those who are thus selected
will increasingly have to see all their efforts in a global perspective.
Not only at the national, but also at the local level, the elected governors of
human affairs should, in &Baha'u'llah's view, consider themselves responsible
for the welfare of all of humankind.
VII
The task of creating a global development strategy that will accelerate
humanity's coming-of-age constitutes a challenge to reshape fundamentally all
the institutions of society. The protagonists to whom the challenge addresses
itself are all of the inhabitants of the planet: the generality of humankind,
members of governing institutions at all levels, persons serving in agencies of
international coordination, scientists and social thinkers, all those endowed
with artistic talents or with access to the media of communication, and leaders
of nongovernmental organizations. The response called for must base itself on
an unconditioned recognition of the oneness of humankind, a commitment to the
establishment of justice as the organizing principle of society, and a
determination to exploit to their utmost the possibilities that a systematic
dialogue between the scientific and religious genius of the race can bring to
the building of human capacity. The enterprise requires a radical rethinking
of most of the concepts and assumptions currently governing social and economic
life. It must be wedded, as well, to a conviction that, however long the
process and whatever setbacks may be encountered, the governance of human
affairs can be conducted along lines that serve humanity's real needs.
Only if humanity's collective childhood has indeed come to an end and
the age of its adulthood is dawning does such a prospect represent more than
another utopian mirage. To imagine that an effort of the magnitude envisioned
here can be summoned up by despondent and mutually antagonistic peoples and
nations runs counter to the whole of received wisdom. Only if, as &Baha'u'llah
asserts to be the case, the course of social evolution has arrived at one of
those decisive turning points through which all of the phenomena of existence
are impelled suddenly forward into new stages of their development, can such
a possibility be conceived. A profound conviction that just so great a
transformation in human consciousness is underway has inspired the views set
forth in this statement. To all who recognize in it familiar promptings from
within their own hearts, &Baha'u'llah's words bring assurance that God has, in
this matchless day, endowed humanity with spiritual resources fully equal to
the challenge:
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O ye that inhabit the heavens and the earth! There hath appeared
what hath never previously appeared.
This is the Day in which God's most excellent favors have been
poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been
infused into all created things.
The turmoil now convulsing human affairs is unprecedented, and many of its
consequences enormously destructive. Dangers unimagined in all history gather
around a distracted humanity. The greatest error that the world's leadership
could make at this juncture, however, would be to allow the crisis to cast
doubt on the ultimate outcome of the process that is occurring. A world is
passing away and a new one is struggling to be born. The habits, attitudes,
and institutions that have accumulated over the centuries are being subjected
to tests that are as necessary to human development as they are inescapable.
What is required of the peoples of the world is a measure of faith and resolve
to match the enormous energies with which the Creator of all things has endowed
this spiritual springtime of the race. "Be united in counsel," is
&Baha'u'llah's appeal,
be one in thought. Let each morn be better than its eve and each
morrow richer than its yesterday. Man's merit lieth in service and
virtue and not in the pageantry of wealth and riches. Take heed that
your words be purged from idle fancies and worldly desires and your
deeds be cleansed from craftiness and suspicion. Dissipate not the
wealth of your precious lives in the pursuit of evil and corrupt
affection, nor let your endeavors be spent in promoting your personal
interest. Be generous in your days of plenty, and be patient in the
hour of loss. Adversity is followed by success and rejoicings follow
woe. Guard against idleness and sloth, and cling unto that which
profiteth mankind, whether young or old, whether high or low. Beware
lest ye sow tares of dissension among men or plant thorns of doubt in
pure and radiant hearts.