Humankind Advancing, Vol.3, No.1 January 1992

Comment: Starting with the January 1992 issue, Humankind Advancing will be printed on recycled paper.


CONTENTS

Editorial (Letter to a Sister)

Initial Quotes
Containing quote from Grass
Quote from Cornish
Quotes from Sperry and from Csikszentmihalyi
Arnold Siegel
Quote from Thomas

On Human Hopes and Human Dreams
Stefan C. Pasti -- [A `Branching' of American Culture; excerpts]
Quote from Stover
Vera Bradova [Global Tolerance, Local Passion; abridged]

Dreams in Poetry
Poem by Hanna Newcombe
Poem by Robert Muller

The Facts
Bookreview (4 centuries of Peace Literature)
Quote from Thomas
Rick Gore -- [Mass-Extinctions; discussion]
Alan Durning -- [How Much is Enough?]
Quote from Schmookler

Thought in Action
Lifelink

Reflections

Acknowledgments

References


Editorial:

LETTER TO A SISTER

Dear Ursula,

Nearly three years went by since you passed away. Your last letter to me, written a few weeks earlier, has been left unanswered; you had harshly criticized my PhD-thesis "In Search of Values for Human Survival," and I was struggling for words that would not hurt you. Before I could find them, we were separated forever. To you, the very idea that the survival of humankind could be questionable appeared simply absurd.

Likewise, you were appalled by the thought that our traditional values might be insufficient to handle our immense present problems, and that shifts in value priorities might be needed. "Values," you wrote, "should not shift their priorities, they should be solid as the earth itself." The vast majority will share your conviction; yet how can we ignore the enormous increase in knowledge that taught us about cause-effect relationships we never suspected? How can we ignore a shrinking globe in relation to its population? -- The earth and its bounty were endless for billions of years; they are so no more, and we are forced to ask questions that have never before been asked.

Further, you thought it would be harmful to students to be introduced to the seriousness of our problems. "They would lose their faith in mankind and even regret that they and their parents are part of it." -- But everything I write, I think, I say, is determined by the wish that such despair might be avoided! You accuse me of bringing about dangers by talking of their possibility. The opposite is true. As death, and our knowledge of it, increases the worth of life, so knowledge about the danger to our species and our earth will open our eyes to their unique and marvelous promises.

You believed that my concerns are senseless because improvements will occur "in an evolutionary way." -- But are not human concerns and efforts part of this process?

As an artist, you deplored that my questionnaire, going to 10 different sectors of our society -- such as religious persons, scientists, the mass media, etc. -- had bypassed artists. "Why didn't you ask any artists?" you wrote, "They have a tremendous influence on people. Think of all the beautiful melodies written over hundreds of years and still make people cry with joy. (But then you probably don't agree with my belief that people need to be happy, need to have hope and need to have faith in order to find purpose in life.)"

How could you have thought of me like that! Of course, I believe that people need to be happy and have hope and faith to find purpose in life -- though faith must be founded in one's intent, one's will, and one's abilities, not in someone or something else. And I believe that artists have a vital role to play in the survival of our species. Without their contributions, life would have lost its content. I even believe that they should not feel obliged to dampen their creativity and worry about our future instead (and I therefore did not present my questionnaire to them) -- but they should respect the thinkers and doers who face reality courageously and who work to prevent foreseeable dangers.

And yet, there is so much in your letter to which I fully agree. "With everything I do, I think of not messing up our great beautiful earth," you wrote -- and then you described your lifestyle, a far more conscientious one than I lead, for which I admire you. -- You speak of the values to live by as "Education, involving also Simplicity, Honesty, Mind Opening, Preserving Nature and Preventing Waste." You also believe, as I do, that love and compassion are part of human nature and -- with few exceptions -- will surface as the need arises.

Yet you seem to forget that these "few exceptions" can have an impact -- for good or evil -- that is out of proportion to their numbers. And you leave out two values of such high priority that our entire future depends upon them: Thoughtfulness and Responsibility. Without these, even love can be destructive.

There is poetry in your writing and thinking. "The people in India," you say, "are happy to be poor, because this way they feel closer to God. They believe: If you walk through a forest which is owned by you, your thoughts are troubled with worries about diseases of trees, the value of the wood, the damage caused by animals, etc. But if you walk through a forest owned only by nature, your thoughts are elevated by its beauty."

I have read of a different India, however. Guenther Grass (who was there) reports about "rats scurrying underfoot, crows and vultures flapping close overhead; hundreds of children gathering sticks and breaking off branches for firewood -- which is why the forests are dying, why nothing grows again except children. Families, pavement dwellers they are called, sleep on sidewalks, along walls, each sleeping a different sleep. Young men sit on their haunches, in their faces the resigned anxiety, the concentrated gravity of those who no longer have anything to wait for. People are starving, dying in apathy."

My God, what did I do! I did not want to worry you -- and I must find consolation in the fact that you cannot read these lines. I cannot leave them unwritten. They are part of the truth we most urgently need. Grass describes a situation that will spread over the entire globe unless we face it honestly and struggle hard to prevent it.

You would not approve. "I believe," you write, "how hard people struggle is not really important. The Universe is unfolding as it should....Population growth will be controlled - the question of waste will be answered and new resources will be found to feed them all."

And there are two paragraphs near the end -- you must have written them only about three weeks before your death -- which moved me most deeply.

"Sometimes I get the impression (I got it already before you started to write about human values) that something very valuable and magnificent is missing in your thinking system: the joy of being alive! This you cannot acquire through books, talks or other people's thoughts. This you can only feel. Close your eyes and listen to the powerful or lovely tunes of our best composers (Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Strauss, just to name a few) or listen to the beautiful singing voice of Luciano Pavarotti. There is an enormous swinging beauty hovering in the air which has more value than all the words and thoughts combined.

"There are millions of people with a joy of the world so deeply rooted, that even your fear fed danger signals can not reach them. It would be sad if you had decided to spend the rest of your precious life with complicated thoughts of how to make the world better -- and would have no time to see and feel what a beautiful world it is."

I did not succeed to find words to tell you that just because I love the world so much I cannot close my eyes to the dangers that threaten it. Just because I wish that millions of other persons -- now and in the future -- should share your joy of life, I have to contribute to our destiny to the best of my ability and in accordance with my nature. I wanted to transmit to you the profound feeling of happiness one can experience while working productively in the service of a self-chosen worthwhile goal.

Would you have understood?

Love,

Erika

P.S.: I cannot turn my thoughts away from you this week and will therefore dedicate this issue to you. First, I will introduce you to some persons you would like very much. -- Then I will present some facts the understanding of which will help to narrow the gap between our hopes and dreams -- and the reality we face.


Edward Cornish, President of the World Future Society, describes the rationale of his work as follows:

Whether we are at the threshold of the Golden Age or on the brink of a global cataclysm that will extinguish our civilization is, I believe, not only unknowable but undecided. The decision will emerge through what we do in the years ahead, for each of us will create a piece of the common future of all mankind.

We can do nothing to change the past, but we have enormous power to change the future. Once we grasp that essential insight, we recognize our responsibility and capability for building our dreams of tomorrow and avoiding our nightmares. Of course, we feel abysmally ignorant of how to proceed, but as we join together, forming networks of human concern about the future, we will find the strength and wisdom needed to create a better future world.

Quoted from an information pamphlet about the World Future Society (undated, but before 1990)

* * * * *
Never underestimate the power of an ideal.

R.W. Sperry
(Neuroscientist)

* * * * * Humans were not built to fly, and biological selection has for eons steered us toward an exclusively terrestrial existence. Yet we started to dream of soaring, and eventually we found ways to break the bonds of gravity and realized that dream.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(Professor of Psychology)

* * * * *
Millions of years ago when all life was in the water, there was no possibility for land creatures. As the natural tendency of creation continued nurturing all that is in support of life, a new form was risked -- a creature that could survive in both air and water. Though it had neither wings nor trunk, in its success the possibility for elephants and eagles was born. If you had asked this `fish' that walked on the land `where are the elephants?' he couldn't point to them. They won't show up for millions of years.

.... participate in the commitment that it's possible to have the human being walk out of the water, out of the sea of psychology in which we now live, and up unto the land. And at that instant, create possibilities for being human that were never there before. Now I can't tell you when. I can't tell you what those possibilities are. I can't tell you if there are going to be elephants in a hundred years. I don't know. What we are talking about is the evolution of what it means to be a human being.

Arnold Siegel
(Writer on Existential Philosophy)

* * * * *
All progress achieved throughout human history has been made possible only by...break-away men and women with a great vision and the courage and faith to commit themselves totally for the fulfillment of the change envisioned by them.

M.Thomas, India
(Industrial/Management Consultant)


OF HUMAN HOPES AND HUMAN DREAMS

Stefan C. Pasti

A `Branching' of American Culture.

The issues which affect the voters in America are too complicated for the majority of the voters to be democratically involved.

How can we sell weapons, bury radioactive waste, spray herbicides, mechanize farms, spew hazardous waste into rivers, clean almost everything with water, attempt to isolate the causes of cancer, vote for people we have never met, be taxed for projects we don't understand, be analyzed by people who had never had to live where we are living, be alienated by 25 religions for every religion we associate with, be expected to believe we now know how nature is supposed to work and, finally, have any idea how all this is going to turn out?

More education is not the answer. We already unknowingly acquiesce to many significant decisions which affect us because we are overwhelmed by the chaotic mass of information we are now expected to swallow. We need simpler economic and ecological systems. We need to be closer to where our basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter are produced. We cannot hope to reestablish a healthy environment of honesty and integrity -- and therefore stability -- without simplifying our economic and ecological systems enough, so that we are all, once again, democratically involved.

However, it must be admitted that the possibility of voters in America reaching such an agreement together, without a split, seems extremely unlikely... for even as individuals we seem to be torn between a yearning for a simpler life and a secret wish that the many advertised wonders of science can be had for a price which is not too high to pay. In other words, it does seem that these desires are mutually exclusive; that is, they are impossible for people to resolve in their own lives, in the world as we now know it.

Based on this observation, I have to wonder why we do not suggest a "branching of American culture." Why do we not plan as if that part of us which yearns for a simpler life has as "legitimate" a de-sire as that part of us which is curious to discover all there is to discover? The way I see it, both wishes represent real desires -- and both wishes have proven benefits behind them and unknown risks ahead... which is about the best that can be said about any prospects on Earth.

If we plan for a "branching of American culture," then both instincts can be satisfied.

- - -
Excerpts from Foster's Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H., July 26, 1990, p. 11.

* * * * *
Though I think there is much that's positive to be said about the environmental movement, I am disturbed by statements of some of its leaders that the developed world should somehow be ashamed of having a high standard of living.

We should be ashamed of needlessly wasting resources; but we shouldn't be ashamed of providing a level of material existence which, for the first time in history, has allowed a majority of our citizens to be well-educated, healthy individuals with (in many cases) intellectually rewarding careers and a substantial amount of leisure time.

David Stover (Author)

* * * * *
Vera Bradova

Global Tolerance, Local Passion

The other day, I sat down and finally figured out what role I want for community to play in my own life. I began to see community as a partnership of kindred people who work together to make their dreams come true. In such a community, every adult participates in the formation of common values. The community is full of vitality and color, and people care about traditions not because they were given to them by some authority, but because they like them! The people in such a community control their own destiny to a large extent, and make many of the decisions that determine the public and private life of the community. Just imagine: You move to a new city and you have before you a rich palette of diverse communities from which to choose! And when you finally decide on the neighborhood in which you will settle, you know that you will be surrounded by kindred spirits with whom you can form significant bonds, and work amiably together on projects for the public good.

Some day, I would like to live in a community like that. A community of folks similarly concerned with what is happening to the planet, and working together for human transformation and a biophilic social system. Where will I find such a community? I don't know. Perhaps it is yet to be created.

The modernist framework which values disinterested objectivity and "value free" systems has created a world where passionate communities do not fare well. The destruction of traditional communities all around the world in the wake of the infusion of modern institutions is no accident. And the liberal democratic tradition which we rightly appreciate for its emphasis on equality before the law and on human rights has not found a secure place for the value of local self-determination.... The opponents of self-determination advocate reliance on historical liberal democratic patterns and ideas, wishing to spread them into all corners of the globe.

To me, this sort of thinking is a sad compromise. The liberal democratic framework has given us much, but it would be folly not to improve on it further. Are the bland look-alike pseudo-communities we live in the best we can do? I don't think so.

Consider some of the many positive aspects of self-determination. It provides the bedrock on which the exercise of democracy rests by furnishing the framework within which people learn to make their own decisions about how their communities ought to function; they directly work on the problems that crop up in the human enterprise. Decision making is about self-determination: we weigh the values we hold dear and look for ways to actualize them in the world. While doing this, we learn more about them, we reevaluate, we learn from our mistakes. We are not mere bystanders complaining on the sidelines about the decisions made for us by others. We have an opportunity to see our values in action and to test them in the fire of experience. We grow in self-esteem and self-reliance. We become political adults.

As Mill argued, "competition among ideas strengthens the truth and roots out error.... and to stifle a voice is to deprive humankind of its message, which, we must acknowledge, might possibly be more true than our own deeply held convictions." For a healthy social ecology, we need the competition among human communities and their way of doing things. Ideas and practices beneficial to us may be born in the unlikeliest places. We need to have social laboratories where we turn to new ideas on how to solve particular human problems.

The question is, how can we have both tolerance and passion, diversity and unity, common good and indigenous values?

Obviously, we need to create a win/win type of system, where liabilities are turned into strengths and where very different communities are not a liability and a threat to us, but at the least non-toxic, and at the best an asset.

How can we do this? I propose that we institute an overall umbrella framework of radical tolerance, and the conditions for radical local self-determination. We have much of the former already in place. These are the precepts laid down by America's Founders and later lawmakers who continued in the Founder's spirit.... The measures I propose for the fostering of local self-determination are also already partly rooted in our present system, albeit in a much eroded form. [The original article includes here several pages of detailed suggestions for the improvement of both tolerance and self-determination.]

I see a commonwealth comprised of small self-determined communities which federate themselves into larger units: towns, cities, counties, parishes or shires, then regional groupings (whether this be the traditional state units or bioregions), and ultimately to the level of countries and continents. The highest level of course would be the global community. As the levels move from local to regional and global, self-determination decreases and tolerance increases, and the widely-forged vision of the common good plays a bigger and bigger role. Overall societal goals are set on the large scale but the people in their communities choose the means to implement them.

General tolerance increases because people feel safer from the encroachment of alien values into their community spaces. Local tolerance will vary widely: many communities will be more homogeneous than today, but not along traditional lines (e.g. color of skin) but along all sorts of criteria: by interests, by certain religious or social visions, or by commitment to a particular experiment...This way, homogeneity will not be necessarily connected to ideological purity and intolerance. It may simply answer the need for the community of one's kin, and kin can be defined in a multitude of ways. And of course, some communities would choose to not be homogeneous as a matter of principle, preferring the free mix of many different kinds of people and the variety, anonymity and privacy that comes with it.

Every community's approach to constructing the future will be different, colored by its past, its environment, its dominant values and beliefs. Communities will focus more on their own efforts in a secure framework that serves all than on imposing their vision on others. Does my design allow the formation of bigoted communities? Yes, it does. (You want to teach creation science and not evolution? Go ahead. Want to have a miniature Christian theocracy? Fine. You want to implement a radical community-based economic system? Good luck to you, we'll be watching for the results!) It allows for the formation of communities based on all sorts of human values.

I propose the creation of a political system where all of us can partake of the excitement and satisfactions of public life.

- - -
Excerpted from Designing New Civilizations,Vol 6, No. 12, December 1990, pp. 689-692. (This article should be read in its entirety.)

Vera Bradova is a student of interactive telecommunication at New York University. She is currently thinking about radical, voluntary democratic structures and processes and "group mind" facilitation. She hopes to live, some day, in a world composed of multi-centered, multi-layered communities, both geographical and non-geographical, through which humanity governs itself.


DREAMS IN POETRY

The strength that can arise from a community of likeminded persons is expressed with deep sincerity in a poem by Hanna Newcombe.

SHARING DESPAIR

I do not dare inflict my gloom on others;
though I can work on without hope, some can not;
must not depress my sisters and my brothers
to disempowerment. A message of hope brought,
not quite a lie, but sincerely meant
can buoy up spirits, spur on minds to thought on how to mend our ailing world, sorrow-bent,
and cure the ills that might bring us to naught.

Yet when alone, my fears rise with new vigor.
I let them freely play on my mind's screen.
I need to face the monsters' dreadful rigour,
not flinch from dangers that are felt and seen.
I play out every scene right to its ending,
don't try to interrupt the dream,
but then arise and face the task of mending,
joining my brothers/sisters as a team.

The other day my friend to me revealed
how her dreams too were haunted by dire pall.
A third o'erheard - he too had fears concealed.
Together we guessed that might be true for all.
Strengthened by friendship, sharing firmed our bond.
We set to work again, sang as we faced the task;
wrote briefs, licked stamps, and reached way out beyond
hope's flimsy solace, its deceptive mask.

- - -
Dr. Hanna Newcombe is the director of the Peace Research Institute-Dundas.

* * * * *
Another person who has retained amazing strength and youthful enthusiasm for the creation of a better world in spite of the horrors he experienced during World War II, and the constant disappointments he encountered during his lifetime service for the United Nations, is the former Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. and present Chancellor of the University of Peace in Costa Rica, Robert Muller.

Decide to be peaceful
Render others peaceful
Be a model of peace
Irradiate your peace
Love passionately the peace
of our beautiful planet
Do not listen to the warmongers,
hateseeders and powerseekers
Dream always of a peaceful,
warless, disarmed world
Think always of a peaceful world
Work always for a peaceful world
Switch on and keep on in yourself,
the peaceful buttons,
those marked love,
serenity, happiness, truth,
kindness, friendliness,
understanding and tolerance
Pray and thank God every day for peace
Pray for the United Nations
and all peacemakers
Pray for the leaders of nations
who hold the peace of the world
in their hands
Pray God to let our planet at long last
become a Planet of Peace
And sing in unison with all humanity:

"Let there be peace on Earth
And let it begin with me."

Robert Muller

Robert Muller has received the UNESCO'S PEACE EDUCATION PRICE in 1989.

To obtain a list of Robert Muller's books and poetry please contact:

World Happiness and Cooperation, P.O.Box 1153, Anacortes, WA. 98221. (Now the United Nations Bookstore at New York.)


THE FACTS

It might at first appear as if the facts reported here are bound to demolish our human hopes and dreams; on further reflection, however, we recognize that the opposite is true.

Book Review

From Erasmus to Tolstoy: The Peace Literature of Four Centuries; Jacob ter Meulen's Bibliographies of the Peace Movement before 1899. Peter van den Dungen (ed.) NY:Greenwood Press, 1990.

Reviewed by William Eckhardt, Research Director of the Lentz Peace Research Laboratory of St. Louis.

This is a most unusual book. It consists largely of almost 4,000 peace titles in chronological order from the beginning of printing until the end of the 19th century: 1480 - 1898. These bibliographies were first published separately in 1934 and 1936 but, as the editor of this book says, "these bibliographies have largely been forgotten or ignored....What conceivable use was there for a bibliography of the historical peace movement when its failures were so manifest?" (p.13). A critical question indeed.

As the peace literature increased during these four centuries, so did the wars it was trying to abolish. And this trend has continued until the 20th century, where there have been three times as many war-related deaths as there were in the previous four centuries. The 20th century peace movement and its literature have more than doubled at the same time, judging by the relative number of peace societies founded in the 19th and 20th centuries, as recorded in Josephson (1985).

Clearly, a tremendous amount of peace work has been done during modern times. But this work has apparently done little or nothing toward putting an end to war. On the contrary, wars have increased as fast as the peace movement, if not more so. Whatever we have been doing for the last 500 years, it has not worked. Maybe it's time to start evaluating the results of our work as well as doing it. Just doing the right thing may not be good enough. We may have a lot to learn before we can put an end to war.

Reference: Josephson, Harold (Editor-in-Chief). Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders.
Westport CT: Greenwood, 1985.
Condensed from Peace Research, Vol.22 (No.4) 1990 & Vol.23 (No.1) 1991, pp.91/92.

* * * * * Visionary ideas never die; they evolve progressively and get closer and closer to ultimate reality.

God is man's vision toward the Possible Human and true religion is our endeavor towards realizing this vision in our lives.

M.Thomas, India
(Industrial/Management Consultant)

* * * * *
Mass Extinctions

The June 1989 National Geographic contains a remarkable article on mass extinctions by Rick Gore. A succession of cataclysmic events, drastically decimating species on earth, is described and impressively depicted on a three-page foldout.

Six major periods of mass-extinctions have occurred -- not even counting the near-fatal demise of all then existing life when the earth's original carbon-dioxide atmosphere was converted into one containing large amounts of oxygen. 600 Million years ago, the earth was dominated by cyanobacteria, which had been undisputed masters for two to three billion years, until hunted to near-extinction by another devastating invention: animals, feeding not on sunlight, but on other life. Animals replaced one another, falling prey not only to more sophisticated savagery, but periodically also to monumental changes of the earth's climate, caused either by asteroids or huge volcanic eruptions. During one of these catastrophes, the one between the Permian and the Triassic (about 250 million years ago) full 96 percent of all then evolved species disappeared. Paleontologist Jack Sepkoski of the University of Chicago is quoted as saying that "During mass extinctions the rules change; what had been advantageous may suddenly become a liability." -- The fate of the dinosaurs (which occurred later) is only one example of this truth.

But the earth had not become poorer through all this vanishing life; it had become richer. Gore reports about the blossoming forth of new and more varied and interesting species after each mass extinction. -- He then describes the beginning -- at the present time -- of a new catastrophical waste of life, caused not by asteroids, but by human beings. This time, however, there is a difference -- the evolution of consciousness on earth has provided us with a choice.

It is tempting to reject our new powers and the responsibility we therefore carry. Why not let nature proceed as before? Has not everything turned out to the best? -- Or is there an alternative to the incredible waste and cruelty that is nature's way to advance, an alternative that would involve the sentiments we experience within us?

* * * * *
HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

Consumption doesn't mean contentment.

In the days after World War II, a retailing analyst named Victor Lebow prophetically set the tone for the coming era: "Our enormously productive economy..demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing rate." Americans have risen to Mr. Lebow's call, and much of the world has followed.

Since 1950, American consumption has soared. Per capita, energy use climbed 60 percent, car travel more than doubled, plastics-use multiplied 20-fold, and air travel jumped 25-fold. We are wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors.

But all this abundance -- while taking a terrible toll on the environment -- has not made people terribly happy.... Despite phenomenal growth in consumption, the list of wants has grown faster still.

Most psychological data show that the main determinants of happiness in life are not related to consumption at all: Prominent among them are satisfaction with family life, especially marriage, followed by satisfaction with work, leisure, and friendships. Indeed, in a comprehensive inquiry into the relationship between affluence and satisfaction, social commentator Jonathan Friedman notes, "Above the poverty level, the relationship between income and happiness is remarkably small."

-- Alan Durning

WORLD WATCH

Excerpted with permission from the international environmental magazine World Watch (Nov./Dec. 1990). Subscriptions: $15.-/yr. (6 issues) from Worldwatch Institute, 1776 Massachusetts Av. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036. Back issues $5.- from same address.

* * * * *
I believe that it is the truth that will set us free, and that we will be better served by a grim truth than by a rosy falsehood.

Andrew Bard Schmookler
(Author)


THOUGHT IN ACTION

Life-Link Friendship-Schools. Life Link is a non-political, non-religious global project for all young people in the world with the ultimate aim to create a new global security. That aim involves the achievement of:

- A dialogue and communication across borders

- An active process of thinking about the future

- Creative solutions to problems of our time

- A desire to work for a future without violence

- Increased sympathy and sense of responsibility for life on earth

- Increased open-mindedness and faith.

The project started in 1988 with "three-minute-appeals about a better future" written by boys and girls age 15-19 from all over the world. In 1989 representatives from 18 participating countries met in Sweden and initiated the inter-school dialogues. In 1990, more young people, schools, educators, and ministries of education became involved in the project which has spread in the meantime to contacts between schools in 58 counties. It is estimated that more than 600 schools, mainly secondary high schools, now connect with Friendship Schools.

In practice: Each school communicates annually with one Friendship-School in a neighbouring country and also with one Friendschip-School in a distant country. This communication and if possible also exchange program should be part of the curriculum. Life-Link Foundation can, through coordinators in participating countries, help you with addresses. Age of pupils preferably 12-19. -- To receive more information please contact:

Chairman Hans Levander, MD
Life-Link Foundation
c/o Uppsala UN-Association
Dag Hammarskjold Library
Box 644
S-751 27 Uppsala, Sweden


REFLECTIONS

The book review of four centuries of failed efforts to achieve peace on earth may easily be misinterpreted as proof that we are dealing with an ideal that is unachievable in reality. But as the dream of flying became a reality thousands of years after it first took shape in human minds -- and with methods different from those at first envisioned -- so the dream of an end of cruel and senseless devastation might become a reality once we have decided to take all factual truths into account.

Likewise, the report about nature's way to advance by means of mass-extinctions could lead to the wrong conclusion that a hands-off policy regarding danger-prevention to our species might be best.

But the extinction-story, also, has an alternative interpretation. Each time a new environment was created, a massive and cumbersome block was removed that had prevented evolutionary advance -- a powerful and well-established competitor was eliminated that had strangled other attempts of growth effectively in the bud, no matter how promising they would have been. But cultural evolution is not forced to copy the blind and wasteful methods biological evolution uses to achieve progress.

Three factors may lead to a new mass-extinction: invention of nuclear weapons, population explosion, and limitless increase of wants. All three are man-made. Should we wait for more adaptive attitudes to sprout forth after a global cataclysm, or should we work to improve on nature's methods?

We have the tools. They are called thought and foresight.


Acknowledgments: I wish to thank the World Watch Institute for permission to publish excerpts from Alan Durning's "How much is enough?," Stefan C. Pasti for his permission to publish excerpts from "A `Branching' of American Culture, Vera Bradova for permission to publish excerpts from "Global Tolerance, Local Passion," both Hanna Newcombe and Robert Muller for permission to publish their poetry, and David Stover for permission to quote from a letter to me.


REFERENCES

Bookreview on 4 centuries of peace literature. Peace Research, Vol.22 (No.4) 1990 & Vol.23 (No.1) 1991, pp.91/92.

Bradova, V. (1990). "Global Tolerance, Local Passion." Designing New Civilizations, Vol.6, No. 12, December 1990, pp. 689-692.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). "Consciousness for the Twenty-First Century." Zygon, Vol.26, No.1, (March 1991), pp. 7-25.

Durning, A. (1990). "How much is enough?" World Watch magazine, Nov./Dec. 1990.

Gore, R. (1989). "Extinctions." National Geographic, Vol 175, No. 6 (June 1989), pp. 662-699.

Grass, G. (1988/1989). Show Your Tongue. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

Muller, R. (1990). Decide to be Peaceful. Message Card. Publisher and distributor: Ardsley-on-Hudson, N.Y.: World Happiness and Cooperation. (Now The United Nation's Bookstore in New York.)

Newcombe, H. (1991). "Sharing Despair." Original contribution.

Pasti, S.C. (1990). "A `branching' of American culture." Foster's Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H., July 26, 1990, p. 11.

Schmookler, A.B. (1990). "Response to the Rudmin Review" (Comments and Communications). Peace Research, Vol.22, no.1, Feb. 1990, pp. 45-47.

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