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Idea Transcript


Global Education in the 21st Century How can High Technology contribute to a Culture of Peace

And Promote the Dialogue between Civilizations A KEYNOTE LECTURE Presented at the Intersymp’99 The 11th International Conference on Systems Research, Informatics, and Cybernetics August 1999 Baden-Baden, Germany.

by Winfried K. Rudloff Governors State University, USA Published in “Survival Strategies and Action Programs for the Third Millenium” pp. 59-66, 1999, IIAS Publication Ed. George Lasker and Vladimir Lomeiko

Global Education in the 21st Century How can High Technology contribute to a Culture of Peace

And Promote the Dialogue between Civilizations by Winfried K. Rudloff Governors State University

Prologue Over the millennia, human technology has always assisted in war efforts. It has furthered the evolution of a Culture of War that culminated in the wanton destruction of millions of people during this century. We glorify war and worship (or should we say, warship) our heroes. Even today, we celebrate - consciously or not – the Greeks’ victory over the Persians in our Marathon runs. The first marathon runner fell dead after he had covered about 22 or 23 miles and coughed out the victory message under his last breath. Unfortunately, Hitler who was a runner during World War I, did not. We find war carriages in the hieroglyphs of the pyramids of the ancient Egyptians and war paraphernalia in the battle ornaments of the Scythians. “Hannibal ante portas”, was the cry of terror when Hannibal of Carthage approached Rome after he had crossed the alps with 90,000 foot soldiers, 12,000 horsemen, and 37 elephants. He lost half of his force in this endeavor. Julius Caesar’s “De bello gallico” was required reading in our Latin courses in high school. From spearheads of the stone age to the atom bomb of this century, technology has always played an important role in the escalation of warfare. Indeed, the proliferation of mass-destructive weapons is upon us and has become a real threat to all humanity. In contrast to the Culture of War, it is the expressed purpose of this symposium to promote a Culture of Peace. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization is the most appropriate forum to further this idea. In our lecture, we will specifically address how high technology can bring people and peoples of diverse cultural backgrounds closer together, and instill better understanding of our human diversity and commonality. We will elaborate of how it can solve problems of global concerns, aid in risk management through instant communication, and create a climate of peaceful coexistence through high-tech supported world-wide education.

Globalization: The Problems The world is bursting at its seams. We are facing the menetecel of overpopulation, depleting resources, desertification of our life-sustaining forests, and brutalizing of our minds. It is, in particular, the latter that has not changed since the cave-days of humanity. The brute instinct of survival has apparently not been softened over millions of years of human life on earth.

In the 1930’s there were about 2 billion people on Earth. Currently, we are approaching six billion. As a consequence, there is already widespread starvation, specifically in areas that have suffered an increase of desert land through over-grazing and deforestation of our rain forests. On the heels of overpopulation follows the gradual but certain problem of depleting resources. On the one hand, resources are wasted away in developed countries, while raw materials are exploited in developing countries by multi-national corporations. On the other hand, the people of underdeveloped and developing countries do not share in the wealth and health of our still abundant resources since corrupt dictators and politicians are syphoning off billions of aid dollars before they reach the needy. Meadows et al. discussed already in the early 70’s the “Limits to Growth” (Meadows, D. et al., 1972; see also Tietenberg, T., 1992) where a model was presented that investigated five major trends of global concern, accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and the deterioration of the environment. Mesarovic and Pestel (Mesarovic, M. & Pestel, E., 1974) wrote as the Second Report to the Club of Rome “Mankind at the Turning Point”, where they presented a convincing model of the world which indicated a strong need for a systems approach to solving the global problems (Figure 1). It is argued that, “Economics, agrotechnology, ecology, population, socio-political arrangements, individuals' values and norms have to be considered as a system, in any realistic practical consideration of the world food situation. Anything less than this will not do. It would be highly irresponsible for the generations yet unborn.”

In “The Scandal and the Shame” (Schneider, B., 1999), Bertrand Schneider, Secretary of the Club of Rome, writes: "Profiteers of Development are countless: Engineering companies, Western governments and corporations, using development for their strategic interests, and on the other side the corruption system, the personal enrichment of some Heads of State and ministers when poverty is increasing at the same time. Scandal of the International Institutions as well such as the World Bank, Figure 1: The Need for a Syswhich is spending so much for administration and overtems Approach (Mesarovich and Pestel, 1994) abundant staff that a very small percentage is left for action in favor of the poor countries. " These problems, though not the only ones on a global scale, indicate that in future we will be faced with deteriorating living conditions even further than are already here if our decision-making bodies keep applying short-term fixes but neglect long-range planning. Unfortunately, our politicians are usually guided by narrow provincial goals that are to satisfy their pressure groups but they lack the general global overview. Beyond their own narrow constituency, they don’t care about the world at large where corporate exploitation is rampant and is insensitive to the survival needs of millions of people.

The Convolutions of a Culture of War Science and Technology in War The territorial imperative guides our animalistic behavior: Like dogs stake out their territory, we become aggressive when our space is invaded. It begins with individuals defending their property rights and ends with nations fighting for “Lebensraum”, space for living. The exponential growth of the Earth’s population will inevitably lead to global wars for “Lebensraum” if unchecked. Experiments with rats have shown that when they are living in cramped space, they start killing each other. Indeed, the human animal seems to behave no difFigure 2. The Territorial Imperative ferently despite his “high” intelligence. Unfortu(Adapted from Micrografx PhotoCD) nately, most organized religions are opposed to population control by benign means but bless the wars and the warriors. The fight for “Lebensraum” is not only for territory but also for resources as the killings in Kosovo and the Golf War have demonstrated, respectively, in most recent history. And our resources are being depleted at an alarming rate. Nothing is done on a global scale to regain lost arable land from the deserts, although regionally such as in Israel, underground water is used – and will eventually be depleted – to make the desert bloom again. War is the mother of inventions. It is a sad fact that most technological innovations stem from efforts to develop better war machines. During the stone-age flint stone was initially used to produce knives and spearheads as survival tools in the hunt of animals for food and for clothes made from the skins of the animals. Eventually, the killer instinct made humans fight each other for food, for territory, and for prestige. With the invention of the wheel and the taming of horses, warriors became mobile using chariots pulled by the animals to fight fierce battles with their enemies.

The industrial age created machines that allowed mass production of rifles, guns, tanks, bombs, and other paraphernalia of destruction. The invention of airplanes and rockets facilitated the ultimate mobility and allowed anonymous murder from a distance (Figure 3). To put it into perspective: We have become armchair warriors who watch the killings from a safe distance. High-tech has brought virFigure 3. The warriors of Anonymous tual killing fields into the living rooms. We fosDestruction ter the killing instincts of our offsprings by inventing computer games that demonstrate how people are beheaded. Why are we still surprised when our children take up guns and kill each other?

In recent history, European nations and the United States went to war in Kosovo and Serbia pretending to fight for humanity but killing from a distance the innocent and the guilty alike and destroying property literally on-the-fly. They declare such killings and destruction, “collateral Damage”, thus speaking in an Orwellian tongue. Humanity does not appear to have learned from the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where hundreds of thousands of people were killed in one atomic strike (Figure 4). Rather than curing the causes, we are combating the symptoms. But then, what are the causes?

Figure 4. Hiroshima after the Bomb (Adapteed from Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 99)

The Spiritual Dilemma Although organized religion claims to be benevolent and peaceful, history has shown that, more often than not, it has strayed from these idealistic goals. The Churches have blessed the wars and the warriors. Indeed, religious organizations, as with other human occupations, have long developed into power structures that manipulate the minds of the believers for earthly goals while pretending to lift the spirits of the down-trodden towards the heavens. In the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, peace is generally a central theme. The Hebrew “Shalom” is related to the Arabic “Salaam”, both meaning “Peace”. However, past and current religious fanatics do not shy away from murder, terrorism, and warfare, all in the name of God, Allah, or Jahve. Despite centuries of enlightenment, even advanced nations go to war for perceived or real injustice or for religious principles. Heinrich Heine, the famous German poet (“The Lorelei”), wrote, “Persecution of people with dissident views is the monopoly of clerics”. Deschner (Deschner, K. H.), in his five-volume study on the “Criminal History of Christendom” brings into focus how organized religions over the centuries have distorted the truth, have tortured and burnt dissidents on the stakes, and killed those who have different views. Even today, after centuries of enlightenment – so one would think – religious wars are fought in Ireland, Kosovo, and in the Islamic world. What exacerbates the problem is that opposing parties are so much entrenched in their beliefs that war to them seems to be the only solution. In the final analysis, it is the human lust for power that governs our behavior towards foreign ideas.

The High-Tech Revolution Education as a Vehicle towards a Culture of Peace There is only one Mother Earth. We need to hold it in high esteem and treat it with respect. We see the picture of the little boy holding up the globe, his face not being visible, thus, symbolizing that it is our duty to keep it high and whole for the sake of our children and children’s children. In ancient sagas, Hercules carries the Earth on his shoulders, for sure a heavy burden, yet a caring gesture. The transition from a culture of war to a culture of peace is to begin in the collective mind of society. The major problems have been and still are that images of wars and warriors are all present in the formal and informal education of our children. The question boils down to the psychology of a war culture versus one of peace. But how can this be achieved with so many people still struggling for plain surFigure 5. There is only one vival while others live in luxury and over-abundance? Earth. (Adapted from. Micrografx Recently, a group of physicists met at the University Photo-CD) of Potsdam (Ref. Der Spiegel) to discuss their search for a unifying theory that is to explain our whole universe. The socalled string theory is to coordinate our ideas on gravitation, electro-magnetism, and quantum theory into one ultimate theory of the universe. Edward Witten, Steven Hawking, Steven Weinberg, John Schwarz, and Michael Green are the genial scientists who talk about “Super-strings” vibrating in 10- or 11-dimensional space that make up the universe which the Americans have called “The Theory of Everything”, and the Germans the “Weltformel”, the world formula. In analogy to the strings of a violin that creates acoustic vibrations, such multidimensional vibrations are suggested to be the basis for our universe, all expressed in the pure symbolism of mathematics, difficult to understand by most people. Yet, the frequencies of vibrations are some measurement of energy that pervades our world, and when vibrations are in harmony, we feel their magnifying effects on our minds and our bodies. With respect to the culture of peace, we should, perhaps, search for a unifying theory in social science, for a world formula of living together, that can explain why we can or cannot live in harmony together on this one and only Earth. In essence, it is research and education in human interaction that needs to be developed, and promoted around the world. It is imperative that we begin exploring why humans cannot or will not use their intelligence to overcome their animalistic aggressiveness. As is outlined in the following paragraphs, we are proposing a systems approach to a Culture of Peace that is to employ our recent evolution of high-technological tools in investigating the causes of war on a global basis and arrive at solutions to the problems that plague human societies.

Epilogue: A Proposition towards a Culture of Peace A Systems Approach The following graph demonstrates the complexity of a global approach. On the left we depict the interrelations of global problems such as resource depletion, overpopulation, deforestation and desertification that has already led to starvation. As a related issue, militarization all over the world is an established fact and adds to the global problems that have contributed and are still contributing to a culture of war. For lack of a better name and in harmony with the idea of research and education as the most appropriate tools in the promotion of a culture of peace, we suggest a UNESCO Virtual Peace Institute whose exclusive purpose is to study the causes of war and investigate ways that will bring about a culture of peace where war is no longer considered as an alternative to diplomatic discourse and global tolUNESCO erance (Fig. 6). As the term “virVirtual tual” implies, much of the rePeace Institute The CLub of Rome Global Problems search can take place over the Global Solutions Resource Depletion Internet and other modern tools Overpopulation Global Peace Network of Science, Technology of communication. This has the Deforestation & and Education Desertification advantage that scientists, technoStarvation Population High-Tech logists, community leaders, and Control Education towards Peace Militarization yes, politicians can instantanFinding Solutions to Social Problems eously exchange ideas on the WAR? The Psychology of Peace problems at hand, and prevent vs. The Psychology of War through risk management that wars are even contemplated. Figure 6. Proposition for a Virtual Peace Institute To this end, we should design and implement the architecture of a Global Peace Network of Science, Technology, and Education where we pool our ideas in research and education using the electronic superhighway consisting of multimedia-based Internet and Telecommunication. The technology is already at our fingertips. Once we recognize the problems, we should find appropriate solutions. By the very nature of the problems, the thrust of our studies should be towards socioeconomic problems with population control as an urgent priority. In essence, it should be the objective of Figure 7. Flight Towards Peace global peace education to fundamentally influence the (Adapted from Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 99) thinking of the world’s population away from war towards a culture of peace.

Acknowledgement This project was sponsored by GSU. Specifically, I appreciate the support that we always receive from Dr. Edwin Cehelnik, Chairman of the Science Division at GSU.

References Deschner, K. H., “Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums”, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Hamburg/Germany, 1997 Meadows, D.H.; Meadows, D.I., Randers, J.; Behrens III, W.W., “The Limits to Growth: A Report to the Club of Rome”, Potomac Associates, Washington, D.C., 1972 Mesarovic, M. & Pestel, E., “Mankind at the Turning Point: The Second Report of the Club of Rome”, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1974 Schneider, B., “The Scandal and the Shame”, Chapter V, Excerpted from the Website of the Club of Rome, www.clubofrome.org/globis_develop_cont2.htm, 1999 Tietenberg, T., “Environmental and Resource Economics”, Harper Collins, 1992

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