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One Planet, One People

Beyond "Us vs. Them"

This book, published by Prometheus and released on September 1, 2004, is the most definitive statement I have produced so far about how my progressive humanist world view can illuminate contemporary world issues, as well as the age-old questions of who we are, where we came from, and why .

A central thesis of the book is that human societies have evolved over the last fifty thousand years not only by adapting to environmental change, but by competing with each other. In this competition, the "us versus them" syndrome has been a key element enabling successful societies to survive. Throughout this evolutionary period the most successful societies have grown larger and more efficient at meeting the needs of their people. But now we are at a breaking point. Global problems have appeared that urgently require global solutions. International and interethnic competition must be controlled, subordinated to some form of global authority, or the "us vs. them" syndrome will have catastrophic consequences. Humanity is moving out of adolescence into a new stage. President Bush's first term has been a disastrous case of leadership moving the world's most powerful country in exactly the wrong direction.

I draw on my experience as a diplomat to propose the broad outlines of a solution. A coalition of countries that have achieved stable democratic systems of governance will have to cooperate closely among themselves and with a strengthened UN while they reach out to zones of instability and gradually deal with the roots of that instability. Eventually our descendants will enjoy a world order that still contains and even rejoices in diversity, but basic human rights will be respected everywhere, the worst inequalities between rich and poor will be removed, and everyone will cooperate in meeting environmental concerns.

Is this utopian, and impractical? Not in the least, unless we lose our quintessentially human capacity to imagine things that have not happened yet, but could happen, if we cooperate to achieve them. It is this capacity to imagine that hit our ancestors like a Promethean lightning bolt 50,000 years ago, and propelled us out of caves into megacities. We imagine, we set our goals, we achieve. That's the progressive part. The humanist part is, we do it for all of us.

The book is based on modern science in general, and evolutionary theory in particular. Societies evolve, as well as species, but the rules governing their evolution are somewhat different. For one thing, group selection is more important than is the case in biological evolution. To lay a foundation for this examination of how societies evolve, I describe the complex world of the human mind, which exists not just in separate minds alone, but in a continuum that represents the collective thinking of all people, past as well as present. This universe of the mind contains sonnets and symphonies as well as techniques and rules of behavior, and it rivals the biophysical world in its complexity and richness. It is the medium in which we think. Its richness and diversity is what makes humans unique in the biophysical world. It is just as "real" in its way as the "real" physical world around us.

Carl Coon 9/21/04

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