Tag: <span>World Citizen</span>

H.G. Wells Portraits of World Citizens.

H.G. Wells and Human Rights.

Featured Image: Portrait of Herbert George Wells by George Charles Beresford. Black and white glossy print. 150 mm x 108 mm (1920). By George Charles Beresford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
2023 will see a year-long effort leading to 10 December 2023, the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The effort carries the title:
 

“Dignity, Freedom and Justice for All”. 

 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Image: Eleanor Roosevelt holding poster of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in English), Lake Success, New York. November 1949. By FDR Presidential Library & Museum, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Human Rights: The Foundation of World Law.

 
Thus, it is usefil to look at some of the intellectual preperations both within the League of Nations and among individual thinkers for the Universal Declaration.  One of the most widely read was that of Herbert George Wells “Declaration of the Rights and Duties of the World Citizen” which is found in his book
 

“Phoenix: A Summary of the Inescapable Conditions of World Organization” published in 1942. 

 
The Declaration of the Rights and Duties of the World Citizen had been translated into 10 languages and sent to 300 editors of newspapers in 48 countries.
 
    H.G. Wells from the 1930s on was concerned with the ways the world should be organized with a world organization stronger than the League of Nations.  Such a world organization should be backed up and urged on by a strong body of public opinion linked together world-wide by the unifying  bond of a common code of human rights and duties.
 
    At the end of the First World War, H.G. Wells was a strong advocate of the League of Nations, but as time went on, he became aware of its weaknesses.  He wrote in 1939:
 

” The League of Nations, we can all admit now, was a poor and ineffective outcome of that revolutionary proposal to banish armed conflict from the world and inaugurate a new life for mankind… Does this League of Nations contain within it the gem of any permanent federation of human effort?  Will it grow into something for which men will be ready to work for and, if necessary, fight – as hither to they have been willing to fight for their country and their own people?  There are few intimations of any such enthusiasm for the League at the present time.  The League does not even seem to know how to talk to the common man.  It has gone into official buildings, and comparatively few people in the world understand or care what it is doing there.”

 
  League of Nations
 Image: Stanley Bruce chairing the League of Nations Council in 1936. Joachim von Ribbentrop is addressing the council. By Commonwealth of Australia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The League of Nations and its unused Peace Army.

 
Thus, there was a need for a clear statement of world values that could be understood by most and that would be a common statement of the aspiration on which to build a new freedom and a new dignity.  Wells had a strong faith in international public opinion when it was not afraid to express new and radical thoughts that cut across the conventional wisdom of the day.  He wrote in 1943:
 

“Behind the short-sighted governments that divide and mismanage human affairs, a real force for world unity and order exists and grows.”

 
    Wells hoped that the “Declaration of the Rights of the World Citizen” would become the fundamental law for mankind through the whole world – a true code of basic rights and duties which set out the acceptable shape of a just world society.
 
    Therefore wells set out 10 rights which combined civil liberties already common to many democratic states with economic and social rights; which were often considered as aspirations but not as rights.
Thus among the 10 rights we find the Right to Participate in Government, Freedom of Thought and Worship, the Right to Knowledge, Freedom from Violence including Torture, along with the Right to Education, the Right to Medical Care, the Right to Work with Legitimate Remuneration, the Protection of Minors, Freedon of Movement about the Earth.
 
    The drafters of the U.N. Charter in 1945 included a pledge by member states:
 

“To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in equal rights of men and women, and of nations large and small.” 

 
Much of the debate from 1946 when the U.N. Commission on Human Rights was created until December 1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed concerned the relative place of civil liberties and of economic, social, and cultural rights.
 
    However while the text of H.G. Wells is largely forgotten today, he had the vision of the strong link between freedom of thought bsed on civil liberties and the need for economic dignity set out in the economic, social, and cultural rights.
 
H.G. Wells
Image: Portrait of Herbert George Wells by George Charles Beresford. Black and white glossy print. 150 mm x 108 mm (1920). By George Charles Beresford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

H.G. Wells: The Open Conspiracy for Peace.

 
   René Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

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Giuseppe Antonio Borgese Portraits of World Citizens.

Giuseppe Antonio Borgese: Common Cause.

Featured Image: Giuseppe Antonio Borgese. Public Domain. By https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Antonio_Borgese#/media/File:G._A._Borgese.jpg

“The era of humanity has not begun, but the age of nations has ended. It ended in 1914 when the world wars began.  Hence, earth and sky be Commonwealth to all, that Man at last may raise must Nations fall.”

Giuseppe Antonio Borgese (1882 -1952) whose birth anniversary we note on 12 November, was an Italian-born professor of literature at the University of Chicago and a leading world citizen in the late 1940s.  In 1931, Borgese was a visiting professor at the University of California when Mussolini announced that an oath of allegiance to the Italian Fascist state would be  required of all Italian professors.  Borgese did not go back and wrote to Mussolini:

“My dwelling place can only be where it is permitted a writer to be truly a writer.” 

Borgese published “Goliath: The March of Fascism” (1937) when few in the United States were following political events in Italy.  He developed further his views as the Second  World War developed in “Common Cause.” (1)

In 1939 he married Elizabeth Mann, youngest daughter of the German writer Thomas Mann, who was living in exile in Princeton, New Jersey. In the mid-1970s, I knew Elizabeth Mann Borgese, who had become a specialist on law of the sea issues.

Thomas Mann

 Thomas Mann, Nobel laureate in Literature 1929. By Nobel Foundation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

G.A. Borgese was a leading member of the University of Chicago-based Committee to Frame a World Constitution which wrote the “Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution” (1948) (2)  As Borgese wrote: 

“The popular assumption that the present movement toward world unity originates essentially in the technological revolution as applied to ‘ weapons of mass destruction ‘ is a fallacy derived from the superstition of our time, which is the adoration of the tool, the cult of the material causes.  Techniques and tools are the product of spiritual evolution which in successive waves of reactions and actions they become contributing factors.  They are not the first causes.  It was not the Legion that made Rome, not the phalanx that built Macedonia, but conversely.  For the age of nations, after a span of six centuries was as good as dead for reasons far deeper and more complex than any technological change, in 1914 – when uranium was quietly number 92 on the periodic table, and plutonium was nothing and nowhere.”

For Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, we need to change the way we think of ourselves and each other, not as members of separate nations but as citizens of one planet with justice as a core value.  Justice is a timeless and universal idea whose historical appearances and demands are variously and progressively determined by the various configurations of the ages.  At a time when there is injustice in many parts of the world, it is useful to recall the vital efforts of Giuseppe Antonio Borgese.

 

Notes.

1) G.A. Borgese. Common Cause (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943)
2) G.A. Borgese. The Foundations of the World Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953)

 

René Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

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Maurice Béjart Portraits of World Citizens.

Maurice Béjart: Starting Off the Year with a Dance

Featured Image: Maurice Béjart. By Huster at French Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons.

January 1st  is the birth anniversary of Maurice Béjart, an innovative master of modern dance. In a world where there is both appreciation and fear of the mixing of cultural traditions;  Maurice Béjart was always a champion of blending cultural influences.

He was a world citizen and an inspiration to all,  who work for a universal culture. His death on November 22, 2007 was a loss;  but he serves as a forerunner of what needs to be done, so that beauty will overcome the walls of separation. One of the Béjart’s most impressive dance sequences was Jérusalem, Cité de la Paix;  in which he stressed the need for reconciliation and mutual cultural enrichment.

Maurice Béjart

Maurice Béjart in rehearsal – Fold according to Fold – with Rita Poelvoorde and Bertrand Pie (1976). By Jean-marie waregne, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Spirit of His Father.

Béjart followed in the spirit of his father, Gaston Berger (1896-1960);  philosopher, administrator of university education, and one of the first to start multi-disciplinary studies of the future. Gaston Berger was born in Saint-Louis de Sénégal;  with a French mother and a Senegalese father.

Sénégal, and especially Leopold Sendar Senghor, pointed with pride to Gaston Berger as a “native son” — and the second university after Dakar was built in Saint-Louis and carries the name of Gaston Berger. Berger became a professor of philosophy at the University of Aix-Marseille and was interested in seeking the basic structures of mystical thought;  with study on the thought of Henri Bergson and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; both of whom were concerned with the basic energies which drive humanity forward.

Berger was also interested in the role of memory;  as that which holds the group together writing that it is memory which allows us “to be able to hope together, to fear together, to love together, and to work together.”

In 1953, Gaston Berger was named director general of higher education in France;  with the task of renewal of the university system after the Second World War years. Thus;  when Maurice-Jean Berger, born in 1927, was to start his own path, the name Berger was already well known in intellectual and administrative circle.

Teilhard de Chardin

 

Teilhard de Chardin: The Noosphere and Evolution Toward World Unity.

Béjart’s Talent was Primarily as a Choreographer.

Maurice changed his name to Béjart;  which sounds somewhat similar,  but is the name of the wife of Molière. Molière remains the symbol of the combination of theater-dance-music.

Maurice Béjart was trained at the Opéra de Paris and then with the well-known choreographer Roland Petit. Béjart’s talent was primarily as a choreographer;  a creator of new forms blending dance-music-action. He was willing to take well-known music such as the Bolero of Maurice Ravel or The Rite of Spring, and The Firebird of Stravinsky;  and develop new dance forms for them. However, he was also interested in working with composers of experimental music such as Pierre Schaeffer.

Béjart also continued his father’s interest in mystical thought;  less to find the basic structures of mystic thought like his father but rather as an inspiration. He developed a particular interest in the Sufi traditions of Persia and Central Asia. The Sufis have often combined thought-music-motion as a way to higher enlightenment.

Maurice Béjart

Maurice Béjart (1988). By Erling Mandelmann / photo©ErlingMandelmann.ch

The Teaching and Movements of G. I. Gurdjieff.

The teaching and movements of G. I. Gurdjieff are largely based on Central Asian Sufi techniques even if Gurdjieff did not stress their Islamic character. Although Gurdjieff died in October 1948;  he was known as an inspiration for combining mystical thought, music and motion in the artistic milieu of Béjart.

The French composer of modern experimental music;  Pierre Schaeffer with whom Béjart worked closely was a follower of Gurdjieff. Schaeffer also worked closely with Pierre Henry for Symphonie pour un homme seul and La Messe pour le Temps Présent;  for which Béjart programmed the dance. Pierre Henry was interested in the Tibetan school of Buddhism, so much of Béjart’s milieu had spiritual interests turned toward Asia.

Georges Gurdjieff

Georges Gurdjieff, head-and-shoulders portrait. By Janet Flanner-Solita Solano papers., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

“Opening The Heart To The Light of Love.”

It was Béjart’s experience in Persia where he was called by the Shah of Iran to create dances for the Persepolis celebration in 1971 that really opened the door to Sufi thought — a path he continued to follow. A Sufi theme is “opening the heart to the light of love.” Sufi movements, which Béjart adopted, is to develop movements in time with the beating of the heart.

Béjart also followed his father’s interest in education and created dance schools both in Bruxelles and later Lausanne. While there is not a “Béjart style” that others follow closely, he stressed an openness to the cultures of the world and felt that dance could be an enrichment for all social classes. He often attracted large audiences to his dance performances, and people from different milieu were moved by his dances.

 

Béjart represents a conscious effort to break down walls between artistic forms by combining music, dance, and emotion and the walls between cultures. An inspiration for world citizens to follow.

Maurice Béjart

Vladimir Yaroshenko (the Chosen Man), “Le Sacre du printemps” by Maurice Béjart, Polish National Ballet (2011). By Ewa Krasucka TW-ON, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

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Velimir Khlebnikov Rapprochement of Cultures.

Velimir Khlebnikov: The Futurian and World Citizen.

Featured Image: V. Khlebnikov by N.Kulbin (1913, Akhmatova’s museum).jpg By seefilename, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

(November 9, 1885 – June 28, 1922).

By René Wadlow.

Let Planet Earth be sovereign at last. Planet Earth alone will be our sovereign song.

– Velimir Khlebnikov.

 

Velimir Khlebnikov was a shooting star of Russian culture in the years just prior to the start of the First World War. He was part of a small creative circle of poets, painters and writers;  who wanted to leave the old behind and to set the stage for the future;  such as the abstract painter Kazimir Malevich. They called themselves “The Futurians”. They were interested in being avenues for the Spirit which they saw at work in peasent life and in shamans’ visions;  however, the Spirit was very lacking in the works of the ruling nobility and commercial elite.

Kazimir Malevich

Self-Portrait (1908 or 1910-1911) (Kazimir Malevich). By Kazimir Malevich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

As Charlotte Douglas notes in her study of Khlebnikov:

“To tune mankind into harmony with the universe – that was Khlebnikov’s vocation. He wanted to make the Planet Earth fit for the future, to free it from the deadly gravitational pull of everyday lying and pretense, from the tyranny of petty human instincts and the slow death of comfort and complacency.” (1)

Khlebnikov wrote:

“Old ones! You are holding back the fast advance of humanity. You are preventing the boiling locomotive of youth from crossing the mountain that lies in its path. We have broken the locks and see what your freight cars contain: tombstones for the young.”

Velimir Khlebnikov

 
Vélimir Khlebnikov (before 1922). By Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Futurian movement as such lasted from 1911 until 1915;  when its members were dispersed by the start of the World War, the 1917 revolutions and the civil war. Khlebnikov died in 1922 just as Stalin was consolidating his power. Stalin would put an end to artistic creativity.

The Futurians were concerned that Russia should play a creative role in the world;  but they were also world citizens who wanted to create a world-wide network of creative scientists, artists and thinkers who would have a strong impact on world events. As Khlebnikov wrote in his manifesto To the Artists of the World:

“We have long been searching for a program that would act something like a lens capable of focusing the combined rays of the work of the artist and the work of the thinker toward a single point where they might join in a common task and be able to ignite even the cold essence of ice and turn it to a blazing bonfire. Such a program, the lens capable of directing together your fiery courage and the cold intellect of the thinkers has now been discovered.”

The appeal for such a creative, politically relevant network was written in early 1919 when much of the world was starting to recover from World War I. However, Russia was sinking into a destructive civil war. The Futurians were dispersed to many different areas and were never able to create such a network. The vision of a new network is now a challenge that we must meet.

Note.

1) Charlotte Douglas (Ed.) The King of Time: Velimir Khlebnikov (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985).

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

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René Dumont Rapprochement of Cultures.

René Dumont (13 March 1904 – 18 June 2001):…

By Rene Wadlow.

Awareness building is often a long process. Thus recognition of the ideas of René Dumont has come nearly two decades after his death with the vote on 17 December 2018 by the United Nations General Assembly of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People working in rural areas. René Dumont highlighted the importance of small-scale peasant farmers in the world’s food production.  Despite the massive displacement of the peasantry toward cities, more than 70 percent of the world’s food is produced by small family-owned farms.

René Dumont was an active world citizen and always stressed world citizenship in his justification for his studies of agriculture worldwide. Although he was 30 years older than I and much better known through his scientific monographs on African agriculture; and then his popular books on African rural development when we met; there was always a feeling of togetherness in a battle for a better life for African farmers.

General AsemblyImage by Basil D Soufi, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

You might be interested in reading: U.N. General Assembly: Can It Provide the Needed Global Leadership?

Les Verts (The Greens).

When René Dumont died in June 2001 at the age of 97, he was remembered as the father of French political ecology; but he had no direct intellectual heirs.  His 1974 campaign for the French presidency was the first time Les Verts (The Greens) had entered politics at the national level.  Dumont was able to federate around his personality and his reputation as an agronomist; specializing in African and Asian development a wide range of people; who felt that the traditional French political parties were not dealing with the crucial questions of humanity’s future.  His energetic campaign and strong personality in television presentations created the groundwork; on which Les Verts could build a political movement as they  have done. The current ecology party in France is a strong force; probably the third political force in the country.In France.

During the 1974 campaign, Dumont, with his red sweater and a glass of water to recall the dangers of water pollution; was a marked contrast with the more formal candidates.  Dumont received only one percent of the popular vote, but he put Les Verts on the political map and set out the issues which would continue.

The choice is yours, ecology or death.

Dumont was 70 when he ran for president and after the campaign remained more a “father figure” than an organizer in the structuring of the political ecology movement, done largely by a younger generation.  René Dumont was not a “team player” and often expressed his views in a very direct way.  He was particularly direct in his dislike of autos and the need for higher gas prices — not popular themes among the French electorate.  He always stressed that the conditions in the Third World were intolerable and would lead to revolts.

Dumont was known in the general public for his prophetic 1962 L’Afrique Noire est Mal Partie (False Start in Africa); often republished for a decade in up-dated editions.  He denounced the short-sighted agricultural and social policies of the newly independent African states — policies which have continued and which have led to a constant decline in agricultural production.  Dumont was a prolific writer helped in his later life by a series of skilled co-authors.  He would alternate a book on specific agricultural questions with a more general; usually polemical book.  His book titles were often a political program in themselves.  The collection of his 1974 campaign speeches is entitled A vous de choisir, l’ecologie ou le mort. (The choice is yours, ecology or death).

He was a dynamic speaker. In his public, political lectures, his style was cutting and his examples telling but without subtlety; but when he was speaking of agricultural development to students as he did to the Graduate Institute of Development Studies in Geneva; where I was teaching, his analysis was much more nuanced.  Unlike some agronomists; who neglect the socio-cultural context in which farming takes place; Dumont had a sociologist’s concern for the values and attitudes of rural populations.

Globalization.

René Dumont was well aware of the world dimension of agricultural production and distribution.  He called attention to the negative effects of “globalization” well before the term became popular.  His analysis of the agriculture of China, Cuba, Algeria, and Poland were extremely detailed, causing the French Communists to keep up a steady barrage of attacks against Dumont .He had a host of refusal of a visa to a good number of Communist countries.  Dumont was preoccupied all his life with hunger and the dangers of famine in the world.  He summed up his views in a 1997 monograph Famines, le retour (Famines, their return).  He thus stressed the need to increase food production and was criticised by some in the ecology movement;  who feared that intense agricultural production was destructive of ecological balance.

The French Left once called itself “internationalist”; in practice, however, foreign policy rarely played an important role in their political programs.  Dumont with his world experience and knowledge of interdependence gave to Les Verts a world agenda from the start.  His was a call for world reform and for new, transformed North-South relations.  Dumont had a wide influence on development thinking, stressing the need for popular participation and the possibility of taking small steps if they were in the right direction.  His strong personality and convictions helped set the ecological agenda both in France and the world.

Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

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H.G. Wells Rapprochement of Cultures.

H.G. Wells: The Open Conspiracy for Peace.

Featured Image: Portrait of Herbert George Wells by George Charles Beresford. Black and white glossy print. 150 mm x 108 mm (1920). By George Charles Beresford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

“Behind the short-sighted governments that divide and mismanage human affairs, a real force for world unity and order exists and grows.”

         H. G. Wells in A Short History of the World,  1943

 Herbert George Wells, an active world citizen is usually known as just H.G. Wells. (1) From the publication of The Time Machine in 1895 to his death in 1946, Wells ‘bestrode his world like a colossus.  He was a creator of modern science fiction, a pioneer of women’s rights (though he treated some badly in his many love affairs), a journalist, historian, and novelist.  Above all, he was a social thinker devoted to peace and stable world order. (2)

The first page of The Time Machine was published by Heinemann (1 January 1895). By Published by Heinemann in 1895, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

         Wells first studied biology under Thomas H. Huxley, the leading Darwinian of Victorian times, and came to see the ethical principles underlying humanity’s social systems as being rooted in the evolutionary process and therefore have the potential for onward development. Just as there was one major factor in biological progress − natural selection − so in social progress, there was one major factor − the quality of enlightened thought. As he wrote “However urgent things may seem, a great mental renascence must precede any effectual reorganization of the world. 

Systematic development and a systematic application of the sciences of human relationship, of personal and group psychology, of financial and economic sciences, and of education − sciences still in their infancy − is required.  Narrow and obsolete, dead and dying moral and political ideas have to be replaced by a clearer and simpler conception of the common origins and destinies of our kind.”

Caricature of T H Huxley. Caption read “A great Med’cine-Man among the Inqui-ring Redskins”. circa 1870 (published 28 January 1871). By Carlo Pellegrini, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Open Conspiracy.

         Wells was critical of democracy as being too slow and always tending toward the middle of the road on important issues.  In 1928, he tried to alert to new dangers and possibilities by proposing an “open conspiracy” − an elite group of pioneer world citizens who would organize to move humanity forward. (3). The Open Conspiracy was his organizing manual for the diverse constituencies of globally-minded citizens to bring sanity to the organizing of human affairs.

         Wells clearly foresaw the need for a re-organization of the economic affairs of humanity.

  “Certain things, the ocean, the air, rare wild animals must be the collective property of all humankind and cannot be altogether safe until they are so regarded and until some concrete body exists to exercise these proprietary rights…the raw material of the earth should be for all.”

         Some
progress has been made in the identification of endangered species, and a
variety of international conventions have at least slowed the despoliation of
an amount of our natural heritage.  Yet
the ongoing destruction of forests, over-exploitation of the oceans as well as
other signs of the environmental crisis are constant reminders of how much
distance is left to travel.

         Wells was harshly critical of Marxist theory and of the Communist rule of Stalin in the USSR.  Thus he contrasts his “open conspiracy” with the closed conspiracies and vanguard approach of Lenin whom he had met in 1920. He was also highly opposed to Fascism and its closed conspiracies.  The “open conspiracy” is a project for every manner of the person once an individual has developed a ‘world consciousness’, though Wells was himself very Eurocentric in his world outlook.

         He summed up his views as a race between education for world citizenship and catastrophe − a task of bold and creative minds.

      Notes.

  • For a detailed biography see: David Lodge A
    Man of Parts      (New York, Viking, 436pp.)

    • For an overview of his political thinking
      see: John S. Partington. Building Cosmopolis: The Political thought of H.G.
      Wells        Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)
    • The Open Conspiracy   was first published in 1928 and slightly revised
      published in 1933.  The 1933 edition is
      republished much more recently with a strong introduction and notes in W.Warren
      Wagar. The Open Conspiracy/H.G. Wells on World Revolution  (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 151pp.).

Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

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Stringfellow Barr Rapprochement of Cultures.

Stringfellow Barr. Joining the Human Race.

Featured Image: Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash.

By Rene Wadlow.

Stringfellow Barr: 15 January 1897 – 3 February 1982)

Stringfellow Barr;  whose birth anniversary we mark on 15 January;  was a historian;  largely of the classic Greek and Roman Empire period and an active world citizen.  

He served as president of the Foundation for World Government; from its start in 1948 to its closing in 1958.  He  was president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland (also home of the U.S. naval academy;  which turns out sailors). The aim of St. John’s; under Stringfellow Barr was to turn out well-read liberals;  who would have studied a common set of “Great Book” starting with the Greeks such as Plato.  The Great Books approach to learning developed community reading circles across the USA; very popular in the 1950s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZI0gUEzuEo

Stringfellow Barr had the good luck or a sense of the right timing to publish a short 36-page booklet; Let’s Join the Human Race in 1950. (1)  In his 30 January 1949;   Inaugural Address on becoming President of the U.S.A. Harry Truman set out four policy ideas; which he numbered as Point One to Point Four.

Presidential portrait of Harry Truman

Official Presidential Portrait. Notice the Capitol Building in the background. Truman, who was a two-term senator from Missouri and as vice-president presided over the Senate, wanted to emphasize his legislative career rather than his executive and the constitutional emphasis of the former over the latter. (1945). By Greta Kempton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. 

Point Four.

Point Four  was really an afterthought as some mention of foreign policy was needed for balance. Point Four was “a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.”

While the first three points dealing with domestic policy were quickly forgotten; Point Four caught the interest of many Americans as had the earlier Marshall Plan for Europe.  For some Americans; Point Four as the idea was called had an anti-Russian coloring.  U.S. technology to raise the standard of living of poor countries would prevent them “from going communist”.  For others; such as Stringfellow Barr;  the effort of raising the standard of living of the poor was a good thing in itself; and it should not be the task of the U.S.A. alone.

Barr  wrote “The people of the world are alone able to take on what is the main economic problem of every single national group – the problem of rebuilding their common world economy.  They can hope to do it only by the massive use of public funds.  America cannot do it for them… The nearest thing to a suitable agency that already exists is the United Nations.  And the United Nations is the nearest thing that exists only because the people of the world lack a common government.”

Citizens of the World.

Barr  called for the United Nations to create a World Development Authority: 

“calling in all neighbors from the Mighty Neighborhood.”

However;  he developed the idea in a full-length book in 1952; Citizens of the World (2).

 

He places the emphasis on hunger; which at the time was the public face of underdevelopment.  Robert Brittain’s Let There Be Bread and Josué de Castro’s;    The Geography of Hunger were among the most widely-read books by people interested in development at the time.

Josué de Castro

Josué de Castro speaks in the Chamber of Deputies, 1940. By Brazilian National Archives, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The 2015-2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Today we have a broader view of what development requires; however food and rural development remain critical issues.  The efforts of the United Nations system for development are not integrated into a World Development Authority.   There are repeated calls for greater coordination and planning within the U.N. system. The 2015-2030 Sustainable Development Goals are an effort to provide an over-all vision;  but common action remains difficult.

As Barr pointed out at the time; most of the proposals to improve the U.N. have focused their attention on the elimination of war; obviously important in the 1950s; when war between the USSR and the USA was a real possibility; highlighted by the 1950-1953 Korean War.

However; world citizens have tried to look at the total picture of the social, political and economic life of all the people of the world.

Today the focus of citizens of the world is more on the need for world-focused attitudes and policies rather than on new political structures.  Yet the vision of Stringfellow Barr remains important as we highlight his birth anniversary.

 

Notes.

1)Stringfellow Barr. Let’s Join the Human Race (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1950, 36pp.).
2) Stringfellow Barr. Citizens of the World (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1952, 285pp).

Rene Wadlow, President, Association of Citizens of the World.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

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Carl Rogers Rapprochement of Cultures.

Carl Rogers: Healing the Person and the State.

Featured Image: Carl Rogers Pyscologist. By VERONICA LOPEZ82, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Carl Ransom Rogers; (1902 – 1987) an active World Citizen; whose birth anniversary is 8 January, was a US psychologist and educator and a leading figure of what is often called

“The Third Wave of Psychology.” 

The first wave was Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung; and their views of psychoanalysis. 

The second wave was  the behaviorists symbolized by B.F. Skinner; and the later behavior-modification specialists. 

The third wave; often called “humanist”; has Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, and Carl Ransom Rogers as its best known figures.  Unlike Freud and Jung; who developed relatively-closed approaches; and a set of therapeutic techniques built on their theories; the humanist psychological theory; and therapies could change according to the persons being treated or the setting; in which work was undertaken.

In fact; Carl Rogers’ approach was first called “client-centered therapy”; and was based on the idea that the client (no longer called a “patient”) had within him vast resources for understanding; and accepting his dynamics of actions, attitudes, and emotions.  These resources are released in working with the therapist; (often called a facilitator).  The therapist communicates his own caring, empathy, and non-judgmental understanding.

Carl Rogers’ way of working with the people; was to bring his enormous capacity for empathy and understanding, his listening skills, and his caring for people to create a climate; in which the inner potential of the client; for growth could be realized. 

He had an unshakable belief that the person is trustworthy, resourceful, capable of self-direction, and consequently; able to modify his view of self to overcome obstacles; and pain and to become more effective, productive, and fully functioning.  

Sigmund Freud colorized portrait. By Photocolorization, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Therapeutic Relationship.

The view that clients have; within themselves, vast, untapped resources for self-directed growth; was met with rejection by many in the field of psychotherapy.  As C.H. Patterson has written in his The Therapeutic Relationship;

 “Person-centered therapy is often threatening to therapists; since it places responsibility on the therapist as a person; not on the therapist as an expert using a wide range of techniques supposedly selected on the basis of dealing; with specific client problems or diagnoses.”  

Even others within the humanist wave could be critical.  Abraham Maslow said

“Rogers doesn’t have enough sin and psychopathology in his system. He speaks of the only drive as self-actualization, which is to imply there is only a tendency to health.  Then where does all the sickness come from? He needs more theory of psychopathogenesis, fear, of resentment, of countervalues, of hostility.”

If many therapists were unwilling to follow Rogers in their therapeutic work many more individuals; who were working with people seeking growth; and the release of potentials rather than overcoming personal problems did follow Rogers’ lead. 

Jung, Carl Gustav (1875-1961). By ETH Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

One-On-One Client Centered Work.

The 1960s and 1970s saw the development of encounter groups; and a human potential movement.  Rogers’ views on the need for empathy; and unconditional positive regard was taken over by many of those who organized encounter groups.  Rogers shifted some of his activities; from one-on-one client centered work to what could be done in a group setting. 

The two foundation blocks of Rogers’ person-centered approach are:

  1. That each human being has within a growth potential or actualizing tendency.
  2. That this can best be realized if a proper interpersonal psychological climate is present.  These elements could also be used in a group setting; and many of Rogers’ views; were taken over in the training of primary and secondary school teachers.

With the experience of the positive results of encounter groups late in his life; Carl Rogers hoped that his healing techniques; could be used to help heal the deep antagonisms; within those who held responsibility for States. 

In the early 1980s; in the Soviet Union; some persons became more open to an interest; in what was being done in the intellectual life of Western countries. Carl Rogers was invited to lecture to mental health professionals in the Soviet Union. 

B.F. Skinner at the Harvard Psychology Department, circa 1950. By Silly rabbit, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Soviet Experiences.

Soviet psychotherapy had been largely in the behaviorist tradition and the heavy use of drugs; for behavior modification.  Freud and Jung were known by reputation; but not to be mentioned in polite company.  Thus; the largely unknown; but not taboo humanist approach merited being known; and Rogers was warmly welcomed.

I met Rogers on his return from the Soviet Union; when he gave a talk in Geneva on his Soviet experiences.  He had seen people; who were discovering new ideas; who had deep inner resources; but these resources had remained undeveloped during most of the Soviet period; by fear of stepping outside Communist orthodoxy.  He saw the need for follow-up both by him; and by others such as those of us meeting with him in Geneva.

Rollo May speaking at the University of San Diego (1976 – 1977). By Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Client-Centered Therapy Field.

Rogers’ peace activities; also concerned Central America and South Africa − areas torn by deep divisions; and uncertainty about the future.  His death in 1987; ended his personal ability; to carry on this peace-related approach. 

Much of Rogers’ influence today remains in the client-centered therapy field.  Most political leaders do not feel; that they are in need of help to discover new; and more satisfying personal meaning about themselves and the world they inhabit. 

Perhaps power fills all their emotional needs.  However; for those of us; who work without power for peace; the humanist psychology wave; and its emphasis on the formation of attitudes, fears, and aspirations can give us real tools for action.

Notes.

C.R. Rogers. Client-centered therapy ( Boston: Houghton-Mifflim, 1951).

C.R. Rogers. On becoming a person – a therapist’s view of psychotherapy (Boston: Houghton-Mifflim, 1961).

C.R. Rogers. Carl Rogers on encounter groups (New York: Harper and Row, 1970).

C.R. Rogers. A way of being (Boston: Houghton-Mifflim, 1980).

Rene Wadlow; President Association of World Citizens.

This is a tape of a Counselling Session between Carl Rogers and Gloria.
Carl Rogers uses Person Centred approach. Humanistic style of counselling.
This is the first part of about 5/6 videos.

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Pitirim Sorokin Rapprochement of Cultures.

Pitirim Sorokin: The Renewal of Humanity

Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968) was concerned; especially in the period after the Second World War; with the relation between the values and attitudes of the individual and their impact on the wider society.  His key study Society; Culture and Personality: Their Structure and Dynamics (1947); traced the relations between the development of the personality, the wider cultural values in which the personality was formed, and the structures of the society.

Reconstruction of Humanity (1948)

The two World Wars convinced him that humanity was in a period of transition; that the guideline of earlier times had broken down; and had not yet been replaced by a new set of values and motivations.  To bring about real renewal; one had to work at the same time on the individual personality; on cultural values as created by art, literature, education, and on the social framework.

One had to work on all three at once; not one after the other as some who hope that inner peace will produce outer peace. In his Reconstruction of Humanity (1948); he stressed the fact that:

“if we want to raise the moral standards of large populations, we must change correspondingly the mind and behaviour of the individuals making up these populations, and their social institutions and their cultures.”

The First Department of Sociology.

Pitirim Sorokin was born in a rural area in the north of Russia.  Both his parents died when he was young. He had to work in handicraft trades in order to go to the University of St. Petersburg; where his intelligence was noted, and he received scholarships to carry out his studies in law ; and in the then new academic discipline of sociology.  After obtaining his doctorate; he was asked to create the first Department of Sociology at the University of St. Petersburg.  However; the study of the nature of society was a dangerous undertaking; and he was put in prison three times by the Tsarist regime.

A Long Journey (1963).

He was among the social reformers that led to the first phase of the Russian Revolution in 1917.  He served as private secretary to Alexandre Kerensky; head of the Provisional Government and Sorokin was the editor of the government newspaper. 

When Kerensky was overthrown by Lenin; Sorokin became part of a highly vocal anti-Bolshevik faction; leading to his arrest and condemnation to death in 1923.  At the last moment; after a number of his cell mates had been executed; Lenin modified the penalty to exile, and Sorokin left the USSR, never to return.  His revolutionary activities are well-described in his autobiography A Long Journey (1963).

 Alexander Kerensky. By Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

University of Minnesota and Harvard University.

Pitirim Sorokin went to the United States and taught at the University of Minnesota (1924-1930); where he carried out important empirical studies on social mobility; especially rural to urban migration.  These studies were undertaken at a time when sociology was becoming increasingly recognized as a specific discipline. 

Pitirim Sorokin was invited to teach at Harvard University; where the Department of Social Ethics was transformed into the Department of Sociology with Sorokin as its head.  He continued teaching sociology at Harvard until his retirement in 1955; when the Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism was created; so that he could continue his research and writing.

Pitirim Sorokin By неизв., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Three Pillars That Make up Society.

Of the three pillars that make up society − personality, culture, and social structure − personality may be the easiest to modify.  Therefore; he turned his attention to how a loving or altruistic personality could be developed.  He noted that in slightly different terms: love, compassion, sympathy, mercy, benevolence, reverence, Eros, Agape and mutual aid − all affirm supreme love as the highest moral value; and its imperatives as the universal and perennial moral commandments. 

Pitirim Sorokin stressed the fact that an ego-transcending altruistic transformation; is not possible without a corresponding change in the structure of one’s ego, values and norms of conduct. Such changes have to be brought about by the individual himself; by his own effort, thinking, meditation, volition and self-analysis. He was strongly attracted to yoga; which acted on the body, mind, and spirit.

Societies Change Cultural Orientations.

 Sorokin was especially interested in the processes by which societies change cultural orientations; particularly the violent societies he knew; the USSR and the USA.  As he wrote renewal:

“demands a complete change of contemporary mentality, a fundamental transformation of our system of values and the profoundest modification of our conduct towards other men, cultural values and the world at large.  All this cannot be achieved without the incessant, strenuous active efforts on the part of every individual.”

Love or Compassion must be Universal.

Pitirim Sorokin believed that love or compassion must be universal; if it were to provide a basis for social reconstruction.  Partial love; he said, can be worse than indifference. 

“If unselfish love does not extend over the whole of mankind, if it is confined within one group − a given family, tribe, nation, race, religious denomination, political party, trade union, caste, social class or any part of humanity − in such an in-group altruism tends to generate an out-group antagonism.  And the more intense and exclusive the in-group solidarity of its members, the more unavoidable are the clashes between the group and the rest of humanity.”

Notes.

For a biography see: B.V. Johnston. Pitirim A.
Sorokin: An Intellectual Biography (University Press of Kansas, 1995)

For an overview of his writings see: Frank Cowell.History,
Civilization and Culture: An Introduction to the Historical and Social
Philosophy of Pitirim A. Sorokin (Boston: Beacon Press, 1952)

For Sorokin’s late work on the role of altruism see:
P.A. Sorokin. The Ways and Power of Love (Boston, Beacon Press, 1954) A
new reprint is published by Templeton Press, 2002

By Rene Wadlow. President, Association of World Citizens.

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Mothers Day Education of World Citizenships.

Our mothers. The Fundamental Pillar of Society.

Photo by Giftpundits.com in Pexels

Perhaps many expect the typical article that should be titled:  

“Congratulations to all the mothers on their day”

or   “Mothers celebrate their day.”

Something like this to cite some examples.

But it is not the goal. An image of “congratulations on mothers day”; everyone can download it anywhere and then post it on social media. Even today; the true value of the mother figure has not been given to the strengthening of society.

We focus on seeing only the materialized goals. But no one stops to think about the training process. Everything has a beginning. As a society; we must focus on this. Especially in Latin American cultures; mothers are the forgers of those men and women who are going to shape society; and the degree of civility will depend exclusively on the values ​​formed from the person’s childhood.

Children with values ​​are destined to become productive citizens; contributing knowledge and knowledge for society. They will be noble people and will adapt perfectly to work teams; and thus achieve collective objectives.

Mothers are Active Part in the Education of Their Children.

It does not happen in all cases. But a person; who has not received such maternal training is likely to lack values; ​​that prevent him from inserting himself adequately in society; and therefore achieve to live happily. These may be the most common causes; that produce in a person; the predisposition necessary to commit various crimes.

Mothers are active part in the education of their children; together with the educational system of the countries. Without the support of the Mothers; it is difficult for a child to perform well in the education he receives at school.

The work of these noble women is admirable. And they perform it with all the love in the world without receiving any type of salary. Not satisfied with this, they have also had to fight with so many anti-values ​​that have spread today. From the media to social networks. If not for these women, society would be worse than it is today.

In conclusion; we must emphasize that mothers carry out exceptional work. Because by looking at the statistics; we can determine that good citizens represent the majority; compared to a small group that commit crimes and criminality.

We will always lack words and gestures to thank for such a noble sacrifice; and excellent work; that they carry out all mothers around the world.

It is for this reason that there is nothing left to say

“Thank you very much to all the mothers; who educated us with love and tenderness. For you we are an innovative, good and hard-working society.”

“Happy International Mothers Day”.

By Elio Pinto.