United in Principle

It is a natural human inclination to look to a higher authority when in peril. It is universal, from the beleaguered sibling seeking the aid of his parent to the Pandavas beseeching the deity Krishna in the Hindu epic the Bhagavad Gita.

In the contemporary global political system, there is no higher authority than the United Nations, whose explicit reason for existence is to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights and achieving world peace.

A lofty goal. But one that symbolises the heights of human nobility: to better the lives of our fellows through cooperative endeavour.

The existence of the UN is necessary as a model or ideal towards which we can strive. Generally, the idea of multi-state federations is both popular and plausible: we have OPEC and ASEAN, NAFTA and AFTZ, and even a single currency on the European continent. Furthermore, the federated model is recognised as necessary: cooperation ensures survival, as it did in World War II. It lends legitimacy, too; even Bush needed a coalition of the willing to start his Iraq invasion.

To be sure, the Iraq saga was a clear example of the mucky politicization of the UN’s noble goals. Whereas the body initially decried the US’ intent to invade, it was made eventually to come around when Bush proceeded with his plan. A 2005 RAND Corp study found the UN to be successful in two out of three peacekeeping efforts. Nevertheless, many critics have stressed the UN’s uselessness in the face of disappointments such as its failure to implement resolutions related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to prevent the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, and to prevent genocide or provide assistance in Darfur.

These failures, it is argued, derive from the nature of the UN’s structure, which, due in part to its size, means that its resolutions are more suggestive than prescriptive: it is up to the member-states to follow through on the resolutions. Regardless, the fact remains that we, all humans, cooperated to forge an image of a unified society; the UN is an amazing feat of human cooperation, and we cannot overlook it. That it depends on individual commitments and is sometimes ineffective is representative of human institutions and dispositions, generally. When as individuals we do not have the control or discipline to fulfil our obligations, how can we expect this body to have control over multiple states?

In a way, it never was meant to. It is not meant to be binding. Rather, it represents an ethical ideal towards which we strive, and upon which we agree. It works like the honour system, relying on the hope that we do not succumb to our caprices, that we are not ‘swayed by the whims and gusts of mortal passion’, to paraphrase a former President of the League of Nations, Aga Khan III. But that too is an ideal towards which we aspire and which we hope someday to realise, and our missteps on the journey are expected, and accepted. The fact of our striving, though, is our nobility. It is one of our twin natures as humans to strive perpetually towards goodness, towards the betterment of ourselves and our fellows. This internal obsession is mirrored by the society we created through the institutions of liberal democracy – which seek to ensure the freedom of both body and mind – itself manifested macrocosmically by a global body such as the UN.

It is a symbol of our unity, of our common desire for better things. Imagine a world without this sort of ethical watchdog; we would have multiple entities running roughshod over whomever they could, with no overarching principles ensuring the rights of humans. It is the sort of world conjured by the statements of one-time US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton: ‘There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.’

Vae victis, woe to the conquered.

A central ideal of the UN is to prevent the tyranny of the strong over the weak. It is a liberal ideal that might cannot make right, unlike in the classic example of competing theories of international relations, the Athenian invasion of Melos in the fifth century BCE, validated by the Athenian formula: ‘the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’. It is precisely this sort of conviction that the UN was created to combat.

As a symbol of good, of responsibility to humankind, the UN is necessary. To be sure, it requires reform (such as the massive programme initiated by Kofi Annan in 2005); but it nevertheless represents the quest towards a society of cooperative and converging civilisations, the sort of world envisioned by its founders in 1941, who wrote: ‘the only true basis of enduring peace is the willing cooperation of free peoples in a world in which, relieved of the menace of aggression, all may enjoy economic and social security; it is our intention to work together, and with other free peoples, both in war and peace, to this end.’

http://www.stockthewarehouse.org/flashpoint-world-affairs/flashpoint/united-in-principle.html

SHAPEBOOK-ing, the 1st Internet Revolution

‘Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’ T.S. Eliot once asked.

It is a question that epitomizes the internet, a whirling landscape of all of humanity’s collective and personal information. Today, this landscape has become categorised and controlled; its mass of information is sorted at every instant and it has become a tool for the management of knowledge. The internet has become a central component of the public sphere, where ideas are debated and society’s norms are shaped. Facebook, being perhaps the most widely used social networking site currently available, has come to play a major role in this debate, as it is where individual humans come in direct contact with each other to share and discuss different information, an exercise that directly influences opinion.

Our opinions are formed by our interactions with the ideas of others: our teachers, our parents, our friends, our heroes, our enemies. When we share our opinions with others, we do so in what the German sociologist Jurgen Habermas calls the ‘public sphere’, the social arenas and sites where ideas are shared, articulated, and negotiated. The internet is the quintessential public sphere, as it is purely shared information.

Facebook, in a sense, represents the ideal of ‘the public’, as it is a collective of individuals, easily and quickly sharing information that is meaningful to them, without barriers. Here, one is exposed to an exponentially increasing variety of information, being offered quickly by the multitude of one’s contacts, all of whom come from different backgrounds and have different information to offer.

This is where the clamour of the internet becomes clearer, where information becomes knowledge. When we choose from the repository of information that is offered to us, we transform that information into knowledge. And when we share that knowledge with others, we are participating in what is the ultimate goal of the public sphere – to shape public opinion, the social imaginary.

The social imaginary, as articulated by Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, is the set of values, institutions, laws, and symbols common to a particular social group and the corresponding society. It is the background repository that shapes how citizens envision their shared spaces. The public debate that transpires on the internet, and specifically within the system of Facebook, constantly contributes to our opinions and ideas about the world and its workings.

The sharing of information runs the gamut from humourous cartoons to touching videos to serious articles. Many of us would have never heard of Susan Boyle were it not for Facebook. As well, the death of Michael Jackson was so influential that almost every Facebook status update was a eulogy for him, connecting and creating a shared sense of bereavement. And uncensored information about the bloody aftermath of the recent Iranian election was brought to the fore by the hundreds of people who posted and re-posted articles and videos – such as the disturbing image of the death of Neda – all of which has led some to describe this information-sharing as the first ‘internet revolution’, a testament to Facebook’s real power to inform and inspire.

To be sure, much of the information we receive on our home feeds is personal, or trivial, or even amusing. But this is reflective of the ebb and flow of our daily lives. We are concerned with the goings-on of our friends, we are gladdened by the silly bits of news and humour that they share, we are enriched by the more informative and unusual pieces of information they post, and we are humbled by their accomplishments (of which some of them post too many pictures and videos).

But there is other information that we receive, which, as mentioned earlier, is relevant to issues of social change. We receive information about atrocities in war-torn countries, we engage in debates about marijuana use among public figures, and we learn about how to get involved in animal shelters in our cities. This is civic culture at its most basic – citizens getting involved in issues that change and shape their societies.

It is in this way that the internet and Facebook, specifically, are vehicles for social change because they bring the issues directly to the people, and enable them to participate in the dialogue and, to paraphrase one man, to blog the change they want to see in the world. {w}

http://www.stockthewarehouse.org/flashpoint-world-affairs/flashpoint/shapebook-ing-the-1st-internet-revolution.html