The global upheaval did not start yesterday. Some even associate it with the spectre of a third world war.
The new world war also in some diagnoses started not yesterday. Admittedly, without a spectacular outbreak as yet, such as an open military conflict between the USA and Russia or China.
There is no doubt that we already know how to define the challenges that the world as a whole must face. Let’s recall them before we move forward.
First, there is the threat of nuclear war. Putin’s threats about the readiness to use nuclear weapons in the context of the war in Ukraine made it clear that the extended suicide syndrome, even if in the Russian version it was only a bluff aimed at scaring Western societies against further support for Ukraine, is not a pure abstraction. Even the DPRK can resort to it. And the chain-effect increase in nuclear potentials fueled by China (chain-effect, because India can follow China, and India can be followed by Pakistan) makes the risk of accidental launching of nuclear arms more significant.
Second, it’s climate change. Nobody questions it anymore. Only a marginal part of society does not want to see human activity as its source. But there is no efficient mechanism based on a general consensus to control it, one that would be unconditionally signed by the US, China, Russia and India. It is magnified by pollution and drop in biodiversity.
Third, it is the depletion of natural resources. We will be able to cope somehow with the shrinking of hydrocarbon stocks. It is worse with the progressive reduction of the forest area, the depletion of soils, the depletion of ocean fauna, and limited access to drinking water. There are no global regulatory mechanisms in this regard. Even if one should feel real satisfaction from the signing of the Convention on the Protection of Ocean Biodiversity in 2023.
Fourth, it is the threat of global pandemics. COVID-19 has scared societies around the globe. Nobody argues with the view that further pandemics are inevitable. However, there are no known legal and institutional solutions that would be proposed, let alone implemented, to prevent pandemics, stop them in the bud, and develop cooperation in combating them.
Fifthly, it is the growing inequality in the world within individual societies. There are legitimate claims that the number of actual slaves in the world breaks all records. The forms of slavery are different than before, but its consequences for the fate of a human being are no milder than in the case of classical slavery from past eras, outlawed and morally condemned.
Sixth, it’s the unpredictable consequences of technological progress, especially the impact of artificial intelligence. Reputable scientific authorities warn against its dehumanizing effect on our behaviour, even prophesying the end of the human race as we know it. There are calls signed with serious names to stop further work on the use of artificial intelligence, to introduce a kind of moratorium on its further development. However, in the international legal and institutional dimension, there are no major initiatives on a global scale to deal with the challenge. The European Union has undertaken a pioneering effort to codify the rules for the use of artificial intelligence but we are far from acquiring a universal instrument.
Seventh, the structural crisis of modern society is deepening. It manifests itself in the collapse of trust in organized religions, existing political institutions, in the progressive inefficiency of the state. Despite the common nature of these phenomena, they are still treated as local challenges, “headaches” for nation states.
These challenges are evident and assimilated in the public consciousness from almost preschool age. They are serious enough to talk about the time of real upheaval. They are so interconnected that specialists talk about a “polycrisis” and prove that it can only be effectively undertaken in a systemic way.
But what would successfully lead the world through the troubled waters of crisis? Who? How?
Jared Diamond in the book “Upheaval. How nations cope with crisis and change” tried to provide proven recipes for effective transformation of a fundamental nature based on the experience of a few selected countries.
Let’s try to transpose Diamond’s success factors to the global level. Let’s try to assess what factors may influence the successful passage of the world through global upheavals.
The first factor on the list is the need to recognize that the world is in a state of crisis. However, we are still far from universally accepting this fact. The world is still in denial. Especially the Eastern part of it. There, hope and development optimism still rule social emotions. It is no coincidence that Chinese science-fiction literature uses utopian visions of the world on a massive scale. In the West, in literature, but also in political and economic scientific forecasting, dystopia dominates. Western leaders occasionally use dramatic rhetorical phrases in their speeches to describe the world. In Asia (Russia and China) and Africa, the West is associated with a state of crisis but not the World as such.
Until the world frees itself from denial and accepts a crisis diagnosis, the necessary mobilization for action will not take place.
Another factor is the acceptance of shared responsibility for solving the crisis. The thesis that all states share responsibility for the future of the globe is no longer questioned. The problem, however, is that disputes persist as to the distribution of this co-responsibility. Many developing countries make no secret of the fact that they expect the problem to be solved by the action of and at the expense of the West. Because it was the West, in their opinion, that brought the world to its current state. And again – without the common awareness that co-responsibility should be shared and requires active participation in solving problems, there will be no success.
The next factor is no less important. It is a sober assessment of reality and an honest self-assessment of one’s own attitudes. Reading the documents of the UN, final declarations of numerous summits on global issues, one can get the impression that the so-called international community is generally satisfied with its actions. How vehemently it congratulated itself on the implementation of the so-called Millennium Goals, or at least some of them. It is difficult to find in those documents elements of criticism of the effectiveness of one’s own actions, and criticism of the helplessness of international institutions in particular. This institutional complacency is sometimes so different from the assessments of international publicists and non-governmental organizations that one can get the impression that politicians and diplomats function in their own detached reality, an artificial reality. One can understand the psychological resistance to self-flagellation in front of public opinion, resistance to undermining one’s own competence and commitment. But finally, someone must have the courage to break this resistance.
The fourth factor is also important: common identity. The postulate of promoting a common global identity (based on the identity of all of us as human beings) is noble by all means. This identity, however, is still hardly felt. Tribal and national identity dominates and is perpetuated. This tribal mentality is behind the widespread political delusion that national or regional barriers can be erected against the spillover of global threats. The fundamental question in the context of global identity solidification remains whether it will be possible to build it without the institutional factor, i.e. a world government, a global political supranational institution. National identity would not have grown to its present size without the institution of the nation-state, religious identity would not mean much without organized churches. Will the absence of a strong supranational global institution turn out to be a decisive handicap in developing a sense of common global identity?
The fifth factor of success: leadership. There is also a problem with this. The West as a whole suffers from a trust deficit. Initiatives coming from the West are treated with suspicion. The West, without whom no initiative to improve the world can be successful, although it could initiate global change (as demonstrated in the initiative of a universal ban on nuclear weapons, initiative of the world criminal court, initiative to limit the production of greenhouse gases), it often behaves like a capricious, selective, indecisive leader. The European Union is unable to free itself from self-imposed limitations, to overcome the associations of its key states with the colonial legacy. And China and Russia propose a vision of nineteenth-century leadership, cynically referring to the principles of global balance of great powers. and spheres of influence.
The next, sixth component in our enumeration is the right time perspective. Politicians from the democratic camp can be persuaded to a more long-term view without much strain. But the mechanism of politics in democracies forced them to think in terms of electoral success, which imposed a short-term time horizon and led to the sinking of political discourse into the “permanent present”. Dictators and autocrats do not experience these limitations. However, their “longtermism” is not about thinking about the next generation, but about immortalizing their own fame and name. The postulate of “longtermism” breaks through reluctantly. There have been proposals to promote it by special institutions, including the currently hibernated UN Trusteeship Council.
The seventh factor is ideas. Pangeism and the like are too sublime and lofty for politicians. They can be a catalyst for global identity, but they are not taken seriously as a guide for action. There are no clear political ideologies today and hardly anyone misses them. Societies do not want to return to the era of great ideologies. Their traumatic effects have left their mark on the social memory, especially in the West.
Today, there is no philosopher or intellectual who would inspire the world with an idea mobilizing for global action. Some of them are widely read, for example Harari. But hardly anyone will admit to being inspired by their ideas.
I will end our enumeration with the eighth point, i.e. the need to consolidate the world with common global values. For decades, the West lived under the illusion that the world was moving towards universal acceptance of a liberal understanding of values, the primacy of human rights, the rule of law, democracy, social justice, and a market economy. Now the West seriously doubt it. The failure of the transformation in Afghanistan is treated by many as proof that there are and will be societies in the world that are not and will not be able to assimilate Western values. The staggering pace of China’s economic growth was taken as the effectiveness of an alternative, illiberal model of social governance, exceeding the effectiveness of the Western model. The world does not want to homogenize in terms of values, and the policy of Russia and China has led to a renewed state of global confrontation based not only on geopolitics, but also on the understanding of values.
Is it possible to successfully tackle global challenges in a world deeply divided by values? History knows such cases. Ultimately, the Allies in World War II were united by the common goal of stopping fascism despite deep ideological divisions between the West and the USSR. And even during the Cold War, the doctrine of peaceful coexistence tried to prove that in order to solve “general” challenges, one had to act beyond ideological divisions. So even today one can imagine “tactical” alliances between the world of democracy and the camp of autocracy in the name of universal goals, such as limiting the pace of climate change. But these will by definition be ad hoc, unstable alliances. My answer to the question about the effectiveness of taking up such challenges in a divided world is therefore skeptical.
And is it possible to build an order based on the vision of “one world”, disregarding moral issues? Because there is no uniform moral code in the world today. There is no single world religion (only two openly claiming to be universal). Nor is there a uniform non-religious set of moral truths. Is it even possible to imagine one? Mahbubani believes so. And also Harari says: yes. That you can start building it from the lowest common denominator, i.e. the prohibition of causing suffering to others. The problem is that we still have different understandings of suffering in our cultures. But the worst thing is that in many cultures we elevate suffering, give it a sublime character, make it a path to moral perfection. I see no chance for a common moral code on a global scale in the imaginable future.
It remains to rely on common, international legal codes. This is the only way to build a solid community of values in the world.
The summary conclusion of the analysis of the above eight factors for successfully leading the world through the time of upheavals is hardly reassuring. We are far from being ready. Very far. So what remains is remedial action dealing with symptoms and not necessarily the causes. We will thus continue trying to deal with the effects of the crisis, sectoral and specific, we will put segmental dams against the accumulation of dangerous phenomena. We will solve specific and ad hoc crises. But the conditions for systemic action are not yet ripe.
However, what I would expect from world leaders, politicians, moral authorities, political and social celebrities, is a transparent presentation of what world they want to strive for, setting clear goals, formulating signposts, declaring the values they follow. I do not expect another Millennium Declaration, another sublime resolution of the UN General Assembly, another communiqué of the G-7 summit or the G-20, another declaration of an alliance of democracies.
My expectations are ambitious: I am looking forward to a Charter for the Single World.
Let the circle of its signatories be narrow at first, because not everyone will like such a vision (take Putin or Xi), but let joining it become a declaration of political decency.
The New Atlantic Charter of 2021 signed by Biden and Johnson is actually a missed opportunity if you look at its content. After all, if the name is to be associated with oceanic regions, then it would have to be about not so much the Atlantic platform as the three oceans platform today. The goals would have to be marked much more ambitiously and be related to the vision of One (Single) World.
