CHAPTER VI
VIOLENCE AND THE RISING TIDE OF
GLOBALIZATION A TEILHARDIAN PERSPECTIVE
MERVYN
FERNANDO
Violence lies heavily upon the conscience and consciousness of man today.
Not that violence had been absent from any epoch in human history. It seems that
even more than physical nature, human nature is "red in tooth and
claw". But undeniably violence seems to have struck a new pitch in both
extent and intensity in our times. This is no doubt due partly to the sheer fact
of great the increase in population within the last few decades, partly due
again, as a consequence, to the opportunities and occasions of violence, and
partly also due to the more powerful and deadly means of violence and
destruction that science and technology have put into our hands.
My own country Sri Lanka has been in the grip of violence for the past
three or four decades. Earlier, this was sporadic, but it has been severe and
ongoing during the past fourteen years. Neighboring India is wrecked by
racial/ethnic and religious conflicts; so are a number of countries in Asia --
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, and Indonesia (Timor) -- in varying
degrees of scale and intensity. India has waged war with Pakistan three times
and with China once during the past four decades. The Arab-Israeli conflict was
long and continuing. Iraq and Kuwait were at war just five years ago with the
involvement of the U.S., Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Iran and Iraq
attacked each other for seven years in the 80s. The former republic of
Yugoslavia is hardly out of the bloody mess it was in two to three years ago, as
are Rwanda and Burundi. Strong separatist movements are active in some countries
of the first world too, for example, Great Britain, Canada and Spain. And we are
only 52 years away from the horrible violence of the second World War and the
holocaust.
Why all this violence in a day and age which is supposed to be
enlightened in many ways? Today there is much more literacy, education, social
communication, travel, etc., than 50 years ago, not to speak of the bewildering
advances in all branches of knowledge. We have come a long way from the Stone
Age and the Dark Ages of ignorance and superstition. But peace, harmony, concord
and brotherhood seem to be inversely proportional to the progress of
civilization.
There has been no dearth of explanations and theories regarding all this
racial and ethnic violence. A number of models have been constructed --
economic, political, socio-cultural -- to get a handle on this problem. To quote
from a recent study by Jalaii and Lipset:
Most theories of ethnic mobilization assume that modernization played an
important role in stimulating the ethnic movements of recent times. They diverge
in the factors they identify as causally more significant in the development and
persistence of ethnically based movements. . . . A model of ethnic mobilization
which has enjoyed much popularity in recent years is economic competition. The
basic arguments are derived from the ecological theories of Frederick Barth and
his associates. The economic model is, however, not without its weaknesses.1
All these explanations and models deal with the immediate and what I
might term "physical' causes of ethnic conflict. What is special and
distinctive about the thesis of Teilhard de Chardin is that it takes a long
distance, total, or rather, "ultra-physical" view of the phenomenon of
violence, in order to give it some constructive meaning. As Viktor Frankl has
shown so poignantly, man cannot live without meaning: we are human because we
ask questions about meaning. Does the widespread violence in the world today
have any meaning? Is it just a meaningless episode in the total meaninglessness
of human existence, as some Existentialists believe. Or does it play some role
in the progressive evolution of man into another stage of his future. These are
not mere speculative questions; they touch our minds and hearts, our blood and
bones. Our standpoint and motivation for action will depend on our viewpoint. I
cannot think of a more dynamically challenging viewpoint on this question than
that offered by Teilhard.
For him the whole of reality is evolutionary; in other words, the whole
cosmos has always been, is, and will be in a process of ascent or progress from
the simple to the complex in increasing degree. In a gross way, we can see that
the living world of plants is more complex than the non-living world of
minerals, the world of animals is more complex than that of plants, and,
finally, the human world is more complex than the animal world. Each of these
represents a higher degree of complexity. This is certainly not an original,
world-shattering observation. What is original in Teilhard is that he co-related
complexity to consciousness and discovered the link between the two -- that one
is a function of the other.
We can understand this idea better if we start from the wrong end, so to
speak, from the process rather than at the beginning. As stated earlier, man is
at the end of the evolutionary line of complexity, the most complex being that
which arrived last on the scene. Here may I tarry a moment to let Teilhard
explain what he means by complexity. It is, "the quality things possess of
being composed, (a) of a large number of elements, (b) more tightly organized
among themselves. . . . It is not therefore a matter of simple multiplicity, not
simple complication, but concentrated complication."2 Returning
now to the main line of the argument, man is also at the same time the most
conscious of all beings, at the end of the evolutionary line of consciousness.
The human is the only being that is conscious that he is conscious:
consciousness doubles back upon itself to become reflex consciousness. Going
backwards we are corresponding relationships at the animal level where lesser
degrees of complexity (compared to man) are coupled with lesser degrees of
consciousness and so on.
This is Teilhard's famous Law of Complexity/Consciousness. He points in
the whole evolutionary process to the strict correspondence between complexity
and consciousness: the measure of complexity is the measure of consciousness, or
consciousness is a function of complexity. The consciousness aspect of a being
is its "within" which is the result of its structural complexity, the
"without". Going downwards from man, we see decreasing degrees of
consciousness with decreasing degrees of complexity, right down to the level of
inert matter — molecules and atoms. At that low level the consciousness
element is so weak that it is undetectable. Between simple inorganic matter at
one end and man at the other, we have a wide, continuous spectrum of
complexity/consciousness.
Now the crucial question is: what of evolution and man? Does the
evolutionary process stop with man or are there further stages ahead? This was
indeed Teilhard's main pre-occupation, to peer into the future of humankind,
taking a cue from its origins. No wonder Teilhard appeals to modem man who is
anxious about the future which seems both fascinating and frightening.
To understand Teilhard's thinking on the future of man, we must first
realize the full consequences of the difference between man and what went before
him in the evolutionary process, the difference that reflex consciousness made.
A reflexively conscious being becomes by that very fact a free center of action
and reception, with the ability to discern, to analyze and control those
activities. As Teilhard says,
The being who is the object of his own reflection, in consequence of that
very doubling back upon itself becomes in a flash able to raise itself into a
new sphere. In reality another world is born. Abstraction, logic, reasoned
choice and inventions, mathematics, art, calculations of space and time,
anxieties and dreams of love -- all these activities of inner life are nothing
else than the effervescence of the newly-formed center as it explodes on to
itself. . . . Because we are reflective, we are not only different (from
animals) but quite another. It is not merely a change of degree, but a change of
nature, resulting from a change of state.3
Because of this crucial difference the evolution of consciousness in man,
in the Noosphere (sphere of the mind), cannot occur in the same way as it did in
the biosphere. There is a radically new element which has entered the scene to
play a decisive role in further development. Teilhard points out that during the
million or so years of man's existence on earth, the human species has not
spread out into widely divergent groups, as happened in the stage below, among
animal species. The human species has preserved somehow a certain biological
homogeneity. In Teilhard's own words, "Under conditions of distribution
which in any other initial phylum would have led long ago to break up into
different species, the human verticil as it spreads out remains entire, like a
gigantic leaf whose veins however distinct remain always joined to a common
tissue."4 So, the species Man, while admitting diversity of
races, cultures etc., has covered the earth with an unbroken membrane of human
stuff. Zoologically sneaking, mankind is the only species that has proved itself
capable of achieving this unity.
Contact and interaction between individual units of consciousness (i.e.
individual persons) and between collectivities and socio-cultural groups is
bringing about that psychic infiltration and interpenetration which expand and
deepen the psycho-social aspect. Increasing external arrangements among persons
and peoples are creating richer concentrations of inner energy. Curiously, the
roundness of the earth plays a vital role in this process. This geometrical fact
forces proximity and convergence on the human mass upon the planet, making
closer and more frequent interaction among persons and groups inevitable with an
expanding population. "Originally and for centuries there was no serious
obstacle to the human waves expanding over the surface of the globe; probably
this is one of the reasons explaining the slowness of their social evolution.
Then, from the Neolithic onwards, these waves began (as we have seen) to recoil
upon themselves. All available space being occupied the occupiers had to pack in
tighter. That is how, step by step, through the simple multiplying effect of
generations we have come to constitute as we do at present an almost solid mass
of hominized substance."5
Here we come to the crux of our question. If the evolutionary process has
taken a psycho-social turn, the law of complexity/consciousness must also
operate on that plane. What is increasing in complexity now is not the somatic
structure of the individual, but the "soma" of humankind. We see this
happening before our very eyes through the rapid links and bonds that keep
forming every moment between person and person, family and family, group and
group, culture and culture, nation and nation. This spreads across the face of
the globe over enormous distances, through the vast network of criss-crossing
communications at work in the modem world -- from the simple postal system to
the sophisticated high-tech systems of satellite broadcasting, the mass media
and the internet. This has been augmented by correspondingly rapid travel and
transport. The fantastic development of travel and communication systems this
century has literally shrunk the globe, jostling persons and peoples,
compressing an ever-increasing population into "uncomfortable"
closeness. The web or network of travel/transport and communication is to
humankind what the nervous system is to the body of the individual.
According to Teilhard's principle this increase in complexification in
the external social order must give rise to an increase of the consciousness
"within". Is it possible to deny that the "compression" of
the human mass mentioned above has thrown peoples and cultures, hitherto
relatively isolated, into an inextricable mesh of interactions of all kinds --
social, commercial, cultural, political -- raising the psychic temperature or
the intensity of corporate consciousness. There is a psycho-social infolding
humankind upon itself -- the emergence of a kind of planetary collectivization.
understood positively. In Teilhard's own words: "We are faced with a
harmonized collectivity of consciousness, the equivalent of a sort of
super-consciousness. The idea is that of the earth becoming enclosed in a single
thinking envelope, so as to form, functionally, no more than a single vast grain
of thought on the cosmic scale.6
As noted earlier, the incredible developments in the technology of travel
and communication are creating the external conditions and pressures for
convergence and international, intercultural community. But, unlike in the
pre-human phase of evolution, in the human phase or in the Noosphere, it will
have to operate in a human mode. It must set in the mode of reflex
consciousness, with the awareness and collaboration of man himself, now the
subject of the evolutionary process. In a very striking expression which
Teilhard borrowed from Julian Huxley, Man is `evolution become conscious of
itself'. He, therefore, has to evolve himself discerning the goal of his
progressive journey. Though human consciousness was liberated from the
constraints of matter at the first instance of its emergence into the state of Homo
Sapiens, it has required the slow corporate reflection of the human species
over millennia, first in isolated groups, then in larger aggregates, and now
with greater intensity on a global scale, for man to recognize himself and his
destiny. Greater psycho-social complexification is generating a correspondingly
richer collective consciousness. Man is now being called upon to let himself go
freely and consciously into his evolutionary "vocation", which is a
vocation of unity and convergence at every level from the personal to the
global.
Given this situation, Teilhard is not surprised that the initial outcome
of, or the reaction to, convergence is one of suspicion, hesitation and even
hostility. Behind this reaction lies the deep-seated fear of loss of identity.
Just as two strangers beginning to form a bond of friendship cannot escape the
initial anxiety of opening out and trusting the other, so also nations and
ethnic groups confronted with close relationships and interaction for the first
time must necessarily experience the fear of losing their respective identities.
These fears are either aggravated or attenuated by a number of such other
factors as relative population strength, resource possessions, perceptions of
economic and military power, etc. Self-preservation is the primordial instinct
of an ethnic group or nation as much as of an individual. The threat to
self-preservation or survival brings out the strongest defensive mechanisms, one
of which is attack or aggression.
Teilhard takes great pains to emphasize that in the Noosphere, in the
sphere of mind and spirit, union does not obliterate but differentiates:
"Man avoids communication with another because he is afraid that by sharing
he will diminish his personality. He seeks to grow by isolating himself . . .
but the very opposite is true. The gift we make of our being, far from
threatening our ego, must have the effect of completing it."7
This principle is as valid groups as for the individual. To quote Teilhard
again: "The important thing to note is that if union truly
super-personalizes, the collective entities whose birth and successive growth
alarm us, are forming in the foreseen direction of evolution. . . . One thing is
certain: despite our fears it is in the direction of groupings that we must
advance."8
One very remarkable fact that has been overlooked in the wars and
conflicts of today is that almost without exception they are claimed to be
defensive, namely, defensive of rights to human dignity, freedom, property and
land, justice, or conversely, liberation from oppression, exploitation, etc. In
the past, most wars were wars of aggression and declaredly so; for example, the
waves of colonial expansion of Western powers subjugating innumerable countries,
cultures and tribes in Asia and Africa in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The
stronger made no bones about subduing the weaker. But today peoples are fighting
not so much to conquer and subdue others as to liberate themselves from
servitude or defend themselves from aggression.
This certainly does not mean that motives of greed, self-interest and
expansionism are altogether absent in the wars and conflicts of today. The
primordial sin of selfishness and egoism still bedevils the human condition,
resulting in unrestrained drives for power and wealth, at the expense of human
rights, social justice and peace. Still I believe these are more readily
recognized for what they are, and resistance to them, in both violent and
non-violent forms, is readily forthcoming. The rising cry for a collective
affirmation of personalistic and communitarian values on a global scale is
meeting with strong reactive resistance from the existing
"non-liberated" power structures, be they political, social or
economic.
Granted this premise, violence is the price that humankind has to pay to
rise to a higher level of consciousness and convergence. The meeting of minds in
a spiritual unity is a battle against the existing plurality. Ascending
organization is a process which has to cope with lower levels of organization
and their necessary disorganization. The growth of any entity comprises periods
of relative "sameness" and transitions to new higher states. At the
point of transition, a reconstitution of the elements takes place, usually with
agitation and turmoil, like water boiling to become steam at 100oC.
A personalistic universe on the way to super-personalization through
aggregations of groupings cannot escape the turmoil of reconstructive
transitions. As Teilhard says: "In order to unify in ourselves or unite
with others, we must change, renounce, give up ourselves, and this violence to
ourselves partakes of pain Every
advance in personalization must be paid for; so much union, so much suffering.
This rule of equivalence governs all transformations of spirit-matter."9
From a psycho-moral point of view, violence is man's "refusal"
to respond positively to his evolutionary destiny. As stated earlier, it is only
at this point of historical time that the evolution of the human species is
taking a turn from divergence to convergence, from isolation to communication.
The change is naturally experienced as a threat, a threat to the accustomed
security of the familiar. Hence reactions of distrust and suspicion are
understandable. But man has to learn that what he is called upon to do, is not
to give up security, which is psychologically impossible, but to trade in the
old security of fences. boundaries, guns and bombs, for the new security of
openness and trust in bonds of relationship, mutual support, brotherhood and
love. This kind of security is precisely the opposite of the other -- a security
found in and with the other, and not in oneself, shutting out the other. This is
the security which corresponds to convergence, unity and fellowship. But as
Hourani says:
Teilhard recognized the present difficulties
As the forces of convergence increase they are countered by strong
tendencies which try to fortify the old sovereignties of a disjointed cosmos,
infused with the familiar worldviews based on competition. . . . Such efforts
are, for Teilhard, impossible to sustain much longer and will soon give way to
new sensible arrangements of an eventual union which preserves the identity and
authenticity of each.10
We must, therefore, realize that if violence seems inevitable at this
stage, it is so only as long as we fail to recognize the signs of the times.
Teilhard opens his opus magnum The Phenomenon. of Man, by saying
that it could be summed up "as an attempt to see and to make others see
what is happening to man". The real tragedy is that we fail to see beyond
our noses; our myopic sight blinds us to the larger vision. Unfortunately the
penalty for this blindness is very heavy. We are all appalled by the enormity of
human suffering caused by violence in our times.
And so Teilhard makes bold to declare: "The age of nations has
passed; Now, unless we wish to perish, we must shake off our old prejudices and
build the earth. . . . The more scientifically I regard the world, the less can
I see any possible biological future for it except in the active consciousness
of its unity. Life cannot henceforth advance on our planet (and nothing will
prevent it advancing -- not even its inner servitudes) except by breaking down
the partitions which still divide human activity, and entrusting itself
unhesitatingly to faith in the future."11
I shall try to substantiate this crucial statement with reference to
contemporary socio-political phenomena. Despite the evils of conflict and war in
today's world, we cannot fail to notice the growing movements of convergence and
unification. Major political disintegrations on a global scale have resulted in
new integrations/associations of the same order in this century; for example,
the League of Nations after World War I and the United Nations after World War
II. The complex UN system, despite its shortcomings is a vast network of
subsystems bringing nations together in major areas of human concern--children,
food, health, labor, education, culture, etc. Teiihard rejoiced wholeheartedly
at the creation of the UN and its agencies which he saw as harbingers of
noospheric structures. During the last few decades, a number of regional
associations have come into being to deal with issues of common interest, such
as the Organization of African Unity, the Organization of American States (OAS),
the non-aligned movement, ASEAN and our own SAARC. And there are innumerable
world bodies, both governmental and non-governmental, which bring professionals
and interest groups together across national boundaries for dialogue and common
action. A tissue of human interaction is growing and spreading in the Noosphere.
Literacy and education, coupled with the electronic media, have made the
transmission and exchange of ideas and information -- the stuff of the Noosphere
-- rapid and all pervasive. They have made it possible for thought to envelope
the earth. This tide is rising perceptibly.
A word of caution is in order regarding other apparently uniting forces
operating at the global level, but which in reality are inimical to the kind of
unity in diversity we are talking about. I refer to such phenomena as
transnational organizations/corporations and the neo-colonialism of Western,
first world culture bearing down on the rest of the world, ably supported by the
secularist ethos of science and technology. Though they incorporate elements of
unification, they tend to generate strong pressure to conform to a single
mind-set, to fit all peoples into a single socio-cultural strait-jacket. The
message seems to be: conform or perish. This is almost exactly the opposite of
what the rising tide of a higher over-arching consciousness of Teilhard points
to; namely, a free coming together of diverse peoples in such wise that it not
only preserves their particular and special identities, but also enhances them
in, paradoxically, a maximum unity in maximum diversity. We, therefore, have to
be very discriminating about the phenomena we choose to support or oppose at the
global level. Those of us in the East will have to be specially alert and
vigilant in this regard.
Teilhard's thesis can also shed much light on the political disruptions,
divisions and reconstructions in eastern and western Europe toward the end of
the 20th century. The USSR as a State came into existence only around the
beginning of that century. Previously independent ethnic and national entities
were brought together in an artificial polity by enforced ideology and State
dictatorship. The same could be said of eastern Europe as a political entity.
Its principle of unity was entirely external, held together as a satellite bloc
of the Soviet Union. The break-up of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union caught
political analysts by great surprise. Marxist theory held that socialism would
put an end to ethnic tension because ethnicity reflected the conditions of
pre-socialist, traditional societies. Assimilation of minorities into the
majority whole was seen as inevitable. But events have disproved such
assumptions. From a Teilhardian perspective it is clear that pressures of
growing personalization in the human mass as a whole, impinging on internally
cohesive groupings, would in the course of time disrupt artificial and
externally constrained political entities of which they were a part. On the
other hand, we see the same personalizing spirit of the earth bringing about
new, free associations and aggregations of a political nature. The most obvious
examples are the unification of Germany and the European Community. Now emerging
in line with what we could expect, those socio-cultural entities which feel
secure in their cultural/national identity are able to come closer to each other
to form voluntary groupings. Conversely, those ethnic entities, often minority
groups. which feel insecure or repressed are struggling to free themselves to be
themselves, as manifested by separatist movements the world over. The component
States of the emergent P.C. feel secure enough in their individual identities to
come together without feeling threatened by the whole. Still we see what a
struggle it has been over many years--and it is still not over--to overcome
resistances of all kinds. But once accomplished, the larger whole will not only
not threaten the identity of component members, but even enhance them. Union
differentiates.
In other words, what is called for is an enlightenment of mind and a
conversion of heart. The present organization of the world, in its economic,
social and political structures, born of an earlier level of consciousness, is
revealing its discordance with the new and rising spirit of the earth by the
violence those structures generate. Just as pain reveals pathology in the body,
so violence manifests the pathology of the body of humankind, vis-a-vis its
destiny. It is in need of healing; but healing of the spirit comprises both
enlightenment and conversion -- enlightenment about the truth of man's ascent to
a more free and personalized, communitarian level of "being human,"
and conversion of heart from the petty ego of the self (individual and group) to
universal personhood. Teilhard is very clear on this: "But let there be no
mistake. He who wishes to share in this spirit must die and be re-born, to
himself and to others. To reach this higher plane of humanity, he must not only
reflect and see a particular situation intellectually, but make a complete
change in his fundamental way of valuation and action. In him a new plane
(individual, social and religious) must eliminate another. This entails inner
tortures and persecution. The earth will only become conscious of itself through
the crisis of conversion."12
If so, the transition of humanity to a higher plane is a religious
endeavor -- a happening in the realm of spirituality. Then, a very pertinent
question would be, are the religions playing their part in enabling (making
able) and facilitating the conversion required on the part of the people to rise
to a higher level of spirituality. Before attempting an answer, a word about
spirit and spirituality is in order. The word "spirit" has often been
used in religious language as the opposite of matter, with the implication that
spirituality is a movement away from matter and materiality. For Teilhard,
matter and spirit are not two different things; everything in the cosmos is a
composite of spirit and matter. The matter end of the continuous matter-spirit
scale is characterized by lower levels of consciousness, multiplicity and lesser
complexity, while the higher end manifests greater complexity/consciousness and
unity, culminating in the level of the human.
My submission is that the religions themselves are being challenged by
the evolutionary rise of consciousness to conversion, to die to religion as
traditionally understood in terms of rite and ritual, precept and doctrine,
church and temple, to one of spirit and freedom, life and love. This is, after
all, what the religions themselves have claimed to be central and fundamental.
But in reality the spirit has been stifled by the shell of rite, doctrine and
law, by which they acquired their distinct identities. As such, they will be a
hindrance rather than a help to the ascent of the spirit. The time has come
when, in biblical language, God will be worshiped "neither in this mountain
nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth", namely, in the mind and
heart.
It should be clear that Teilhard's vision about the future of Man is of a
piece with his understanding of Nature and Man as an organic whole. It is not a
question of juxtaposed elements, but of constitutive elements forming organic
wholes in differentiated connections. This means that each component element has
a proper place and function which cannot be arbitrarily changed; one part cannot
be replaced by another. As Teiihard puts it: "The world must be compared
not to a bundle of elements in artificial juxtaposition, but to an organized
system informed by a broad unity of growth proper to itself."13
And the other connected fundamental plank of Teilhard's thought is that
the world is under construction, which could be best compared to gestation and
birth.
Pain and suffering become unbearable if devoid of any meaning and
purpose. The great merit of Teilhard's vision is that it invests suffering, both
personal and collective, with substantial meaning, not merely as something
meritorious in the traditional Christian sense, but as ontologically
constitutive of the construction of the world. The liberal, democratic political
order which prevails in most parts of the world today has conditioned us to take
for granted that society is an atomized collection of individuals, in a
"each-one-for-himself-God-for-us-all" fashion. Equality, personal
liberty and rights are the cornerstones of this philosophy. According to a
metaphor Teilhard used often, this kind of society can be compared to a bouquet,
say of roses, each rose carefully picked, of equal quality and put together
artificially. The bouquet is a collectivity of equal and homogenous elements.
Society, however, is not a collectivity but an organic whole, like a tree which
has differentiated parts -- leaves, branches, flowers, fruits -- which are
neither equal nor unequal, but complement each other in an inner structure of
unity. While we expect a bouquet to be perfect and pretty, a tree will be quite
imperfect and scarred; because, "it has had to fight against inner
accidents in its development and the eternal accidents of bad weather, broken
branches, torn leaves; parched, sickly or wilted flowers are `in place' -- they
express the more or less difficult conditions of growth encountered by the trunk
that bears them."14 I believe that our inability to comprehend
pain and suffering as something meaningful and even necessary is our enslavement
to the individualistic mentality of the Liberal democratic view of man and
society which prevails strongly in the West. Inequalities, imperfections,
failures, -- the general "dukkha" of the world finds a natural
and meaningful place in its organic structure and the communitarian nature of
society. It is not a question of justifying pain, suffering and violence, but of
realizing their "place" in the real order of nature. Only those who
find such meaning will have the courage to go through and beyond that pain to
the peace and joy of a higher unity, others should logically
despair and give up.
If the urgent and insistent question on our minds is "What do we
do?", Teilhard's vision gives us a sure guide to action. Firstly, to accept
the pain of the world not as a meaningless absurdity but as the birth pangs of a
new world, struggling to see the light of day. At the present moment our pain
and suffering are, to a certain extent, self-inflicted by our blindness and
psychological resistance to evolutionary convergence. Hence all our efforts
should be directed towards reinforcing those forces which are already at work to
liberate persons and social groups to the security of their respective
identities, so that they become free to come together in larger voluntary
associations which will enhance their being. Teilhard warns us: "beware
above all of everything that isolates, that refuses to accept and that divides.
Each along your own line, let your thought and action be `universal' which is to
say `total'. And tomorrow maybe you will find to your surprise that all
opposition has disappeared and you can love one another.15
Conversely, we should work, therefore, for the weakening and elimination of the
forces of constriction, separation and diminishment of any kind. Teilhard's
vision of human development bestows value on human action, not only large scale
action at national and global levels, but also on the humblest action, in the
right direction, of every person. If evolution has delivered itself into our
hands after aeons of automatic operation it is up to us to direct it towards a
future which is in line with what it had achieved up to now. This is the grand
but critical life-and-death option before us. The right decision will depend so
much on how deeply we have interiorized the thrust of the evolutionary process
of our planet, groaning and struggling to rise to higher levels of person and
spirit -- a level of personalized, communitarian globalization.
NOTES
1. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 107. No, 4.
2. The Future of Man, tran., Norman Denny (New York: Harper and
Row 1959), p. 105.
3. The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1956), p. 165.
4. Ibid., p. 241.
5. Ibid., p. 240.
6. Ibid., p. 266.
7. Human Energy (Collins, 1969), p. 63.
8. Ibid., p. 64.
9. Ibid., p. 87.
10. Hourani Benjamin T, "Teilhard's Global Ecumene and the Politics
of Peace," in Humanity's Quest for Unity: A UN Teilhard Colloquium,
ed., Leozonneveld (Mirananda-Wassenaar, 1985), p. 49.
11. Human Energy, pp. 37-38.
12. Ibid., p. 38.
13. Ibid., p. 49.
14. Ibid.
15. Activation of Energy (Collins, 1970), p. 95.