Xenophobic Sensibilities Distort Our Worldview, Informing Us

¶ … xenophobic sensibilities distort our worldview, informing us of an unrealistic portrait of the global village. A community six billion strong, the earth is comprised of symbiotic and codependent relationships. However disparate, incohesive, and chaotic human society may be, a common genetic code demands a great degree of interaction. However our minds would like to compartmentalize us, isolating region from region, race from race, we humans are fundamentally similar to one another.

Why, then do we so sorely lack compassion? 59% of the world's wealth is controlled by a tiny number of people, all from the United States. Is this an ideal world? Almost three-quarters of the world's population are illiterate; only 1% is college educated and the same amount own computers. Half the globe suffers from some form of malnutrition. These unfortunate realities belie the very concept of a global village, for how can any of us accept this as reality? But the solution is not straightforward.

Direct redistribution of wealth does not work; ultimately the governors of such a system fall pray to their innate avarice and desire for control. In an ideal world the needs of the collective harmonize with the needs of the individual. Perhaps it is possible for people to prosper at no one's expense. Especially those of us living in the First World need to cultivate a conscience. We need to put a cap over our materialism without sacrificing moderate luxury or technological progress.

Ideally, the global village prospers itself and it sustains and nourishes each person within it. There may be in human nature a natural instinct towards greed, but we also possess the power to overcome that. Residual problems with global income disparity include a low literacy and education rate and a lack of exposure to computers.

When a community has to focus exclusively on survival and subsistence, what time is left to devote to reading, writing, and arithmetic? At this juncture in human cultural evolution, there is no excuse for this deplorable situation. Everyone should be educated. Food, shelter, and clothing may always remain our primary needs, but the expansion and development of our minds needs to be more of a priority. The ideal global community would foster intellectual growth among its people.

Each person has a right to fill him or herself with knowledge and develop any creative, artistic, or scientific abilities to their fullest. This is the only way to fully realize our potential as human beings. We are more than mere mammals. A world with a thirty percent literacy rate is unacceptable. We are born with the ability to read and write, an ability that distinguishes us from all other creatures on the planet. Literacy is a fundamental human right, and is not simply a privilege.

Literacy is the hallmark of effective communication; literacy empowers people. If all persons were literate, political oppression would be less possible. Informed, educated citizens can control their fate. While a college education is not essential, all persons should have access to affordable, good quality universities. A higher education contributes more than just facts and figures: it raises awareness and encourages a creative and analytical thinking. Education also helps remove prejudices, racism, and other misguided biases. Likewise, computers are not just sophisticated machines.

Computers are learning tools, and more than 1% of the world's population should have access to or own a computer. Income disparity does account for some of the problem, as does the newness of the technology itself. Hopefully, within a few decades computers will be as plentiful as telephones or televisions. Children and students can benefit particularly well from the use of computers, as can rural villages without easy access to the outside world. With the Internet, isolated regions can feel and be connected to the rest of the global village.

The global village should, without exception, be devoid of malnutrition and all preventable diseases. In a world where food is plentiful and abundant, there is no reason why drought-ridden or other problematic.