¶ … 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...
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…
