Humainologie creative dialogue tomorrow Wednesday May 11 on Speaking Truth to Power

“[W]e are the ones to blame for enabling and even nourishing the toxic workplaces. In continuing to cooperate with a profoundly unhealthy and exploitative employment system, we become at once the dagger and the wound. Wounds never heal so long as they continue to cooperate with daggers. In a sense, the cure is in the disease itself. Our silence is the disease. Our serious commitment for change and for exposing power abuses and bullies is the cure.” – Louis Yako https://www.counterpunch.org/author/4ejefus111/

The crisis in Ukraine has been described as a “very dangerous moment” by experienced observers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lQ-E-7b-Vw The urgent need for de-escalation is being ignored by too many people. The existential risks are rising. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set the hands of the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/bulletin-science-and-security-board-condemns-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-doomsday-clock-stays-at-100-seconds-to-midnight/ The governments of Canada, the United States, and Russia are thinking inside the same box of militant nationalism that gave us World Wars I and II.

It’s time to speak truth to power.

Very astute observers of these recurrent crises, the authors of Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century, have suggested three possible scenarios for the future: 1. A rational (but fundamental) revision of the global governance system, to move in the direction of how the European Union is currently governed; 2. Business as usual (which the authors indicate will probably fail, leading to the third scenario); and 3. Rebuilding after disaster (exactly how the European Union came into being after the catastrophe of World War II).

Below this email, I will append my synopsis of Chapter 21 from that book. With this email, I will contribute to the creative dialogue tomorrow on the topic Speaking Truth to Power. First, here is the Zoom link for the event provided by Shinobu:

Topic: Humainologie Dialogue Session Time: May 11, 2022 06:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada) Every week on Wed, until Jun 2022 May 11, 2022 06:30 PM Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86356492764?pwd=bCtWeDdGUExOdUVIQUt2eUdqbWVZZz09 Meeting ID: 863 5649 2764 Passcode: 12345

Capitalism and nationalism are two systems that are ongoing causes of poor outcomes for countless human beings. The current crisis in Ukraine is one of countless manifestations of the dysfunctional systems within which it arose. A pathologic power structure will continue to produce pathologic results until the system destroys itself.

In speaking truth to power about this, you might prepare yourself in the following ways:

1. Be familiar with recent authoritative sources for ideas on how the system can be changed to universal advantage.

2. Using that background, suggest a creative solution (an idea of your own) that would be to everyone’s advantage. Offer that to the powerful entity or person to whom you are speaking truth.

3. Persist, using the skill sets such as respect, deep listening, flexibility, versatility, imagination, and empathy that will draw support to your initiative in the long run.

Using the current crisis in Ukraine as an opportunity to speak truth to power, where should I begin? There are my elected political representatives in Canada and the United States to whom I might speak. However, I’ll start with an influential newspaper. In my way of thinking, major newspapers such as the New York Times are failing to provide readers with coverage that would contribute to optimal outcomes. The crisis in Ukraine is one of the all-too-familiar wars that have devastated human beings for centuries. How would I speak truth to the power of the New York Times?

I would suggest to the editors: 1) Consider the outcomes to which you would like your newspaper to contribute. Saving human lives (both Ukrainian and Russian and both in the immediate and in the more distant future) is an example of an outcome I would suggest as a top priority. 2) Provide your readers with news and commentary that contribute to those outcomes.

For example, the newspaper can invite commentary each week from experienced observers who are warning of the dangers and calling for rapid de-escalation of the violence. There are many qualified contributors, including George Beebe, Medea Benjamin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lQ-E-7b-Vwand Noam Chomsky https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-our-priority-on-ukraine-should-be-saving-lives-not-punishing-russia/

For how to proceed in the longer term, the newspaper can invite weekly commentary from observers such as the authors of Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century. The newspaper could then focus on news reports that enable readers to evaluate whether actual events are moving toward optimal outcomes.

Decide where you want to go, then use your imagination to think of ways to get there, and then get started.

Arthur

Book: Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century (Augusto Lopez-Claros, Arthur L. Dahl and Maja Groff, 2020)

The book consists of 22 chapters distributed over six Parts. Part I, Background; Part II, Reforming the Central Institutions of the United Nations; Part III, Governance and the Management of Multiple Global Risks; Part IV, Cross-Cutting Issues (which includes a chapter entitled “Education for Transformation”); Part V, Foundations for a New Global Governance System; and Part VI, Conclusions. The entire book (more than 500 pages) is available free online as a PDF Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century. My synopsis here is only of one key chapter in Part V.

Chapter 21: Some Immediate Steps Forward – Getting “From Here to There”

“As with any ambitious set of proposals for fundamental change, the obvious question is how to get from the lamentable present state of affairs to a substantially improved future condition. …Experience has shown that tinkering at the edges and marginal improvements have not succeeded in overcoming the fundamental problems with the present global governance paradigm that privileges an obsolete notion of the sovereignty of nations at any cost and leaves the 1945 UN Charter essentially frozen in time. Furthermore, the urgency of many problems and the growing risks from issues left unaddressed do not allow time for the gradual change that might otherwise seem to be the reasonable way forward.” The authors suggest three possible futures: 1. The rational trajectory. 2. Business as usual. 3. Rebuilding after disaster.

In the rational trajectory, a provision from Article 109 of the UN Charter would be implemented, leading to a general review of the Charter itself, to make changes to the United Nations. Anticipating the likely resistance, the authors write: “If one or more of the permanent members of the Security Council blocks revision of the UN Charter…a majority of governments could hold an alternative Charter replacement conference instead, to set up a new United World Organization to succeed the United Nations.” (The UN itself had arisen after the League of Nations had proven inadequate to bring about global cooperation toward peace.) “Once the new mechanisms are in place and new financing creates an organization with more resources than the UN, such an entity could propose a ’merger’ with or ’buy-out’ of the UN, absorbing for example, the Secretariat and specialized agencies into the new system, and leaving recalcitrant governments to opt in or out. The reasonable possibility of this second option might be sufficient to convince all governments that it is better to be within the new system than outside of it.”

Because this scenario may at first glance seem unrealistic, the authors remind the reader of important initiatives, led by civil society, which at first did not have great-power support such as adoption of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (1997), the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its Rome Statute (1998), the development and acceptance of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017), and others. They emphasize civil society as a key factor in the rational trajectory.

The second scenario is business as usual. “Muddling through or ’drift’ is certainly a second possible scenario for the next half-century. As there is little sign of sufficient enlightened leadership to take us safely through the transition, where might inaction take us?” The authors specify several things that would amount to “tinkering at the edges,” which might give comfort to a naïve observer. However, they emphasize: “Drift is a recipe for inevitable disaster.” They suggest several “intermediate scenarios” and conclude with this: “In another intermediate scenario, a series of smaller crises could be used to catalyze significant step-wise improvements in global governance, rather than trying to do dramatic system renovation all at once.”

The third scenario is rebuilding after disaster. After World War II, Europe realized the existential dangers of the nation-state system and created the European Union to move away from warfare altogether. “…just as the European powers in the 1950s had no option but to put aside war as an instrument for the settlement of international disputes and opted instead for creating the European Union, we would have to find the courage and imagination to do the same on a global scale. And just as World War II precipitated a change in European consciousness, a global catastrophe would surely do the same on a world scale,” One such catastrophe would be World War III in which “cities are laid waste and some nuclear arms are used, precipitating a nuclear winter that destroys agricultural production for several years.” In another possible catastrophe, “Earth shifts into one of the worst-case hothouse scenarios due to unchecked climate change. There is a catastrophic collapse in civilization, and billions of people die in the resulting famine. The survivors are mostly the poorest of the poor living outside the economy in remote areas far from the cities or sites of conflict, as well as communities with sufficient solidarity and resilience to survive until the crisis passes.” (That last survivor reminds us of things we can do right now, even as small communities.) You the reader will already know that there can be a life-or-death advantage to having an idea of the dangers ahead and changing course early to avoid them. “What we did not do through rational design, when we had the means and the time to do it, we would have to do against the background of great adversity, worldwide dislocations, suffering and constrained resources because of a multitude of claims on already strained governments and public finances.”

Of the immediate steps ahead suggested by the authors, “A first step is obviously to reopen the debate on the need for revision of the UN Charter and the options to make the UN fit for purpose in this century.” There will be opposition. “A particularly strong reaction may be expected from at least some of the permanent members of the Security Council, given present trends.” The authors suggest a World Conference with a focus on the issue of the climate crisis. “The 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which led to the creation of a new international financial system, was a highly successful example of effective and productive international cooperation.” However, the World Conference they are suggesting is much more ambitious than Bretton Woods and would involve not only governments (as at Bretton Woods) but also civil society and business. “Building the institutions that will underpin our system of global governance in the coming decades could well be the most important project of this century, requiring imagination, persistence, and confidence that, sooner rather than later, we will need to make the transition to vastly enhanced mechanisms of binding international cooperation if we are to avoid and address untold human suffering and catastrophe,”

Recognizing the challenges ahead, the authors suggest incremental steps towards substantial reform. Try a range of options, for example 1) a World Parliamentary Assembly (WPA) as an advisory body to the UN General Assembly; and 2) a stepwise approach modelled on the evolution of the European Union as it is today. They characterize that evolution as follows: “Starting with a vision of the need for greater economic and political integration to make future wars in Europe impossible, a gradual approach was adopted. The first step in 1951 was to select the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community as a narrow area where the mutual benefits of the cooperation necessary for conflict prevention and reconstruction after the war were most obvious.” Taking that as an example, “the international community could select an issue on which global unity is most likely and cooperation in the common global interest so clearly justified. Climate change could easily be such an issue….” After reference to the Paris Agreement of 2015, the authors suggest that the next step “could be to agree on a scientifically determined binding limit for global greenhouse gas concentrations, with legally enforceable responsibilities to respect those limits….”

This book provides an essential conceptual framework for effective action toward peace and global governance in the future.