Therefore, the first principle of an ethic of holism is to recognize that the other is you and that you are the other on a very basic level. We are already anchored in fundamental commonalities and need to develop these commonalities into a living and updated whole. The truth of this process is revealed in many ways in today`s thinking (for example, in Marshall Rosenberg`s Principles of Nonviolent Communication (2005)), and it must be systematically elaborated and articulated in a way that goes beyond this article. Language philosophers such as Steven Pinker (1995), Noam Chomsky (1998) and Jürgen Habermas (1998) have already demonstrated the universality of language and its necessary links with the self of each of us. My self cannot be separated from the human capacity for language, which is part of our universal humanity. Similarly, biologists have shown that all humans are 99.9% genetically identical, and psychologists have shown that an amazing community of human consciousness among humans is possible (Laszlo 2007). The principle of harmony in human thought is associated with a number of complementary concepts that help articulate its meaning and implications. We associate harmony with peace, as opposed to conflict and war, with non-violence, as opposed to violence and the mutual attempt of people to kill or hurt each other, with cooperation, rather than with forms of competition that lead to absolute winners and losers, justice and fairness. as opposed to situations of injustice, exploitation or domination. and with freedom – the freedom of people to live meaningful and thriving lives in relationships with others and with society as a whole. The paradigm articulated by these thinkers became fundamental to ancient Western civilization as well as to the Christian era that followed. For the latter, the static harmony of the cosmos was the creative product of a wise and benevolent God who cared for the salvation, harmony and prosperity of mankind. It is true that this view of harmony was somewhat undermined by the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, according to which this original natural harmony was disturbed by human sin, making it impossible for people to live naturally in harmony and requiring divine intervention and cosmic redemption.
Nevertheless, within this tradition, a concept of natural law developed, which also continued under the concept of original sin. Just as the cosmos was structured holistically and legally by God, so man could recognize and live according to ethical principles, which also came from the highest source. St. Paul writes in Romans 2:14, “When the Gentiles who do not have the law naturally do what the law requires, they show that the law is written in their hearts.” A harmonious social and personal life was theoretically possible on Earth, since its natural laws were available to every human being as moral laws written in the human heart. The technological imperative that originated in the dominance of instrumental thought described by Weber—an imperative of instrumental power itself rooted in the modern paradigm of mechanism and materialism—has returned to a growing global system of human slavery: loss of freedom and loss of meaning. The Dominators are clearly enslaved by the technological imperative of power, just as their victims are enslaved by the Dominators. Systematic torture and humiliation flow naturally from such a paradigm. The modern paradigm provides no basis for harmony. Its ultimate implication is the ultimate disharmony: war, injustice, environmental destruction and totalitarianism. The Age of Evolutionary Holism and the History of the New Universe (Today`s Emerging Worldview). Development and a prosperous economic sector are not possible without the basic legal structures necessary for free economic activity.
In the West, we have no idea what life is like, for example, in a country like Haiti, where it takes 97 days to start a business and 312 days to register a property. This means that unregistered companies can only enforce contracts by force. Corruption is rife; Employees of unregistered companies do not have formal contracts; And so on. In general, when the conditions for a free economy are not met, there is not only poverty, but conflicts replace cooperation. With the axis period, a new dimension develops in our universe – openness to the future. A being is no longer completely determined by his past, but open to new possibilities in the future. My 2008 book Ascent to Freedom: Philosophical and Practical Foundations of Democratic World Law traces this drama as it has moved from the axial age through three major civilizational paradigms from antiquity to the present day. He calls the first civilizational paradigm “the age of static holism.” During antiquity and the Middle Ages, the dominant paradigm viewed the world and human life in terms of static and integral unity. In the West, before the rise of Christianity, Plato and Aristotle articulated versions of this unity, in which the order and harmony of the cosmos were discovered and reflected by human reason. There was therefore an integral continuity between the harmonious constitution of the cosmos and human life. For Plato and Aristotle, each in his own way of living a “philosophical” life, this meant using reason dialectically and dialogically to climb a ladder of ever greater maturity and understanding towards true intellectual and spiritual harmony with the laws of the integral cosmos.
The main obstacle to a harmonious and just society was ignorance, and the key to promoting harmony on Earth was both education and building good human institutions that reflected the harmony of the cosmos. When we think about economic freedom, we can focus too much on the economic efficiency benefits of a free society and not talk enough about how such a society also promotes peace and harmony. I hope this article will help both to discover what is missing in today`s world and to describe the process of building a harmonious planetary civilization: through the wisdom of holistic thinkers of the past, through the description of the immense paradigm shift in the present, and through an analysis of the persistent causes of disharmony and fragmentation in the world. Harmony and disharmony are correlative concepts. They apply not only to individuals, but also to the institutions and societies that structure people`s lives. The establishment of harmony requires not only a vision of our higher human possibilities, but also an understanding of the historical causes and conditions of disharmony. A fundamental feature of our global crises today is that capitalism and the system of sovereign nations institutionally deny this contemporary scientific understanding of holism and, as we have seen, have many articulate adherents and speakers. Our future depends on the rapid transition to the new paradigm of wholeness and harmony: personal, cultural, ecological and institutional. Institutional change is crucial.
It is of no use to us if people personally and culturally adopt totality while remaining organized globally according to capitalism and the system of sovereign nation-states. We need new global institutions with a new world government and a universal rule of law. In the third part of this article, I try to shed light on these new holistic concepts of the state and law. Since nothing is excluded from the ethics of holism, it is clear that political life in democratic societies, international relations between nations, and economic and commercial relations must be guided by ethical principles of holism and harmony. Harris compares the ethics of holism to the universal principle of love (agape) that Jesus taught: “True rational love, therefore, must extend to the whole human race. Charity in the full sense is manifested in love for the whole community and dedication to the ideal realm of ends” (1988:163-64). Something similar is expressed in Socrates` famous principle: “It is better to be a victim of evil than to do evil. For Socrates, if I hurt you, I hurt myself at the same time, since we both exist in inner relationships with each other and mutually participate in the “good” (Agathos) that transcends us both.