Making a Bigger Tribe

First of all, globalization is the integration in a world system of different societies that manage to coexist in a productive manner aiming at improving basic human conditions. This is my definition and reality is not always how you plan it to be. Let's start by saying that we really enjoy our cars, planes and trains, these marvels of our modern world left us with no excuse for not experiencing what this planet has to offer. In the ideal example we would now be free like the birds, in reality we are not.

The only real thing that can limit our freedom is mobility, in the past, when traveling a few hundred kilometers was worth a medal for courage, human communities began to evolve in different ways influenced by their surroundings. The desserts and oceans were almost impossible to pass, this explains the broad diversity of cultures, it was a natural process imposed by the limitations of the period. Today we are no longer limited by space and time in traveling across the globe, this means that the process mentioned earlier is being reversed, all the boundaries are artificial and obstacles in the development of the global culture.

This global culture is the key to understanding globalization and preparing for the changes that will come. It is very important for people to put more effort in educating themselves and really thinking about the world. Things are beginning to take shape but too slow in my opinion, the youth must take an active role in shaping the world of the future on new ways of thought, on new principles and most important, keeping an open mind and accepting differences.

The title of this article is "Making a Bigger Tribe" because there is a threat that if the global culture will not begin to spread to every corner of the planet, the globalizing forces will transform in a type of autocratic world government. This will happen only if the base of the pyramid, the ordinary man, will not start to climb the stairs to the top. More and more people have the possibility to gain access to information and from that to have access to knowledge but this opportunities are often missed.

We need to find a way not to compromise, but to cooperate, rejecting all the elements that could be the start of conflicts. Things like border disputes, Kashmir for example, are artificial conflicts because instead of concentrating on the well being of the local people, the different parties fight for administrative control. The only thing that should matter is life.

I used the term global culture not thinking about the American film and music industry but about a real cultural movement. We have many thousands of years of history with good and bad and we must try to synthesize all the elements in a coherent form, integrating every type of thought that matters. Doing this we must take into account that we also need a new identity and relying too much on the past to outline the present/future does great harm. After all, this is what Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany did while trying to give life to a glorious past that did not have a place in that time.

The idea of a conflict between Christianity and Islam is slowly being presented to us as a threat to world stability, I do not want to enter in this discussion right now but I will say a few things I believe are important for this article. Both religions have the same root (you can read more here: Why are we here) making cooperation possible, instead some leaders from both sides try to act in fanatical manners in what I believe is a planed conflict. Try to research the idea of terrorism and how this word is used and look at the bigger picture, if you are a westerner, try to see the world through the eyes of a Muslim, if you are a Muslim try to see the world through the eyes of a westerner.

Another contrast is between society and the individual. In the West, we began to regard ourselves as individuals while in other cultures the society is more important. Our individuality is slowly beginning to destroy our interaction with one another and with limited cooperation comes a limited future. In regions where the individual is part of a strong social organization he slowly begins to regress, reducing his/her leadership and intellectual skills. To put it simply it is something like the old Capitalist/Communist duel.

The idea is once again to cooperate in creating a good alternative by taking different elements from both philosophies and uniting them in a coherent new way of living. Not all problems have simple solutions and even the solutions we have are hard to implement. We have a number of plans to eradicate world hunger, to promote long term development and so on, but in practice all these efforts are hampered by corruption or the lack of good decision making. As you see, these are times for decisions regarding the direction our civilization will go, we must walk carefully and keep in mind that a wrong step could mean disaster.