4.2. A step towards union
The apparent conflict situation in the world is just a step
towards a union by dissension and gradually, all races are becoming aware of
their duties towards one another. The twentieth century bore witness to
Democratization, Welfare Societies, increased Gender Equality, Human Rights,
and Non-violent resistance. Despite the many wars, it was a century when more
was done than ever before to move the world away from war. Peace movements,
international organizations, the United Nations
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Vision of the
Past, London, I966, pp. 209-2I0.
89 (UN), the European Union (EU), and arms control efforts,
were but a few of such measures. There were also treaties on conduct among
States and peace agreements to solve underlying problems. There is therefore,
according to Teilhard de Chardin, no room for discouragement, since the process
of globalisation will have to take a long period of time. What we need is
patience and optimism:
Now, at the present moment, we are a prey to the forces of
divergence. But let us not despair [...] For order to establish itself over
human differentiation, it will undoubtedly need a long alternation of
expansions and concentrations, separations and comings together. We find
ourselves hic et nunc in a phase of extreme divergence, the
prelude to such a convergence as has never yet been on earth. This is all that
I want to say. This, if I am right, is what is happening.'
In fact, Teilhard de Chardin seems to be right, there is an
increasing awareness that the world is a community, a planetary village and we
have learned through the bitter experiences of the twentieth century that war
is not the first option, that it does not work to resolve problems, and that
there are other ways of dealing with conflicts among human beings. Yet, we are
still faced with a sizeable number of local wars and armed conflicts especially
in the Middle East, in Africa and Asia. Apparently these lessons have not been
brought home to the leaderships in their disputes. Pan-humanmobilism in
effecting values such as human rights, humanitarian perspectives and
democratization will take time, more especially because we are in the phase of
extreme divergence. The phase of extreme divergence which is characteristic of
human races and the world today is just a prelude to such a convergence, that
is, the Civilization of the Universal as has never yet been on earth. In fact,
according to Teilhard de Chardin, every move we make to isolate ourselves
presses us closer together. So, in spite of quarrels and conflicts which it
disturbs and saddens us to see, the idea that a concentration of humanity is
taking place in the world and that, far from breaking it up, we are
increasingly coming together, is not an absurd one, it is very significant.
4.3. The Significance and Value of Pan-human-mobilism
In his consideration of the panhuman convergence, Teilhard de
Chardin is confident. He perceives a great event foreshadowed: the
collectivisation of mankind, the Pan- human- mobilism. Despite
the resistance that is opposed to the phenomenon which will build the earth and
spiritualize nations with love, despite individualism and egoism which
characterises modern man, the planetisation of mankind will definitely
take place. He avers:
Although our individualistic instincts may rebel against
this drive towards the collective, they do so in vain and wrongly. In vain
because no power in the world can enable us to escape from what is in itself
the power of the world. And wrongly because the real nature of this impulse
that is sweeping us towards a state of super-organisation is such as to make us
more completely personalised and human.1
There is no force on earth that can escape that which is the
force of the earth. The movement which carries us along tends by nature to make
us completely human. Ipso facto, we are called to obey to this inner
drive of the universe, which seeks to make us one and if we become aware of
this profound ordering of things, we will be able to allow human
collectivisation to pass beyond the enforced phase, where it now is, to the
free phase: that in which men, having learnt in consequence to love the
preordained forces that unite them, a natural union of affinity and sympathy
will supersede the forces of compulsion. Teilhard de Chardin asserts that the
phenomenon of planetisation of humankind falls in several aspects:
geographical, ethnical, economical and even psychical.
Geographically, since 1939, a vast expanse of the earth,
the region of the Pacific, hitherto on the fringe of civilization, has for
practical purposes entered irrevocably into the orbit of industrialised
nations. Mechanised masses of men have invaded the southern seas, and
up-to-date airfields have been
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of
Man, New York, I964, pp. I24-I25.
91
permanently installed on what were the poetically lost
islands of Polynesia.I
He goes further to question:
Ethnically, during the same space of time, there has been
a vast and pitiless confusion of peoples, whole armies being removed from one
hemisphere to the other, and tens of thousands of refugees being scattered
across the world like seed borne on the wind. Brutal and harsh though the
circumstances have been who can fail to perceive the inevitable consequences of
this new striving of the human dough?2
And finally, he says:
Economically and psychically the entire mass of mankind,
under the inexorable pressure of events and owing to the prodigious growth and
speeding up of the means of communication, has found itself seized in the mould
of a communal existence3
According to Teilhard de Chardin, this process of
collectivisation of mankind is unavoidable:
Whether we like it or not, from the beginning of our
history and through all the interconnected forces of Matter and Spirit, the
process of our collectivisation has ceaselessly continued, slowly or in jerks,
gaining ground each day. That is the fact of the matter. It is impossible for
Mankind not to unite upon itself as it is for the human intelligence not to go
on indefinitely deepening its thought...Instead of seeking, against all the
evidence, to deny or disparage the reality of this grand phenomenon, we do
better to accept it frankly. 4
I Op. cit., p. I26.
2 Id.
3 Ibid., p. I27.
4 Ibid., p. I28.
Teilhard de Chardin says that this Hominsation
I of the world, seen to be allied to a very strange
characteristic, which suggests that there is something to be discovered
scientifically in man that is even more interesting than the manifestation of a
cosmic property or the product of evolution, is
irreversible2. Despite the accumulated improbabilities that its
progress presupposes, it has continually been increasing in our world and what
can be seen in mankind today is precisely its climax. We cannot stop or turn
back from what is taking shape and gathering speed around us, indeed, it is an
unavoidable process.
In effect, we do experience today progress in human
collectivisation. Countries tend to build up international organisations in
order to make unity among them more effective. What the Western world
experiences today through the European Union, is a tangible proof that humanity
is moving towards the Civilization of the Universal, though much still needs to
be done in the whole world. Teilhard de Chardin is a forecaster. He had already
foreseen a certain planetisation of mankind in his days. Is it not what
globalisation is all about? This is the Civilization of the Universal, a
rendezvous where each culture has something to offer and to receive as
well. This will continue to take place gradually. Evolution has not come to an
end, mankind is still in progress, in progress towards a better future, a
future of peace, unity, freedom, the respect of human dignity and human rights,
the reduction of the gap existing between the countries of the centre,
the rich countries of the North, and the countries of the periphery,
poor countries of the third world. Globalisation in bringing different
civilizations together in a unity and not uniformity, unity in diversity, and
in harmonising human relationships by easing communication through the new
technologies of communication and information and more especially through the
Internet, will contribute enormously to the betterment of the condition of
mankind as a whole. Yet, more still needs to be done in the actual state of
affairs which presents globalisation as the Americanisation, or the
Westernisation of the planet.
I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Science et
Christ, New York, I968, p. 94. 2 Id.
One may genuinely wonder how Teilhard de Chardin could
postulate such a phenomenon. The answer is simply that as a Geologist and
Palaeontologist, he studied the past and his studies of the past enabled him to
establish knowledge of the future. The "vision of the past" helped him to
foresee the "future of man"I as he writes in a letter of September
8th I935:
K Le passé m'a révélé la
construction de l'Avenir... Précisément pour parler avec
quelque autorité de l'Avenir, il m'est essentiel de m'établir
avec plus de solidité que jamais comme un spécialiste du
Passé. 02
He believed that it is only by carefully studying the past
that we can understand the present and anticipate the future. In this context,
therefore, we consider Teilhard de Chardin a Prophet of globalisation. Faced
with so much destruction at this beginning of the 3rd millennium, we
can still affirm that the planetary consciousness of Teilhard de Chardin is
taking place; it is a process that is certifiable. Here lies the intrinsic
value of this French Jesuit priest, as Charles RAVEN says:
It is perhaps Teilhard's greatest service to our time that
having accepted the whole cosmic process as one, continuous, complexified and
convergent, he can regard it with an unfaltering hope. Anyone who enters into
the significance of evolution will find in the record of its evidence of
progress and therefore of encouragement, not as an exception, but in its
diverse forms and at every level verifiable and conclusive.3
Indeed, Teilhard de Chardin stands as a great scientist of the
future and it was through the study of the past that he was able to postulate
that the cosmos is in progress and that this phenomenon was irreversible.
Today, peoples, cultures and civilizations are gathering in order to build
communities having the same political, economic and financial goals. In Europe
this is taking place under the European Union, America is a
I These are titles of two of Teilhard de Chardin's
works: The Vision of the Past and The Future of Man.
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, L'avenir de l'homme,
Paris, I959, p. I3. The past revealed to me the construction of the
future...Precisely, in order to speak about the future with some authority, it
is essential for me to become, more than ever, a specialist of the past.
3 Charles Raven, Teilhard de Chardin Scientist and
Seer, London, I962, p. 75.
federation of States. In Africa, much still needs to be done
to build the African Union. Nevertheless, with the phenomenon of globalisation,
the world is becoming a village where there is a flow of information, thanks to
the computerisation of information and to the Internet. The Internet thus
appears to be an effect of the growth of collective consciousness; it is an
effect of the Teilhardian noosphere which is still in progress. Before
considering the effectiveness of the noospherical progress, let us consider the
auto-destruction of our planet in the light of the Teilhardian vision of the
future of the universe.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE AUTO-DESTRUCTION OF OUR PLANET
AND THE TEILHARDIAN VISION
Our world nowadays is faced with the problem of destruction on
a planetary scale. Conferences are being organised in order to discuss matters
arising from this possible destruction of the earth. The world is being
polluted through human activity. The protection of the environment, the
question of food scarcity and the question of global warming, are
preoccupations at a planetary level. In this chapter we are going to consider
the auto-destruction of our planet, auto-destruction in the sense that man is
responsible for the destruction of the earth through over-exploitation and
over-industrialisation. Because of this auto-destruction of the planet, we are
tempted to think that evolution has come to an end and that there is no hope
for humanity. Nevertheless, in the Teilhardian vision, there is no need for us
to despair, despite all the destruction, despite all the violence, despite all
the hatred portrayed in our world today, evolution is continuing and the earth
is progressing towards the Omega Point, the centre of all progress, the centre
and end of all evolution. Teilhard de Chardin calls for optimism and optimistic
attitudes despite the auto-destruction of our planet today. Let us now consider
the manner in which the earth, our planet, is being polluted and destroyed.
Despite wars, hatred, the auto-destruction of our planet in our postindustrial
society, marked by pollution, following the Teilhardian vision, we can still
remain optimistic towards the future, and this is the purpose of this chapter
which focuses on the damages caused to our planet.
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