Teilhard de Chardin and Senghor on the civilization of the universal

I.3.3. A reliable hypothesis:

The theory that there is a human synthesis is indubitable and it is taking place gradually as days and centuries go by in the universe. Teilhard de Chardin affirms:

L'hypothèse qu'il y a une synthèse humaine en cours est donc satisfaisante parce que cohérente jusqu'au bout en elle-même et avec les faits...Admettre en effet qu'une combinaison des races et des peuples est l'évènement biologiquement attendu pour que se produise un épanouissement nouveau et supérieur de conscience sur terre, c'est définir du même coup, dans ses lignes majeures et dans son dynamisme interne, la chose dont notre action a le plus grand besoin : une éthique internationale.^29(*)

We need to admit the fact that there is a coming together of human races and of peoples in order to appreciate that which humanity needs most: an international ethics. This international ethics is what we have been considering in a wider context as the Civilization of the Universal, the convergence of all races towards the Omega Point. Teilhard de Chardin is himself conscious of the fact that this phenomenon calls for no detailed description:

It takes the form of the all-encompassing ascent of the masses; the constant tightening of economic bounds; the spread of financial and intellectual associations; the totalisation of political regimes; the closer physical contact of individuals as well as of nations; the increasing impossibility of being or acting or thinking alone - in short, the rise, in every form, of the Other around us.^30(*)

Hence, we are now in the phase of planetisation. «The age of Nations is past, says Teilhard de Chardin, the task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the earth.»^31(*) We will build the earth by humanizing it, by spreading love, mutual acceptance and mutual recognition and by spelling away the forces of division, hatred, racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia.

I.3.4. The Significance and Value of Human Totalisation

In his consideration of the Collectivisation of mankind, Teilhard de Chardin is confident. He perceives a great event foreshadowed: the planetisation of mankind, the Civilization of the Universal. He says that although our individualistic instincts may rebel against this drive towards the collective, they do so in vain and wrongly:

Si, contre cette dérive vers le collectif, nos instincts individualistes se révoltent, c'est donc vainement et injustement. Vainement, puisque aucune force au monde ne saurait nous faire échapper à ce qui est la force même du monde. Et injustement, puisque le mouvement qui nous entraîne vers des formes super-organisées ne tend, par nature, qu'à nous faire complètement humains.^32(*)

There is no force on earth that can escape to 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 permanently installed on what were the poetically lost islands of Polynesia.^33(*)

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?^34(*)

And finally, he says:

During the same period, 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 existence^35(*)

According to Teilhard de Chardin, this process of collectivisation of mankind is unavoidable:

Que nous le voulions ou non, sans arrêt depuis les origines de l'Histoire, et de par toutes les forces conjuguées de la Matière et de l'Esprit, nous nous collectivisons, lentement ou par saccades chaque jour davantage. Voilà le fait. Aussi impossible à l'Humanité de ne pas s'agréger sur soi qu'à l'intelligence de ne pas approfondir indéfiniment sa pensée !^36(*)

Teilhard de Chardin says that this Hominization ^37(*) 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 irreversible^38(*). 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 rendez-vous where each culture has something to offer and to receive as well. This will continue to take place gradually.

Teilhard de Chardin calls our attention to the need to accept this phenomenon of planetisation of mankind in all optimism:

Au lieu de chercher à nier ou à minimiser, contre toute évidence, la réalité de ce grand phénomène, acceptons-le franchement ; regardons-le en face ;et voyons si, en l'utilisant comme un fondement inattaquable, nous ne pourrions pas construire sur lui un édifice optimiste de joie et de libération^39(*).

Instead of denying or minimizing the reality of this great phenomenon, we are supposed to frankly accept it. We are called to acknowledge its value and its significance in order to build on it a monument of happiness and liberation of all humanity.

* ²⁹ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, La vision du passé, Paris, 1957, P. 295.

* ³⁰ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, New York, 1964, p. 118.

* ³¹ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Building the Earth, U.S.A., 1965, p. 6.

* ³² Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, L'avenir de l'homme, Paris, 1959, PP. 159-160.

* ³³ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, New York, 1964, p. 129.

* ³⁴ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, New York, 1964, p. 130.

* ³⁵ Ibid., p. 133.

* ³⁶ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, L'avenir de l'homme, Paris, 1959, P. 160.

* ³⁷ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Science et Christ, New York, 1968, p. 94.

* ³⁸ Id.

* ³⁹ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, L'avenir de l'homme, Paris, 1959, P. 160.