Living Together Research Proposal
Living Together is the name of a multidisciplinary, collaborative research project spanning the social sciences, business, philosophy and information technology. After experimenting with different formats we are now exploring this topic within the format of an academic paper. The researchers involved share an holistic world view and are drawing upon the holistic thinkers and concepts within the aforementioned disciplines to address the question:
“On planet Earth, can we live as one human family in peace, equality and prosperity?”
We have broken down this overarching question into three more specific sub-questions; these give us the three main sections of this paper.
- World Government - “Can a system of world government help to overcome world conflict and foster equality and prosperity? If so, how would it operate and how would it be structured?”
- Philosophical Foundation - “Within cultural diversity, can common values be found which can serve as a foundation for a system of world government? And further, can these values support the unfolding of individual human potential in a way that benefits society, to achieve peace, equality and prosperity?”
- Implementation and Transition - “Now we have described the ideal of an holistic global government, in which form and sequence can it be implemented in the context of current society?”
Aims
The main idea behind Living Together is to examine the question of what kind of global society would be possible if we applied modern technology guided by universal spiritual and philosophical values. Further, once the requisite values and technologies have been outlined, we will address the implementation of such an ideal within the context of the current global situation. This overall aim can be broken down as follows:
- To draw together multiple strands of research from various disciplines and create a platform for further research and related projects.
- To create a vision for a peaceful, just and prosperous global society which inspires the public imagination, by creating stories and scenarios based on the findings of the paper.
- To create or promote prototype tools and organisations which will help us move toward the vision.
World Government
“Can a system of world government help to overcome world conflict and foster equality and prosperity? If so, how would it operate and how would it be structured?”
We will begin with a review of current political science thought on the issue of world government and isolate the main concepts, functional elements or assumptions involved in the creation of a system of world government. We will perform a critical analysis of these assumptions with a particular focus on how it is proposed that peace, equality and prosperity can be achieved. For this purpose we will introduce principles from holistic thinking to use as guides for assessing the current ideas on world government. We intend to contrast the notion of a centralised, top-down world government with an holistic global government. We anticipate this discussion leading to an ideal vision for a system of world government which is aligned with holistic principles. This vision would encompass the main functional elements and technology required for such a system and include scenarios for dealing with a number of common political and economic functions such as policy-making, resource distribution and the provision of currency.
Universal Values
“Within cultural diversity, can common values be found which can serve as a foundation for a world government? Can these values support the expression of human potential in a way that benefits society to achieve peace, equality and prosperity?”
Our culture and therefore our society and ultimately we our selves are strongly influenced by our surroundings, our social contacts. However, when we talk about culture we often seem to forget to ask how did our culture develop, where does it originate from? It is religion and belief that are the origins of any culture. If we look into various societies throughout history we will find that their culture developed as a reflection of their beliefs.
Once we understand that belief and religion have shaped and in many ways still does shape our culture and society we can look at these different religions and beliefs and find that within all the existing diversity and even conflict, many religions have the same origins and integrate the same core principals. Same is true for aboriginal belief systems. There are certain core elements found in all known religions and other beliefs. So it is well known that Christianity, Judaism and Islam all originate from Abraham, perhaps less known that also Eastern religions and beliefs originate from 'The Book of Formation'.
With this background it becomes clear that we must have common values as our variety of cultures ultimately has similar origins. We will call those values - universal values. These values will help us as humanity to reunite and become one not just with us, but with the planet. Within all the existing diversity we have forgotten our oneness which becomes so clear and outstanding as soon as we look for it. This oneness is intellectually supported by the excursion from above but more importantly its supported by our feelings. More and more people everyday can feel this oneness.
On a practical level, there are many guidelines we can follow to express this oneness and these universal values. Love, Grace, Nature, Abundance, Synergy, Unity and Truth are some of these universal values. The Golden Rule or the [w:Ethic of reciprocity] is a way to formalise some of these values. The 10 commandments are another way. The concept of the common greater good is another one. More examples can be found in other religions and beliefs.
When we as humanity commit to Truth and abandon lies we will see good things happen and many harmful events will vanish. If we love our neighbor as ourself and act out of love and not fear, if we act in Unity for the common greatest good and not for personal (this includes acting in the interest of our family and friends) gain, societies will transform. If we understand that Abundance is the natural state we can overcome the fear of not having enough.
To provide a political science perspective I think we need to analyse the relationship of the individual with the whole (or "state") and also the cover the notions of self-responsibility, awareness and empowerment.
Implementation
“In terms of organisation, what does it mean to apply universal values and holistic governance?"
The philosophical and structural ideas are unified here for their practical implementation. We intend to compile methods and tools which can be applied in a scalable way from personal empowerment right up to the formation of holistic organisations. We will discuss the kinds of organisations that might comprise an holistic world government and the technology that would be required to allow them to operate in accordance with the values outlined in section two and the systems requirements from section one. We assess the requirements they will need to fulfil such as personal empowerment, decentralised project management, currency creation and provision of identity and trust.
Transition
"How can holistic organisations be implemented in the context of current society?”
We will deal with the the issue that there seems to be no top-down way to implement bottom-up solutions. We intend to tackle this issue by finding existing organisations which are already in alignment with universal values and assess which tools would help these organisations move toward a full expression of universal values; in other words "How can existing organisations be unified and harmonised?". We will close with a look at current technologies that can help us achieve this goal, with the requirements from the "Implementation" section in mind. We intend to focus on web-based technology to facilitate collaboration, workflow systems, the semantic web and peer-to-peer technology. We will recommend areas of further research and development to move toward software that facilitates personal empowerment with an intuitive interface and also allows the easy formation of holistic organisations. We will assess the feasibility of creating prototype organisations or working with existing, aligned organisations, which could help us further refine the design specifications of the software.
Key Terms
- Systems Thinking
- Centralisation
- Subsidiarity
- Top-down
- Bottom-up
- Power
- Empowerment
- Secrecy
- Openness
- Universal Values
- Social Ecology/Human Ecology
- Peer-to-peer
