| World Summit on Societal Sustainability - Engaging The Constant of Human Empathy and Compassion - Notwithstanding impressive progress in the march of human enlightenment, the constant of human empathy and compassion (bearing particularly on human mate selection, on the nurturing of offspring, and on early childhood education) - for reasons by and large economic - remains for the most part unengaged and sporadic in expression at a time when human survival itself literally depends upon meaningfully enhanced/holistic expression and assertion of human empathy and compassion throughout the global community. Excerpts from the book The Recovery of Culture (Henry Bailey Stevens, 1949) are a timely reminder of the role of early childhood education as it impacts societal sustainability: "We are now caught on the edge of the abyss where we see desperately that we must be rid of war, but its chain reactions are difficult to break. Without in any way ceasing our direct attack upon the institution, we may well consider the effects if we cut the umbilical cord to its mother evil, the animal abattoir. If the children of the next two generations were educated from infancy to that primate diet to which they are normally disposed . . . . . . "But greatest of all would be the effect upon our ethical and aesthetic culture if we made ourselves consistent with that primate nature which was built over long ages into our very genes. We have tried to operate a church and a schoolhouse at one end of the street and a slaughterhouse at the other, to fill our minds with kindness and our stomachs with tortured flesh; to teach peace and eat like beasts of prey. But we have overlooked the moral in the story of Diomedes. Each generation has run amok and torn us to pieces in turn for the ugly lies which it has been taught - viz. that animals must be killed for food and people for military objectives." The goal of a world summit on societal sustainability becomes one of coalescing global leadership toward recognition of human empathy and compassion as a constant both relevant and germane to human survival. Until the constant of human empathy and compassion has been accorded societal recognition in the post-Darwin era - and thereby culturally freed to engage, to manifest, develop and evolve - achievement of societal sustainability will continue to elude all effort however well-intentioned or purposefully pursued. Testing human objectivity and creativity as never before, dialogue among leaders within religion, education and science is constrained to begin with in-depth examination of social expectations irrepressible in the twenty-first century and fundamental to societal sustainability - focusing concerted attention on commonalities within Judaism, Christianity and Islam: (a) A healthful, sustainable environment for every planetary citizen, (b) Universal health care, publicly supported, (c) Education for all based upon individual capability, (d) Creative/productive employment for every citizen, (e) Financial security upon completion of work career. Extension of the constant of human empathy and compassion within our own species, to species other than our own, to our planet, and to future generations, engages the whole of humanity in an enlightened calling for revitalized fulfillment, for societal sustainability, for The Compassionate Global Society. "A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Albert Einstein Forelaws Homepage |
| last edited 12/22/02 |