World Consortiums for Health, Wealth, Peace and Prosperity
Perspective means at least this: Learn from the past, live in the present, plan for the future.
Historians, analysts, and visionaries constantly earn their way through life by identifying moments in time when societies need to rise above the fray, identify a problem, convert that problem into a challenge, and answer that challenge by showing how it also contains an opportunity for all of us. Such an opportunity requires that we seek clarity from our own powers of perspective and perspicuity so that we can seize the day and make the most of it. I and others call such moments “propitious.” And now that I have used up all the relevant “p” words surrounding this subject, let’s set about the task of identifying the contents of such moments and what we can do about them.
In this essay I will try to pull together a few disparate thoughts and show how they can cohere into a unifying concept that we can also rally around. The subjects for discussion are global in nature, acute to our survival, yet fundamental to our core values as inhabitants of this planet. Distilled to their essences, they are the elements of problem-solving.
As a starting point consider how doctoral students are typically tasked to demonstrate their skills as scholars, teachers, or practitioners of a discipline by pulling together an array of skills; focus their efforts onto a single issue that has relevancy to them and to their colleagues; show the state of knowledge that surrounds this issue; direct our attention to a problem or to a gap in the state of knowledge; how they intend to gather a lot of information about it; analyze it; synthesize it into the subject area; evaluate it; draw limited conclusions about it; describe their findings to scholars in their field; and show how, why, when, where, and to what extent the state of knowledge can be pushed a bit further for all of humanity. Their proposal must show who is involved; resources to be used; who will participate in the study; and the precautions that will be taken to protect privacy and undue intrusions; and account for or control participant biases. Indeed, each doctoral candidate is tasked to lay out the entire study in such detail with an entire bibliography of relevant studies and scholars who preceded them before they begin the actual task of starting their study. In so doing they are required to be as honest as they can be at every step; to follow a methodology that others can set up and duplicate; to avoid slant and bias in their efforts; and to adhere to accuracy, reliability, and a focused application or purpose in defending their proposal to a small group of scholars who are ready and able to approve of or to reject their efforts that might make them worthy candidates and new leaders in their field. Afterward, they must go through all these steps again, but this time showing their actual results and its worthiness. And they must defend every step to their overseers with integrity and aplomb. It is a rite of passage that is daunting to some, challenging to most, and educational to all. Legend and folktales are legion of the insanities caused and the suicides that flow from these procedures. I caution you that nearly all of these tales are fictional crutches fashioned by the candidates themselves from which to draw a bit of solace, humor, and consolation.
The entire preceding paragraph can be summarized as critical thinking or the scientific method to problem solving. All careful people who respect their own and others thought processes follow a similar set of thinking procedures. Violators are often known as politicians—those who make the rules and the laws by which we all must live. Such a conflict is a paradox of life that makes basket cases out of the many and megalomaniacs out of the few. Nevertheless, we must push on confident that this, too, shall pass.
The world has many universities, research centers, and think tanks in which scholars address the issues of the day. Their studies and papers are linked by journals and other formats that allow for peer reviews and information dissemination. It is an obscure and esoteric way of engaging in the pursuit of knowledge. Although it is justifiable, it still needs to be consolidated when objectives overlap into different disciplines if we are ever to make real progress in solving major issues that are relevant to us all. Advances in health care are an example in which we need to continually consolidate and share information. Modes of transportation are another. Energy exploration and its use is still another. Information sharing, however, is not the final outcome that is needed. Crossing over boundaries with new knowledge must also be directed toward improving life on Earth for all. Protecting knowledge as proprietary can enhance the personal well-being of the very few, but such limited outcomes are too often at the expense of many. Patents and copyright laws need to be continually examined to expedite rather than to encourage limiting benefits to humanity.
I believe we need perhaps ten major international consortiums, staffed by a wide array of scholars that assemble for the purpose of finding new ways to expedite the flow of ideas, products, and information so that humanity benefits faster from them. While there are many broad areas for such establishments, I will suggest the following 10 topics as a start:
· Survival
· Quality of Life
· Population Control
· Energy, the Environment and Resource Allocation
· Health Care
· Inequality of Wealth and Incomes
· Slavery and Tyranny
· Education and Information Sharing
· Peace and Conflict Resolution
· Legal Issues for Resolution
Such bodies of learned men and women working in concert would need to be above ideologies, political influences, and personal profit making. They would also need to be driven by how knowledge, products and processes are more dependent on human needs than on containing and controlling how profits flow to narrow interests. For example, a consortium of experts from many nations might take up the task of solving the conflict between the reality of climate change, and the opposition to it from private interests. They could speak with greater authority than could any person, corporation, or country. Likewise, a legal consortium could address issues of law that can transcend boundaries, and how to remove barriers to bring improvements to people faster. The ultimate objective of all such bodies would be to remain focused on the good of all instead of the benefits to the few.
There are, of course, those who are ready to call such structures and purposes too altruistic, or too far removed from reality to have any practical application today. We might call that objection merely a challenge about how to connect positive issues (what is) and normative (what can be) outcomes. Such naysayers have no intellectual standing because, once raised, the problems still persist. Negativism is but a constant challenge to all the issues; it is part of the reason for consortiums, it is not a solution to anything; therefore, it too can be overcome by men and women of good will.
This is but a starting point that merely frames how to better deal with issues of the day. It necessarily lacks many details. Your constructive thoughts about how to better illuminate this need for a constant flow of solutions to real needs are welcomed.
Love ya!
Jane
The American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS), the oldest organization of its kind in the world, brings together all the sciences in its annual meetings where linkages and information sharing takes place. What you are proposing would take us one step further from discipline specific organizations like this to international problem-solving groups using all disciplines. Currently, there are many nonprofit organizations working on specific problems, but your idea is much broader and deserves consideration. The politically charged "summits" held around the world seem to do very little except political posturing between giant ego-states.
As far as human nature goes, genius is often accompanied by insanity. There's also a need for esoteric study and conclusions to be interpreted for the mass of people who do not understand. One way to raise understanding and critical thinking of people is to find a way for everyone to get beyond the drudgery of just trying to survive financially, and in many parts of the world, physically, so they can have time to learn and study and get beyond the servitude of their masters or bosses.
Ron