I Am a Citizen of the World
World Problems Require Collaboration
Thomas Paine was a man ahead of his time. If you think the other founding fathers were enlightened, you gotta read Thomas Paine’s ideas. The world still hasn’t caught up with his progressive goals. I discovered Paine one year while caring for a house on the isle of Saba. That’s another story for another time but if you’re interested you can read it here:
Needless to say, while enjoying my life on this beautiful island, I had time on my hands and the internet in the house. I found myself fascinated by Paine’s perspective as I read Common Sense, The American Crisis, Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason.
Finally, I could identify a truly progressive founding father.
“The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.” Thomas Paine
I didn’t grow up on a steady diet of patriotism. My father was an evangelical self-proclaimed-latter-day prophet who rendered unto Caesar what was due but believed that war was evil. He believed that no follower of Jesus would pick up a gun and march with the godless into battle. He was a pacifist. He also didn’t believe he belonged to this country but was a citizen of a heavenly country.
Although I left the church years ago, I’ve never been able to embrace patriotism as a noble ideal.
In fact, like Thomas Paine, I feel more like a world citizen than someone bound by borders. And, although unlike my father I don’t believe in an afterlife, I’m still a pacifist. I’m always opposed to the next war. In my lifetime, all wars have proven to be mistakes and lies. I don’t feel a burning pride for America and would never encourage young people to join the military. Let their fathers go instead. No one younger than 35 or 40 should join the military.
So what would I rather see?
I’m more interested in developing conflict resolution skills and problem-solving strategies that push the evolution of society into a better future, rather than maintain the violent tribal status quo. I live everywhere but nowhere and keep my eye out for free-thinking, creative individuals who refuse to stay in their cultural boxes or within the tight borders that limit our perspectives.
Patriotism and borders are designed to give people false pride about something they don’t even own, a piece of this planet.
It’s not ours. It’s everybody’s. Including the plants and animals who share this world with us. We don’t own anything really. We’re borrowing, using, or abusing things but in short order, we die and are gone, just like the ant crushed by a human shoe. Get people to swear allegiance to a country and mark my word, moms and dads will next be asked to send their children packing straight into the next war. And, they’ll do it, too. Every damn time. They won’t remember the lies of the last war because patriotism will cloud their judgment with fear and emotion, not logic. So, they’ll willingly sacrifice their sons and daughters to the forever wars.
I’m a proud nonpatriot.
It wouldn’t matter where I lived in the world. I do not march to that drum. Yet, I care a lot about humanity. What I see when I scan the horizon for the enemy is people of all colors, nationalities, and religions struggling to survive, consumed by fear of change, and unable to appreciate the power of collective endeavors.
Whether it’s solving world problems or sharing bounty within a small community, humans insist on building walls rather than benefiting from the vast diversity that is in this world.
Whether we want to admit it or not, diversity is life. Take a look at this planet and the millions and millions of plants and animals that are thriving. Take the time to marvel and appreciate the immense diversity that lives side by side, commingling, and contributing while literally making life possible.
They say we’ve entered the sixth mass extinction.
With so many life forms effectively going extinct, there will be grave consequences for humans. We need bees and butterflies, plants of all kinds, and animals of every size and description to flourish. We benefit from humans who speak different languages, have different customs, and live in faraway places. Their perspectives aren’t wrong just different. They bring ideas to the table that may not occur to you and me because we’re looking at the problem from a completely different cultural level.
Step outside yourself for a few minutes and think big picture. Bring the lens farther and farther out as you appreciate a wider view of what is and what may be possible.
We need ideas. More ideas not less. The more ideas we can contribute to the art of problem-solving, whether it’s our own problems or world challenges, have the potential to save us because ideas and contrasting perspectives increase our chances of survival.
I’m often stunned at how little humans have progressed.
Technologically we’ve been pretty impressive, especially in the last 200 years, but socially we’re still struggling. We’re cavemen with cell phones. That’s a worry. We’re facing an existential crisis with climate change and diminishing resources. Now is not the time to be fighting wars. Now is the time to be collectively solving the challenging problems that the whole world is facing.
War may be our go-to method of trying to solve problems but it’s a waste of resources and human life.
It pollutes and destroys. It always creates a host of new problems often worse than the problems that caused us to go to war in the first place. In the meantime, human suffering is elevated to a grotesque level. Children are traumatized. They in turn grow up to carry this legacy of pain and suffering and repeat the same mistakes of their parents.
With all the talk about the sanctity of life and how precious it is, we clearly don’t believe that.
Despite the vast number of believers in a god who forbids killing, we still slaughter mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, and even little babies while carrying a flag that we’ve been told we should be willing to lay down our lives for if called upon to do so.
Bull!
If we invested a third of the time and money that we pour into the war machine by developing problem-solving skills and methods of conflict resolution that we could actually model for our children, we could change the world. Business as usual would cease to be a solution. Children would feel more secure growing up in a world where grownups actually acted like grownups and we’d stand a much higher chance of not killing our own offspring.
Money should be poured instead into education, innovation, creativity, and collaborative efforts instead of weapons of mass destruction as we face the most challenging era in human history.
Climate change is a true existential threat and like Mother Nature is often prone to do, she once again will level the playing field. This very real threat is not just a threat to Americans. It will have devastating consequences for the world.
Whether we like it or not we’re in this together.
There has never before been a time when world cooperation is so important. A single country can’t tackle this alone. Suddenly, we are one world and one race with one very important task on our doorstep, so pressing that everything else dwindles in importance. To waste precious time on war is the complete opposite of what the world needs to do.
Do humans have the capability to develop a different set of problem-solving skills?
It remains to be seen. I can hope and I do, but I also realize that we’ve had centuries and centuries and centuries where war was seen as not only necessary but promoted as glorious. Patriotism was used to fire up the people and ensure that young men would choose to head into battle. Killing men, women, and children of other tribes was touted as a triumph.
Without patriotic themes running through every society, we might have questioned the intent of our kings and emperors.
But once our emotions were stirred by songs, praise, promise, and a sense of belonging, then logic and principle went out the window. We are living in the 21st century. Technological wonders abound. We’re moving swiftly toward the next era where robots will rise to either threaten our lives or make them easier. As this unfolds there’s another story being told as well. This story has been evolving since the beginning of humankind. The story of our survival. We’re wired to survive.
But will we or will the archaic problem-solving skill — war — continue to distract us from focusing our potentially impressive abilities on the very real challenges that the world faces?
Patriotism is still the #1 method to inspire people but few can recognize what happens to their brains when it’s used to divide and conquer. Humans tend to make important decisions based on emotion, not logic. But when the chips are down, we need one another more than we realize because we really are one race living on one planet swirling in space.
If we can’t find a way to appreciate that fact and use it to our advantage, extinction may be what we get and may very well be what we deserve.
Teresa is an author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
