Civitatis International is a research institute serving leaders
to produce high-level reports
to produce high-level reports
About Civitatis International
Civitatis International is an international research institute serving leaders to produce high-level reports. Civitatis International was founded at a Council of Europe sponsored conference on the European System of Human Rights by a group of international lawyers and researchers at the behest of Jan Mortier.
Resolutique mondiale
“We set out from the conviction that history cannot be, and is not, preordained. We reject pessimism in evaluating our current and future possibilities. In every kind of situation there is always room for alternatives, there is always room for initiative.
The world needs a vision driven by the will and perseverance to make this vision a reality. We need to cultivate a new culture and stimulate new approaches because the world needs a culture of peace. Only the path to a new world civilization can lead to this culture of peace.”
Mikhail Gorbachev, Turin, 2003[1]
The present status of the civilization of mankind is not sufficient. There is no vision, no goal for the long term and nothing presently to which people can aspire to or be inspired by. World development has brought both benefits and challenges, yet an overarching direction for civilization is lacking. Humanity remains an inward looking species, blundering from crisis to crisis, never looking beyond the short-term, never traversing its horizons. It is also questionable whether collectively humanity, is now more civilized than in ages past.
The dawn of the 21st century has seen a void of vision and goals and the incapacity to resolve salient challenges facing mankind. Moreover the twenty-one centuries past and all those preceding them, account for the sum total of mankind’s historical achievements and knowledge to date. Described by some as the “apex of civilization“ globalised civilization today has in reality, as its present goal: the perpetual quest of the population for the acquisition of material things. This consumption is hardly a sufficient sum total of achievement or even a useful and gratifying endeavor for mankind. It is therefore time for some new goals, some new endeavors and a new vision for the peace and prosperity of all humanity.
Humanity can have a positive vision: It must now choose what path to the future it wishes for civilization. “If our goals are unrealistic, narrow, and short sighted, world problems will lead to catastrophes, while if they are realistic and farsighted, new horizons of need fulfillment and peace can open for the world community. The situation can be turned around and human prospects made bright only by a supreme concerted effort by all peoples and all nations.”[2] “The new horizons of a global community can still be opened for mankind…A change from self centered and short-term goals to mankind [and biosphere] centered long term ones is in the interest of all people. To work for such a change has become a moral imperative for all who are concerned with the future of humanity.” [3] If we cannot transcend our modus operandi of conflict and discord than it is unlikely that as a species we will continue to exist for much longer. If humanity consciously chooses to align itself along a new path, and forge for itself a new vision to include peaceful co-existence and mutual prosperity, then it will have a very long and prosperous future.
END.
[1] Mikhail Gorbachev words as interpreted by Jan Mortier, Foreword to the Annual Report of the World Political Forum, Agenda 2003 The World of the 21st Century, New Unity or New Fractures?, 2003. Turin: The World Political Forum.
[2] Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King, Foreword, in The Goals for Mankind, a Report to the Club of Rome on the new Horizons of the Global Community, 1977, Vancouver, Clarke, Irwin & Company
[3] Ibid. Ervin Laszlo et al, pg xv.
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