United We Stand…Whenever We Need To

Especially recently, as I have been living for three months in Berlin which was at the heart of this (hopefully) last Great War, I have realized how important it was in our evolution. Naturally this city is overflowing with monuments, both West German and Russian, since half of the city belonged to the Reds after the end of the war. This is curious since it brilliantly illustrates that although East and West were separated for decades after the war, they were united in their remembrance and praise of their hard-bought victory. Even during the war, at the time of their alliance, USA and England were still ideological opposite to the Soviet Union. This illustrates the power of crises to unite adversaries under a common cause. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so to speak. But after the defeat of their common enemy, East and West went back to their respective sides of the ideological divide.

But even the ensuing Cold War has examples of humanity uniting for the greater good and advancement of the species. Even though the Space Race had severe tactical and militaristic undertones, in the same manner as World War II, it also propelled our species to go further than ever before and once again significantly propel us forward in our own evolution.  When the prospect of landing on the Moon became a reality, a treaty was signed across national and ideological borders to ensure that beyond Earth we act as one species. The Moon Space Treaty allowed no one nation to claim ownership of the Moon, but rather stupefied that it belonged to all of us, under the Heritage of Mankind principle. This unity is still seen today in outer space, such as with the International Space Station, being shared by several nationalities. This, I think, is cause for optimism. If our future really lies in space, then perhaps this could help unite us as a species. After all, being out there and looking back at this small blue orb in space (something I hope to try one day), should certainly help put things into perspective for anyone, and help them realize how silly our inter-species conflicts and squabbles appear from outer space. Scale, once again, comes to the rescue. Although competition might have bred and fueled this process, the results and achievements stand as testament to what our species can eventually achieve if we manage to work together towards a shared goal. 

Even though World War I and II caused the loss of millions of lives and the destruction of most of the world of its day, the best legacy these conflicts gave us, are the institutions that still stand today such as the United Nations, the League of Nations 2.0, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and subsequently the European Union. Of course the latter only arose out of the massive hangover from the World Wars called the Cold War which we are probably still recovering from with old animosities waiting to get stirred up. But since the fall of the Iron Curtain, we are closer than ever to a global united front and the institutions that can ensure this are still standing, although shaken to their core due to recent events. The scary prospect is that people are seemingly already forgetting these hard-bought lessons that so many people gave their lives to pass on to us, even as the last of the survivors are still alive. The only hope to draw out of this development is that it might lead us into such a global crisis that will once again unite all of us, which as I have mentioned before is the only way to solve the problems of the future, to think globally. To ensure that happens we will probably need a push-effect on such a scale as to threaten our very existence, something many conservationists believe is already happening. Unfortunately, it would have to slap us in the face before everyone else would realize it was occurring. Fiction has plenty of examples of such causes finally bringing everyone together on a global scale, usually some extra-terrestrial threat that finally snaps us out of our apathy, as for instance in The Abyss or Independence Day. Crises such as those occurring in these movies might be the only thing that can unite us, certainly this is what history and our inherent nature would suggest. (Human nature will be discussed in depth in coming posts). Humanity has always had a sense for drama I suppose. Hopefully, we can unite without the need for anymore massive conflicts, but only time will tell.