Can you really work for the world?
Individuals CAN Think So, but I'm Not Ready to Give My Consent to their Authority.Let me separate a few abstractions first before I discuss the problems of “global governance” in 2012. First, the pace of change toward some ideal global government violates existing (abstract) principles of representative government, citizenship, and the legitimacy of authority based on written constitutions. Second, in 2012, the United Nations (UN) fails to meet my standards of an authority I should obey first before the US government. Third, international laws of "self-defense," particularly those found in the UN Charter, are one area where disunity and mass abstraction prevent global governance.
While some people merely dream of a united world, I believe we should do realistic things with our limited time on earth to help who we can with what limited things we have. I believe that people have individual responsibilities to obey the most moral institutions human beings can manage during that time. In the geographic area comprising the US, the US government is the better, and more moral institution when compared to the United Nations or some undefined global government that would hypothetically impose itself over everywhere. The UN is most useful as a tool, and a very good one sometimes, but a tool of imperfect but more "responsible nations," like the US. This group is given the power to determine what constitutes a "self-defense" action. It is useful to release pressure and to avoid conflict in a world where that might not always be possible. While the ideas like "unity of all workers" or "ending imperialism" seem attractive and easy, they are just abstractions and dangerous if used to empower the wrong people. And too many of those abstractions float around the halls of the UN and that probably explains why the "power of the international community" can be so limited at times.
Let me explain using common terms of political discourse. They are not used to encompass all global political reality, an impossibility anyways, but a way to explain relationships between real people as they act as "governments."
Some terms I'll use:
Authority: an ability to command one or more person.
Consent: agreement to follow another person’s order or law.
Obedience: continued observance of the law.
Legitimacy: the right to demand obedience.
duty to obey: obligation to follow a law. (See Christiano)
As with any collective group of people organized by their beliefs, UN employees are people who believe that they work for all nations. Any consent to UN authority comes from "member-states" who signed the charter or were extended some form of membership (observer status of say the Palestinians). Both membership options legitimize the UN in a way defined by the employees of each nations-state. Thus, nations consent to the UN voluntarily, by the past/present acts of national employees. Based on their treaty with the UN, countries only have the duty to obey in certain situations. And much of the interpretation of what constitutes a duty to the UN is decided in the Security Council by the five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The employees of the member-states then comprise the "force" against a violating subject state again as determined by individual perceptions of international law. But, consent of a nation for the UN can be withdrawn if the "international collective's" resolution violates the subject states' “authority” over their people. Perhaps, the subject state believes that consent of their people is more important than the viewpoint of an international body (occasionally the US?). Or, perhaps they view domination of their own nationals as more important (nearly always North Korea). Nations like the US value the idea that representatives seek public consent through voting. There are other more “authoritarian” models, like North Korea, who value ideology above all else.
In order to attempt “world government,” many changes need to occur. First, enough people on the globe need to believe that global employees possess authority and thus command the duty to obey. Ideally, these global employees would also believe in my variant of the democracy abstraction and would perceive their own actions as being legitimate because “global citizens” determined they should be given global titles as per a written constitution.
Global Representational Government AND Nation States NOT Possible
“Leaping Forward to Globalism?”
How could employees of the globe command the duty to obey as part of a world government? And what if one “country’s” citizens do not consent because they do not believe the ruling human beings represent the globe, thus are not legitimate, and thus they have no duty to obey them? Essentially, for “world government” to be a practical reality, no “national” abstraction, like the United States of America, can exist in the minds of people and the global employees must be able to command the duty to obey from enough people to continue their employment.
Is mankind really capable of devising a representational system that accounts for all of the diverse abstractions that people believe in? Can we really have widespread belief in global governance without minds purged of national abstractions? So, national symbols like George Washington to “Americans,” would have to be re-imagined and twisted as part of a history of “progress” toward the belief in globalism. Attempting to force global abstractions on minds already determined to be national in character will necessarily lead to dissonance and resistance. Immediate change of ideas hasn't really worked on a mass scale without lots of people dying. People cannot shed their experience, their core make-up and wiring of their brains quickly. And forcing global abstractions on people before their brains change and understanding develops removes legitimacy and the duty to obey from the group of people. Rather than the individual coming to understand the necessity of something like “global government” through “rational” and “irrational” moments in reality, a foreign abstraction is forced upon them.
There is no guarantee that such "globalism," "progress," or "perfection" will ever exist either. Irresponsible authorities exist, more responsible ones like the US may not exist, and everything might be destroyed if individuals aren't aware of the complexities as opposed to misleading comfort of words. And people on this planet are still creating new government abstractions. See the development of “nations” like Iraq or South Sudan if you want more proof that nations atomize just as much as they consolidate toward one big global nation. And since World War I especially, international institutions have played their role in that procreative process using the belief in "self-determination" (to be discussed another time) to rationalize new geographic collections of people. The application of "self-determination" can be quite a destructive process for nations and lead to violence, genocide, and tragedy.
Yet, people resist consent to an authority if they cannot understand the abstraction. And they need not obey or throw away the abstractions that are more real to them like US flags and eagles to US citizens. Thus, because a person believes they’re “Iraqi” and to whatever incalculable degree they believe in patriotic Iraqi symbols, their minds are blocked in understanding global abstractions. They cannot, after however many years of experiencing life as an Iraqi, comprehend “global abstractions” in a way that gives the it more reality than the "Iraqiness." As an “Iraqi” believer, they could say they’re “good global citizens" but they’d be interpreting “good global citizenship" through their individual lens of “Iraqi abstractions” and their other indefinable beliefs and irreversible history of action as individuals and a people.
UN Charter: Article 51
The main article of the UN related to "self-defense" is not universally applied in complete moral way. It is a written law, words on paper that people use to make decisions for billions of people across the planet. It states "Nothing shall impair" individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs until the Security Council acts to maintain peace/security" (UN Charter). This article is subjective to nation states that are members. Then, those "attacked" define their own self-defense and then what action they choose to take to respond. The UN shall not impair or limit the response until the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decides to do something about it.
In essence this article starts a clock the moment the nation-state is "attacked." The clock is for Security Council action. Meanwhile, the victim state "must report to" this body, defend itself however, and wait (Gray 90). Then, action against the victim is subjective to the Security Council member states which are given the power to maintain "peace/security." Therefore, conflicts had and have endured because of the subjectivity of the application of "self-defense" and the subjectivity of "peace/security." One nation's relative peace might be another nation's armed conflict. In addition, "armed attack" does not limit "attacking people" to the category of the "nation-state" abstraction, so those people could be labeled "guerrillas, terrorists, etc." Is the SC always the most responsible body where armed conflict is concerned? No, because its constituent members are not perfect, and other than international politics, members use both rationality and emotion with mixed results.
For example in 2002, Saddam Hussein rejected the collective orders of most nations when it came to disclosure about his weapons programs (See Press Release SC/7564). He was found in material breach of Resolution 1441 and that meant little until the US used UN resolution violations (selectively) as a pretext for the 2003 invasion (See The Long Road to War). The US felt that solutions to real problems weren't to be found by continuing measures within the UN. Thus, the UN itself could do nothing other than legitimize or not those nations that would act and force Iraq to comply. The UN abstraction did nothing, nationals employed by other peoples’ consent did.
UNSC is an Imperfect Political Institution
In addition, voting against a UNSC resolution, does not confer absolute possession of a moral authority. For example, throughout the 1980s, the US/UK voted against resolutions condemning the "Apartheid" regime of South Africa (Gray 102). The nation invaded its neighbors, Angola and Botswana, to respond in "self-defense" to cross border guerrilla raids. It was to some degree motivated by the abstractions of "anti-communism" and "racism." US/UK leaders wanted a negotiated settlement more in line with their collective abstractions, which meant they did not want to see a "communist" South Africa if the region spiraled further out of control. In this case, it seemed obvious that in an ideal world, everyone would collectively oppose Apartheid and the laws and practice would be shamed out of existence. Instead, national leaders received the real world situation as their interests determined; convince racist South African white leaders to change their mind about their abstractions, while keeping a government opposed to the communist abstraction intact. In the end, the Apartheid regime fell in a more complex way than simple global resolutions or communist victories. In fact, it was part an individual mind change on the part of President F.W. De Klerk and the persistence and courage of Nelson Mandela and his supporters.
Representational Consent Developed Through Complexity
Power of representative institutions, rather authority, developed in Western Europe and was brought by settlers to North America as complex ideas with a long history. This power came about by receiving "consent" to finance government employees. For example in 1275, England's Parliament gained revenue-producing rights by law and because of the king's need. The King needed more tax money to pay more employees to fight his war, but found his ability to garner that money stymied by local communities and barons. Thus, political mechanisms (laws) were needed to gain that consent from lords and the population, who were bound by abstraction to the lord and loyalty oaths subject to individual behavior (See Morgan 148). In fact, kings themselves had to bargain with all levels of society (communities, nobles) to get people to give up their stuff to do kingdom or spiritually-related things. And to simplify American history, our Revolution was against increased "government" power. It was directed from British American citizens at the very much changed authority of King George III and a tax-empowered Parliament. Those citizens wanted the imperial government to have less power to take away their stuff without their consent.
And as the US developed as a "nation," its people increased the power of voters to determine laws and increased the consent for its employees to take more stuff away. Can we say that other countries that we're in a diplomatic relationship with have the same level of consent required by citizens in the US? In the US, at least most of our employees received public consent to take more away. Can we say the same level of consent exists within such a mixed institution as the UN? Not really. Are we ready for globalism with Communist China, a "nation" whose leaders order the bulldozing of whole communities because central planners believe they possess "scientific socialism?" (See Sui-Lee Wee) I'd prefer America's imperfect "eminent domain" over Chinese "central planning"! How can we reconcile two seemingly different abstractions, "Americanism" vs. "Chinese communism," based on two different people's understanding of the world around them? China possesses the authority to claim a UN Security Council seat, a powerful position that allows it to veto decisions, maybe ones I think are good ones, presented by the US or the UK.
Yet, is the UNSC the best way to command US citizens, to ensure they're obedient to some "international community" if Putin's Russia and China are 2/5's of its decision-making? And if globalism is the unity of "nations," their peoples, and their "beliefs" into one abstract system, do "Americans" really want to consent to some unknown, formless unity instead of their more immediate reality of American "self-government" and "self-determination?"
Why do we bother then?
Because the UN is the best international system of abstraction that we can manage with what we have right now. A "powerful" nation like the US could take action alone, but it might have to suffer the violent consequences of a decision to go to war. And no, the Iraq Conflict of 2003 is not an example of one "nation" fighting alone with no other "nation" supporting it in a conflict. I'll deal with authority, legitimacy, and Iraq in later posts. Instead of loneliness, the US makes decisions in a complex world and I find those vastly more appealing than those of Russia or China.
The state of "globalism" is such that "national governments" are subject to possible coercion by the imperfect (but needed) UN system. In 2012, humanity's abstractions are so complicated and geographically diverse that an incredible level of coercion, even force, would be required to make people believe in global unity over national integrity. However, it is still easier for a poor farmer in Bangladesh to abstractify their terrible lives into "American economic imperialism," brought courtesy of communist believers, while blaming words for life's hardships. But, humans are put into awful, inescapable, and/or involuntary situations. Abstractions help us cope and make us think we understand something as a reduction. What I demand is skepticism of remedy. Because the world is as complex as it is, simple remedies are suspect. Instead, when we act as individuals, we must be aware of the damage our individual action may have on everyone else, regardless of belief. Maybe with a little more individual awareness, we'll have a little less mass chaos and a little more help for individual man.
Sources:
Christiano, Tom, "Authority", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/authority/>.
Gray, Christine. International Law and the Use of Force. Oxford University Press, NY: 2000.
Morgan, Kenneth. Oxford History of Britain. Oxford University Press, NY: 1984.
"The Long Road to War" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/longroad/etc/cron.html#5
"Press Release SC/7564," United Nations. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7564.doc.htm
"United Nations Charter: Article 51" from The United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter7.shtml
Sui-Lee Wee, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/22/us-china-threegorges-idUSBRE87L0ZW20120822Thousands Being Moved from China's Three Gorges Dam- Again
No comments:
Post a Comment