Our concept of the world is shrinking. We come closer and closer to actualizing what McCluhan called "the global village". An ever more sophisticated system of interlocked, electronic communication encircles the planet -- a sort of neural network of awareness that is simultaneously physical and psychic, and binds all of humanity to an essentially singular web of shared stories, ideologies, and perspectives. And though the web itself is singular, the perspectives and stories on it are often at odds with one another, proposing contradictory facts as being absolutely true, and refusing to recognize an opposing viewpoint as having any validity at all.
Boy oh boy are they ever different. Is there any way... any way... to reconcile the opposing ethical systems of Islam and Western-style capitalism? Both must share the same house now, so to speak, and the house is getting smaller all the time.
We fight, we squabble, we war, as we have always done. Religions bind one group together, at the expense of all others. Political and economic schemes are formed, and then deteriorate.
There is nothing new about any of this -- what's new is that all these various dramata, occurring simultaneously, are now laid bare for all the world to see, and to talk about, thanks to the "miracle" of global communications networks. Including live, on-the-spot videos that are not broadcast just locally, but globally -- and not sponsored, but rather unauthorized and spontaneously personal. This is an enormous, epochal change in how we humans relate to our particular social orders, that perhaps we are not often aware of, even as it is happening.
There is however a clear, certain, unambiguous, scientific fact -- which is becoming ever more apparent to ever more people -- which is that this planet (the Earth) is a singular entity, with a singular destiny. Intelligent analysis can no longer maintain the illusion that humanity has several, or different destinies. The most aware, the most well-informed people of all religions and all political persuasions, must surely have begun to understand this unassailable, and rather obvious fact. If only subconsciously, and privately.
The question is, who gets to call the shots? Under which system of ethics? Must there be only one such system? Must the family of man be defined by domination and subjugation, or might we be able to fashion something better for ourselves, as a species, as a whole?