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Transcultural Friendship: Our Political Future Chapter Five: The Emerging World Order Section 8: The World Political System
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Battle Drums on Mt. Jin, February 8, 1998. |
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Given that there will be a strong somewhat centralized world system, what will be its form? In its present form, the UN is a democracy, limited by power politics reflected in the veto power of some Security Council members. There seems to be little chance that the UN will become authoritarian. Its charter and conventions favor democracy. The challenges of change it faces are inappropriate for autocratic rigidity: flexibility is needed to promote understanding and mutual adaptation among diverse cultures and nations.
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At the other extreme, one might suspect that the UN will become a political friendship. The number of nations represented is not so large that consensus-type decision making would be totally unfeasible. Friendship is best suited to dealing with the greatest diversity of peoples and interests. Friendship will best promote the levels of human potential needed to face the challenges of creating a just and principled world order flexible enough to cope with rapid change.
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Political friendship is the system most suited to using education as a means for achieving ends --thereby maximizing commitment and compliance with group decisions. Perhaps it is not stretching meanings too far to find support for the establishment of political friendship in the article that launched this paper: Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights requires that education promote "friendship among all nations."
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Transcultural Friendship: Our Political Future |
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Change as the Status Quo |
Autocracy and Democracy |
Criteria |
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The Rules of the
UN and ICJ
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The World Political SystemJ |
(Next Chapter) |