Stories
* * *
Update of Culture of Peace Corporation
Already in 2024 we see voters around the world rejecting capitalist democracy, the form of government by which capitalists become billionaires while working people sink into poverty. Instead, guided by a mass media controlled by these capitalists, voters choose fascism over socialism instead. We could predict that this will continue in 2025 to the complete destruction of capitalist democracy.
Already in 2024 we see an increase in failed states. As the great sociologist Max Weber said, the definition of the state is the entity with a monopoly of violence on its territory. Hence, a failed state is one that has lost its monopoly on violence. For example, there are violent massacres every day in the United States with the use of military weapons in the hands of civilians. We could predict that more states will fail in 2025 to the point that the nation-state system of global governance is seriously weakened.
Already in 2024 we see the American budget deficit soar to unprecedented heights, due to hundreds of billions of dollars for the military-industrial complex and for the military support of Israel and Ukraine, while there is increasing talk of dedollarization around the world. The American Empire depends on the dollar. We could predict that the dollar will crash and the American Empire with it.
Already in 2024, we see increasing warfare in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, to the point of genocide and missiles attacks on capital cities. We could predict that this will continue in 2025 with a serious risk of a nuclear war that could destroy all civilization.
Already in 2024, we see the value of cryptocurrencies rise to astronomical heights, aided by incoming President Trump's pronouncements. We could predict this will continue in 2025 to the point that it becomes a bubble similar to that of the Dutch tulip bulb market bubble of the 1600's, leading to a global economic crash.
But I prefer a different kind of prediction, that of an apocaloptimist, usually defined as "somebody who knows how bad things are, but who nevertheless believes they could still turn out okay." My own variant is "somebody who believes that it is only through the self-destruction of the old that one can arrive at something new and better. This is similar to the third principle of dialectics as described by Lenin, that development proceeds "by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions; "breaks in continuity."
As an apocaloptimist, one could imagine that people around the world become so sick and tired of the culture of war that they sign the Manifesto 2025 proposed in my previous blogs in such enormous numbers that the nation states are forced to develop ministries and other institutions for peace.
The culture of war is led in particular by the American Empire with its dollar dominance of the global economy, and in general by the nation-states of the world and a global economy of exploitation of the poor by the rich. As an apocaloptimist, one can consider that the weakening of the American Empire, the dollar, the nation-state and the global economy of exploitation could provide a window of opportunity for the transition to a more democratic form of governance and an an economy based on cooperation and local food sovereignty.
As an apocaloptimist in my novel, I Have Seen the Promised Land, I imagine that a global economic crash weakens the nation states to the point that they abandon the United Nations, and the UN Security Council is taken over by the mayors of the world who lead the world to a culture of peace. The novel was written in 2009, imagining the transition to a culture of peace in 2026.
Has that time come? And will we be able to take advantage of the window of opportunity to create a better world?
In response, I like the perspective of Federico Mayor who passed away last month:
"And there lies our faith, because all living beings are predictable and measurable, with the sole exception of the human being. And the fact is that all of us have an exclusive and wonderful ability, which is the ability to create. For this reason, the human being is unpredictable and immeasurable, always capable of the unexpected. The human being is not predestined; he is free and the master of his own destiny. This is the great hope of humanity: in times of greatest tension and crisis, the humans are capable of bringing out the best of themselves."
<
Stages
1986-1992
Fall of Soviet Empire
1992-1997
UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme
1997-2001
UN Intl Year for Culture of Peace