[Updated NOVEMBER, 2009]
WELCOME TO THE [John] Garrett Jones Website
NEW THIS MONTH:
Scroll down to the bottom of this page.YOUR PEOPLE WILL JUDGE YOU ON WHAT YOU CAN BUILD, NOT ON WHAT YOU CAN DESTROY
[President Barack Obama, Inaugural Speech, 2009]The question is not one of "surrendering" national sovereignty. The problem is not negative and does not involve giving something up we already have. The problem is positive, creating something we lack, but imperatively need: the extension of law and order into another field of human association which heretofore has remained unregulated and in anarchy.
Emery Reves, The Anatomy of PeaceI had my 80th birthday last May. When Emery Reves' book The Anatomy of Peace was first published in the UK (as a Penguin Special in 1945) I was 16. I devoured that book. At last someone was talking sense. The European war had just ended. After five years living through the blitz and the doodlebugs and the rockets (our home was a couple of miles from Northolt aerodrome just outside London), here was someone telling us what we had to do if we wanted to put paid to this kind of barbarism.
We thought we knew better than Reves. We created the United Nations with a Security Council having, as its permanent members, the main powers who had defeated Hitler. Surely they would see us right? What idiots we were! In no time the former allies were at each other's throats and we had a cold war. The resulting nuclear arms race still threatens to be our undoing. If it prevented WW3 - just - it did nothing to prevent a disgusting trade in arms which fuelled endless little wars, which slaughtered endless little people. The latest applicants to join the nuclear club do nothing to boost confidence in the future.
Our thoughts continue to be haunted by Afghanistan. It is dreadful to picture young men - some only just 18 - being blown apart by IEDs which defy modern weaponry. Iraq is also tragic, having suffered the worst atrocity since 2007 last month ( October 25).
When Bush responded to 9/11 by declaring a "war on terror" I had a nasty feeling this would soon translate into a war against a specific country in spite of the fact that no country can simply be designated "Terror". Thus came the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of them winnable because neither are the real targets.
The USA and UK are the main inheritors of the Bush-Blair legacy. It is devoutly to be hoped that President Obama and PM Brown will, at the earliest opportunity, re-define their goals. If they and all other well-intentioned national or federal rulers will now declare themselves wholeheartedly in favour of transforming the UN into a genuine global government with, amongst other things, absolute sovereignty in all matters relating to global security, there may yet be time to take the one step which could set us firmly on the path to peace and economic and environmental health.
This is obviously a massive step to take and one which will involve a huge shift in our thinking. Old style patriotism (which was often simply tribalism writ large) needs to give place to a fervent globalism, a real love of the planet without the health and support of which none of us can survive for a minute. This is the only banner under which every man jack of us can proudly march. If national armies are given over to global control, all legal military force prevented from engaging in warfare but dedicated to peacekeeping and the protecting of the inalienable rights of every human being, does this seem to be hoping too much?
Time is running out very rapidly. If we are not now determined to pull ourselves together and do something sensible for a change, we are most unlikely to be given another chance.
Educationists need to realise that there are more pressing matters than knowing our maths or our geography. Such things might be useful for compiling school league tables, but they show no sign of making enough students aware of the unprecedented global crisis looming over us or the scale of the measures which have to be implemented within the next decade if we are to have a ghost of a chance of healing the wounds we have inflicted on the planet.
Sigmund Freud, in almost his last published work, wrote:
"After long doubts and vacillations we have decided to assume the existence of only two basic instincts, Eros and the destructive instinct ...the aim of the first of these basic instincts is to establish ever greater unities and to preserve them thus - in short, to bind together; the aim of the second, on the contrary, is to undo connections and so destroy things [Sigmund Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis, Hogarth/Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1949, pp5f.]
The ethos we have cultivated over recent centuries has done a great deal to devalue love and creativity. Look at the way our Western tradition has viewed maleness: men who fight are heroes - "real men" - whilst men who love each other warmly and physically are pathetic - "queers".
Freud often used the Greek word for death (thanatos) to denote the destructive instinct. As we all know, thanatos is unstoppable; it comes to all of us sooner or later. The last thing we need is all the war games and nuclear warheads which threaten to give thanatos the final victory.
Our creativity, our love, our constant striving to improve our lot, are an unending struggle against the pull of the primal chaos. We may be tempted to ask if it is worth trying to fight the tide. It might seem simpler just to go with the flow and eat, drink and be merry. This is not an option if we mean it when we say we love our children. We have reached the crucial moment for decision in the whole history of our species. If we persist in making wrong choices, we shall very soon have reached the point of no return.
One way in which we can make a positive contribution is to harness our bisexuality. Again it was Freud who insisted that the basic constitution of every human individual is bisexual. In spite of this, bisexuality is often regarded as a problem area, more of a liability than an asset. In fact, an informed, responsible approach to this central issue of our sexuality may well be the most hopeful pointer to the future for our species. You will be in good company if you read or download the following book:
COMING CLEAN ABOUT BISEXUALITY: A MALE PERSPECTIVE
(visitors from Holland will find a Dutch translation of Coming Clean about Bisexuality at http://www.bikring.nl This can also be freely downloaded
.)In September 2008 I started a group for men who want to share their sexual attraction to and for other men but want to do this without getting involved in anal sex and without closing their heterosexual options. The group is called MEN LOVING MEN - AS MEN. If you want to take a look, click on the link below:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/menlovingmenasmen/?yguid=351832306
Music, like sex, is also an international language because it does not depend on words but does arise from something deeply implanted in all human beings. Hence music can achieve what few other things can. Just four examples from many we could give: the Simon Bolivar Orchestra and what it is doing for the youth of Venezuela and now the world; The East-West Divan Orchestra, enabling Jews and Arabs to make magnificent music together; an inspired young man in the UK becoming known through TV because of what he can do to macho schools and run-down towns by getting them singing; a fabulous pianist called Ling Ling who is now the role model for literally millions of Chinese youngsters who are learning to play an instrument.
Sport and athletics is another international language since balls and swimming pools know no linguistic barriers. Bodies around the world yearn to do the same things - hence great international festivals like the Olympics.
Maths is another international language since numbers behave the same wherever you happen to live. Much the same is true of all the sciences since they use terms and tables which are international in scope and are dealing with universal phenomena.
Painting and sculpture, dance and the appreciation of natural beauty again are untroubled by language.
Even religion, that cauldron of fierce enmities, once it gets free of words, has elements within it which speak to all of us.
Is it not time that we began to realise our enormous potential for corporately creating an exciting and sustainable future for our children?
If you would like
to know more about the movement to create an effective, democratic global
authority, click on the link below
http://groups.google.com/group/theworldvoter?hl=en
If you want to get up to date with plans to halt planet abuse go to
http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2009/update83
If you would like to know a bit more about me go to:
If you want to contact me, I would be glad to hear from you. You can email me at:
jngjones@msn.com