Teachers and Learners of the World, Unite!

Choosing a World Government

Comenius did not see his proposed world government as a standing body like the present United Nations. Communications were slow and travel was arduous in the Seventeenth Century. Such a thing would have been impracticable. Instead, it would convene on a regular basis every decade. He thought we should single out the "most select representatives of mankind" (Panorthosia II, Ch. 5, para 25, p. 97) for the task of erecting a high watchtower for the protection of the "business" of all,

"Meanwhile, however, since everybody's business is nobody's business, it is imperative that we select men of eminence for this solemn tower and see duty to survey the world, as it were, from a high watch-tower that everything that is introduced is consistent with the sound reform of our affairs (that is, that there should be no loophole for falsehood, impiety or warmongering)." (Panorthosia, Ch. 15, para 3, p. 216)

The sacred protective mission of these leaders is portrayed in a Psalm that Comenius cites,

"The princes of the people are gathered together... for the shields of the earth belong unto God." (47:9)

I think it is axiomatic that no matter how they are selected, these statespersons would be the best grouping ever assembled because they would, for the first time in history, be seeking the best purpose possible, the greater interest of all humanity. For this reason alone these men and women will be what the prayer for Canada calls the "choicest of Thy people."

Who to Choose to Represent Us at the World Level?

That is not to say that we should ignore resumes entirely. What, then, should the qualification of membership in a world government be? Let us perform a thought experiment. Imagine that for whatever reason we decide that our world parliament should be made up of fast runners and skilled chess players. It would be simple enough to hold a track meet and a chess tournament to determine the world champion in each sport. We can say with some certainty in this case that two of the most powerful countries in the world would be Russia, which has the best chess players, and Ghana, known for its sprinters and marathoners. However, what if service in a world parliament requires both? Do we choose top chess players who can also run? Or do we choose top sprinters who can also play chess? In addition, what if we want our leaders to have other qualities too; we just want running and chess to be first among several abilities? In that case, the choice is not as cut and dried as it seemed at first.

Let us then say that it is not so much that we want the best sprinters and chess players to lead us, but rather (again for unexplained reasons) that we want as many people in the world to be able to run faster and play chess better. We are confident, based on the principle of "place the kingdom first and all else will be added unto you," that if we train the many, the few will improve commensurately. If the average person attains a higher standard of running and chess, the members of our world parliament will inevitably get faster and play better chess.

I picked sprinting and chess because expertise in these two areas of endeavour is unusually easy to measure. Running ability requires only a track and a stopwatch to measure to within a hundredth of a second. Chess ratings measure players' skill with accuracy unusual among mental activities. In fact studies of expertise a couple of years ago used chess ratings to discover that the one determining factor in skill acquisition, assuming proper teaching, is the amount of time spent practicing. Ten thousand hours or ten years of training will bring almost anybody, Russian or not, to a world-class level 2100-plus chess rating. This ten year rule was known to apply to any skill, such as music and mathematics, but it can be measured very finely with chess. This confirms, by the way, Comenius's ideas in his best known works on education. For example, in the Via Lucis he wrote,

"We believe that knowing, willing and doing are present in the same manner throughout the order of human nature in all nations, ages and conditions." (quoted in, Daniel Murphy, Comenius, p. 87)

Let us say then that at every level of society it was decided to whatever is necessary to raise the average level of skill in running and chess. Treadmills and chess sets are put in every home, workplace, council chamber, school, jail cell, office, recreational facility and factory. These are to be found everywhere people come together. This alone would increase people's exposure and experience, and therefore their capacity, in these skills. Combine it with a systematic training and reward program for making progress and the results would be spectacular.

Such a universal focus would almost certainly give us the best of both worlds in our choice of leaders. The judges and administrators sifted out to be on the world consultative body would surely run as fast as the fastest runner today, and play chess as well or better than the best player today, and have any number of other qualities as well. This is certain because only the number of people in the world limits the talent pool of a universal reform program. The talent pool of sprinters and chess players today is tiny in comparison.

This thought experiment shows the genius of the panorthosic selection process. Reform is to be universal, applied by all in every area of endeavour. Every individual and family runs an incipient version of the three institutions of world governance, a school, a church and a parliament. The skills an individual learns in personal study, devotions and consultation are the same ones that the three institutions of the world government have to deal with.

The "college of light" is the name Comenius gives to the "supreme school" or world government's scientific research body. What this institution does is just the individual's search for truth, backed by a systematic study session, writ large in the world. The college of light's sister institution he calls the "ecumenical Consistory." It deals with what he calls the "universal bond" of religion. This all would perform daily in our individual devotional life. In turn devotionals of some kind are replicated in every branch and level of society. The talent pool of the parliament of religions, then, is as unbounded as the scientific body. The "Dicastery of Peace" is concerned with the "universal bond of politics." The service that this institution performs everybody who works or deals with people is also gaining experience in on a daily basis. As Aristotle put it, man is the political animal, and our desire to work, act and make is universal.

Comenius's reform program is a plan to focus on the means by which these three main spheres of our humanity, knowledge, volition and action, would be reformed. He does not mention concentrating on running or chess, though. What activity does everybody need to try to improve in order that the world institution would have an unlimited talent pool?

Comenius suggests that instead of chess or running, we regularize what he regarded as the one longing that we all feel, the desire to know. Education, learning and teaching, is the one factor unites us all, no matter who we are or where we live. In one of the most eloquent passages I have seen in Comenius, he explains exactly what that is.

"Go into the shops of the workmen, the cottages of country folk, the houses of high civil and military officers, the palaces of Kings, the assemblies of Empires, the dwellings in which parents live with their children, and wherever men are to be found, you will find them -- nay, you will find even the solitary man in the wilderness -- occupied in teaching and learning. And that men do not fall into these occupations (of teaching and learning) by chance, but that they are born to them, is evident from this fact: that every man has inborn in him the desire to know, and to inquire into things that may be known, and then to communicate to others what he has learnt, and even to draw other men by winning persuasion, or if that should not suffice, to compel them by force if they show any unwillingness to accept what he knows or believes or thinks." (Via Lucis, in Id.)

In this and other details the proposal of Comenius is eerily similar to what Baha'u'llah proposed in the Proclamation to the Kings. Instead of "universal education," Abdu'l-Baha called the Baha'i principle "Promotion of Education." Aside from that, the idea is identical. Indeed, Comenius saw the unification of humanity in millennial terms. This act of will on our part that would usher in time of the end that would initiate the Kingdom.

Another example of their similarity is that both Baha'u'llah and Comenius see the choice of the representatives to go to the world body as either appointed from existing governments or elected by the mass of the people, or both. Chinese learning had not yet reached Europe in his time, but if it had I am sure that Comenius would not have objected to Confucius's selection method: the civil service examination. Indeed, since Comenius fought against the nobility's pressure to restrict schooling only to the privileged, I am sure that he would have enthusiastically latched onto this idea of "political schooling."

The difference between Comenius and Baha'u'llah's proposal is that Comenius saw the formation of a intermediary level of government on the continental level. As the translator explains in the preface to Panorthosia,

"The reformer (Comenius) reaches the summit in chapter 25 with his outline of the world assembly. There would be four continental blocks, Europe, Asia, Africa and America, which elect representatives from their own college of light. The Continental colleges will have yearly sessions. London is recommended of the European headquarters in the world assembly, should meet at 10 yearly intervals and each continent in rotation after an inaugural meeting in Venice. Thus, the government of the world would come ultimately be in the hands of the elite of its philosophers, churchmen and politicians working harmoniously for the welfare of humankind.

"The assembly will actively promote the spread of enlightenment by appointing ambassadors to all the leading nations, whose diplomatic portfolio should include a copy of the Consultatio (Comenius's last body of work, which includes the Panorthosia). This immodesty springs from Comenius's conviction that he was the first to attempt universal as opposed to partial reform. At least we can commend him for coupling the need for its distribution with that of abridgment." (Panorthosia, preface, pp. 19-20)

His suggestion that Comenius's later writings be included in the portfolio of those attending what Baha'u'llah called the "universal gathering of mankind" is in my opinion not at all immodest. Even today, this is the only body of work, outside the Baha'i Writings and, perhaps, Immanuel Kant's later cosmopolitan writings, that is truly universal in scope. I can think of no better preparation for a delegate than to read the Consultatio.

In these writings they hear the thrilling call, "Cosmopolitans of the world, unite!," written over a century and a half before Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto offered a narrower, more violent call to the workers of the world to "unite, the only thing you have to lose are your chains." Comenius's is the reverse of that, a call to teachers and learners of the world -- that is, all human beings -- to learn and apply knowledge to the fullest extent possible. This alone can forge the nature and destiny of all human beings, everywhere, into one coherent force for good.

--
John Taylor


email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

::