Excerpt from an Autobiography

My Life My Trees

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I must have met Richard St. Barbe Baker (1889-1982) only a year or two before his death. I was in Ottawa staying at the same place where he was billeted. Baker was as crotchety then as my father is now, and I will be, if I am lucky, a few decades from now. It is a great pleasure now to read his autobiography, which is informal, light reading. We forget that the First World War, and even the Second World War, were not as mechanized as the wars we suffer from now. Richard St. Barbe Baker was a horse expert as well as a tree expert.

     This is part IV of the first chapter of the autobiography of Baha'i environmentalist Richard St. Barbe Baker (1889-1982), called "My Life, My Trees." Here he tells the story of his time fighting in the First World War. The first part of this series of excerpts is in the Badi' Blog entry for Jan 12, 2010.

The second chapter tells of how he paid his way through school in the aftermath of that conflict. That in a future Badi' Blog posting.

==========

from chapter One of "My Life, My Trees," by Richard St. Barbe Baker

Having earned enough to return to England I was studying Divinity at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, at the outbreak of World War I. While at Emmanuel College, Saskatchewan, taking arts and sciences, I had devoted myself to Christian work in the North-West and in the building up of congregations of isolated settlers around the central schools of Mission Churches. I felt that before accepting ordination I should gain wider experience and perhaps complete my studies at Cambridge where generations of my forebears had taken their degrees or had become Fellows of their colleges.

Into the peace and seclusion of Ridley Hall came the threat of war. I had taken to heart the Sermon on the Mount and sought the guidance of my tutor, for whom I had the greatest possible admiration. If the teachings of Jesus meant anything and if we were to take up His Cross and follow Him, it would mean throwing up my cavalry training in King Edward's Horse -- the King's Overseas Dominions' Regiment -- and becoming a conscientious objector to war with all the deprivation it would entail.

My tutor, however, explained that the Sermon on the Mount was a counsel of perfection and obviously we could hardly expect to be able to live up to it yet. Besides, Jesus Himself fought the money-changers in the Temple and would wish His followers to steel themselves for the fight against evil. He said: "I came not to bring peace but a sword." Somewhat bewildered this young divinity student decided to go to the summer camp with his regiment. Two weeks later war came, and in response to an appeal I volunteered for immediate service overseas. That was towards the end of the summer in August, 1914.

I had joined up as a trooper in King Edward's Horse, but it was with the guns that I saw most of my service in France, for just as I had made up my mind that the best way to die was in a cavalry charge, I was promoted and given a commission in the Royal Horse and Field Artillery.

I had expected to be drafted to France the next day but instead I was posted to a reserve battery in Ireland. Here I had six hundred horses, two guns and eight hundred wild Irish Reservists to be

p. 23

equipped and trained for overseas service and taught to ride horses. It was sheer fun for me, for I was in my element. I taught my men to ride in the hunting field with the Muskerry and Duhallow, the nearest packs to my station at Ballincollig. For the moment it was all so enjoyable that we almost forgot the war but the time soon came for me to leave. After passing out eight hundred drivers for France I followed. I was the first temporary officer in the 1st Divisional Artillery of the old Army, for I relieved the first officer casualty in 115 Battery, 25th Brigade.

My battery commander was Ronnie Carrington whose name was a byword as a gunner with the highest possible reputation. When other guns in the first division were rationed to twenty-five rounds per battery per day, he was allowed three thousand rounds on account of his phenomenal marksmanship.

115 was a poker-playing battery but having learnt my lesson on my way to Canada I would excuse myself from 'joining in' and go out into the gun line to spot the flashes from German guns as they were being fired behind their lines. I recorded the angle of these from the gun line so that the air force observers could fly over the next day and give us the range. My services were recognized by the authorities and in due course a Military Cross arrived for me, but Ronnie Carrington did not approve of decorations and said:

"Baker, you don't want to have ribbons all over your bosom, do you? You're out here to kill Germans -- that's our job, isn't it?"

And he sent the Cross back to the Brigade Headquarters. When General Fanshawe wrote to the Major inviting me to be his A.D.C., Ronnie, handing the letter to me, impatiently exclaimed:

"You don't want to go and polish the General's buttons for him, do you? Aren't you here to kill Germans?"

So I stayed with my battery while Teddy Schriber, who accepted, was soon promoted rapidly to Brigadier, and later Major-General. I was fond of General Fanshawe, known to us as "Fanny". He, too, was a crack gunner and keenly interested in what was happening at the Front. Twice a week he would come to my forward observation post and ask me if there was anything new. He had a weakness for strawberries and cream and I used to send my batman to the midnight market at Bethune to secure these delicacies and bring them to me by dawn, when a visit from Fanny

p. 24

was expected. On one of these exciting mornings I happened to mention that a slit in the Church spire of La Bassee would get light and then dark again. My telescope was focused on this slit and the General kept watch. A few minutes later he exclaimed excitedly:

"You're right, Baker, there's obviously an observation post there. Get your guns on to it."

I must admit I felt a bit squeamish about shelling a church and suggested that he should get the heavies on to it. This he did and for two days the heavies kept up fire without hitting the object. The church was just on the other side of the hill and in a fairly safe position. As I was watching at dawn on the third morning there was a terrific explosion and when the rubble and dust cleared from the air the church spire had gone. I told the General this when he came round a few minutes later, and he said:

"What about a spot of leave, Baker? There's going to be a big push soon so I won't suggest more than four days. How about it?"

Of course I accepted. In London I was invited to a tea-party by some friends all anxious for the latest news from the Front. One old lady who confronted me said:

"Isn't it terrible that those Germans are firing at churches behind our lines?"

I kept very quiet.

On my return to France I was posted to the 39th brigade under the command of Colonel Wardrop -- the famous authority on pig-sticking, who had written a book on the subject which had become a classic. The Corps horse show was in the offing and he asked me if I was going to enter. I regretted that I had not a horse fit to enter, and so he very generously invited me to ride his chestnut, a fine upstanding charger. As good fortune would have it I won the Corps Cup on his horse. After this I was given the very responsible job of building a fighting post for the Colonel in preparation for the big push.

In the middle of this job the Germans sent over forty heavy shells in five minutes and twenty-seven of us were buried beneath bricks and mortar and sandbags. The corpses were extracted from the debris and laid in an improvised mortuary. The corporal in

p. 25

charge of the burial party was collecting the identity discs -- ripping them off the necks of the corpses. But my identity badge was chained on to my wrist; this had been done during my recent four days' leave. The Corporal gave it a tug and tried to break the steel chain without success. The wrist started bleeding whereupon he called the sergeant and reported:

"This corpse is bleeding."

The sergeant said, "Put it on that old Ford," referring to the van that had brought up the burial tools.

This 'corpse' woke up three and a half days later in the Duchess of Westminster Hospital at Le Touquet, Paris Plage!

Although my body was badly hurt and many bones were broken, I do not remember feeling any pain. It seemed that I myself was outside my body, quite detached from it, watching it with interest yet unconcern. That must have lasted for about three days.

I was haunted by the thought of having taken life. In the fury of the war and in retaliating for the loss of so many of my comrades, quite apart from the destruction by my guns I had taken a heavy toll of German officers from the sniper's post where I would claim my daily turn. In my war madness I used to carve a notch for each 'heart-shot' on an old bow I had found in a shelled chateau, and with glowing pride I had filled it from tip to tip.

A soldier's tribute to his King, Displayed in every ruddy ring.

In hospital from each notch the eyes of those officers I had killed seemed to look sadly out at me. Their ghostly spectres haunted me, I could not sleep, and my heart came near breaking with regret.

Then about four o'clock one morning I thought I saw my former Major, Bob Herman of Cavalry, who had been killed by a stray bullet a few days before, come into my room and stand looking at me from the bottom of my bed. This vision saved my sanity. In order to comfort others I tried to record this impression in the words of a young officer who has been killed and appears to his mother. She has just had news of his death and is

p. 27

going round her room examining his `souvenirs' little bits of twisted bullet and fragments of shell he had brought her when on leave from the front. Her heart is seared with grief until he enters her room.

Mother I've come for one brief moment I must not tarry longer.

Promoted I have been

No longer Earth-bound sorrowing

I pass from sphere to sphere

Carrying new messages of love.

No longer hate I now;

Eyes that once were filled with feud

Now shine bright with gratitude.

Yonder I go to join my comrades.

Regret not the past

Live in the present

Crowd each hour with gladness,

Out of the sorrow, out of the sadness

Spring a new world into birth,

Soon strife shall surely cease

And earth with settled peace, break into song.

He then vanishes as silently as he has come. A great weight is lifted from his mother as she begins to realize the meaning of life after death. And so it was with me. Instead of those Germans being my enemies they became the shining ones, over-flowing with gratitude for their promotion into heavenly places.

Slowly consciousness returned and I began to recover, though I still suffered both mental as well as bodily agony as if I were thawing out after having been frozen. Strangely enough it is not the freezing that hurts; it is the thawing out which is excruciating. I wanted to die but with great skill I was dragged back to life and eventually I returned to the Front, only to be smashed up again.

In the summer of 1917 I was stationed at Swaythling Remount Depot, near Southampton, and used to receive horses from conditioning depots to take on to France. I made fifty-eight crossings of the English Channel and conducted eighteen thousand horses, sometimes as many as four hundred and fifty on a boat, taking them to Le Havre, Dieppe and sometimes in a smaller boat to Rouen. I used to look forward to those summer days on the boat, going up the Seine and being greeted by children lined up along the banks to see the horseboat pass on its way to the Front. It was generally peaceful once we crossed the Channel. Unfortunately, once as we were entering the mouth of the Seine and just as our escort had given his farewell toot and swung round to go out to sea again, she struck a mine, was split in the middle and sank at our stern.

In those Channel crossings I generally contrived to have a blood mare on the top deck just outside my cabin, in case our ship was torpedoed. A horse as a swimming companion in the water is better than a lifebelt, for besides being a friend in distress a clever horse has the instinct to swim towards the nearest land. I would choose a horse with a mane that I could hold on to. When swimming with a horse it is important to keep one's legs as near the surface of the water as possible and away from the horse's feet. Once, when returning empty, we struck a mine in mid-Channel and the Laskar stokers went on strike, so I ordered my Remount Conducting Party to carry on. They brought the ship into Southampton and I got a D.C.M. for my sergeant.

Soon I had become so fit on this light duty that I was posted to the Remount Depot at Dieppe and used to take horses up the line from there. This was done under cover of night and we usually managed to hand over before dawn and get the horses dispersed to their units before the German planes were up. However, on one of these trips to the Front, a dive-bomber dropped a string on the train which was blown up just as we were shunting back -- that was the last time I was smashed up and after the wounds had healed I was fortunate enough to be invited to stay at Lennel, Coldstream, as a guest of Lady Clementine Waring. It was a beautifully wooded property and I was able to help the woodman and fend for the other officers who had suffered loss of limb.

I was finally invalided out in April 1918. I am deeply appreciative of the skill of the doctors and devoted care of the nurses and sometimes wish that I could arrange a grand reunion of all those to whom I am indebted for my life.

p. 28

During my convalescence it began to dawn upon me that we were losing more lives through ignorance of health in our great cities than on all Fronts. With Percy Alden of the British Institute of Social Service, I devoted myself to work for the Government, calling upon captains of industry to enlist their help and generally paving the way for the Ministry of Health. It was my earnest endeavour to see that the wonderful war-time sacrifice should not be wasted and that out of it should come a new and saner order of things leading to a lasting peace. As soon as the Ministry of Health came into being I returned to my forestry work at Cambridge.

::

Newness of Comenius' Reform Plan

The Consultatio; the World's First Proposal for a Democratic World Government

By John Taylor; 2011 May 11, Jamal 14, 168 BE

After Columbus, Magellan and other explorers had revealed the full extent of our planet's geography, the first detailed proposal for a world government was put forward in 1623 by a French monk by the name of Emeric Cruce. Cruce's conception closely resembles the United Nations that we know and love today.

Specifically, he suggested a permanent "council of ambassadors" who would meet in a neutral city to iron out conflicts among nations. Kingdoms that did not obey its decisions would be "shamed," and if that did not work, a global police force would insist -- further than our present U.N. is empowered to go. Cruce also advocated religious toleration, unlike previous triumphalist proposals aimed at uniting the world by defeating all infidel faiths and nations. (see James A. Yunker, The Idea of World Government, Routledge, New York, 2011, pp. 18-23)

The difference beween Cruce's proposed world government and that of John Amos Comenius can be summed up in one word, democracy. Cruce imagined kings and despots sending their chosen representatives to the "counsel of ambassadors." Instead, Comenius suggested a unification that started with the involvement of every human being. This process that gives everyone a say that he called the Consultation. In the introduction to the book that he intended as the opening volume of the Consultation, called the Panegersia, or Universal Awakening, Comenius pointed to what he regarded as the main point of novelty about his multi-volume work.

"I am proposing a `general consultation on the reform of human affairs,' that is, a reform in more universal and profound ways than any since the world began. There is nothing new about the subject, but my method will be totally different. Never in history has such folly afflicted humanity that intelligent men of every age and race and estate openly deplore the reign of evil and strive for some long-awaited improvement. But never before has _everyone_ conspired to improve all the corruptions, and I intend to support this process, and show that it is for the good of the whole world." (John Amos Comenius, Panegersia, Or Universal Awakening, translated by A.M.O. Dobbie, Drinkwater Publ., Warwickshire, Eng., 1990, p. iv)

Comenius, then, did not have in mind the throw-away voting that passes for democracy today. This modern rebirth of democracy on a global scale would start with a grand consultation that involves everyone on earth.

"It is only right that all people should take a part in matters of common concern. Could anyone be so apathetic as to refuse to talk about his own affairs or to listen to other speakers on the subject? It is natural for every creature to love his own possessions and to make every effort to improve them. Therefore I say to my reader, Wake up! and in the certain knowledge that your case will be included in our deliberation, lend me your ear, your mind and your tongue, and be equally ready to welcome the thoughts of others and to contribute your own as we begin our consultation for the common good." (Panegersia, Ch. 3, para 2 & 3, p. 7)

In Memoriam: Hanna Newcomb

I knew Hanna when we served on the Hamilton Mundialization Committee. Here is the text of a memorial printed about her in the World Federalist's Newpaper for May.




In Memoriam
Hanna Newcombe’s commitment to peace


"Hanna Newcombe, an active member of the World Federalists for nearly four decades, died April 10 after a short illness.

She served twice as national president of the organization. Although she received her PhD in chemistry, she will be remembered as a pioneer in the field of peace research. In the mid-1960s, after meeting Norman Alcock, a physicist who had founded the Canadian Peace Research Institute (CPRI), Hanna realized that
she had found her calling: the use of science to better understand the path to peace.

With her husband Alan, she worked at CPRI and then cofounded the Peace Research Institute – Dundas (PRI-D). The Newcombes published numerous Peace Research Review monographs as well as the Peace Research Abstracts Journal. During the Cold War years, peace research and peace studies was not widely accepted by mainstream academia. Selling the peace research abstracts to libraries across North America was what maintained a modest revenue flow to the PRI-D.

A quote at the bottom of the PRI-D letterhead (adapted from Epictetus, the Discourses) summed up Hanna Newcombe’s broad-based scholarly approach:

“Observe, this is the beginning of philosophy - a recognition of the conflicts among men, an inquiry into their causes, the discovery of a standard of judgment, and a condemnation of mere opinion.”

It was the problem of peace that brought her to world federalism, a recognition of the need not only for institutions of law and world order to avert war and promote international security, but also as mechanisms for providing justice and welfare for the world’s citizens.

Her views became more widely recognized in the 1980s with the rise of a broadbased peace and disarmament movement. She was also actively involved with the Quakers and Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and helped establish the Canadian Peace Research and Education Association.

She received the Pearson Peace Medal in 1997 and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2007. In 2006, WFM–Canada inaugurated an award in her honour, the “Hanna Newcombe Lifetime Achievement Award,”
recognizing the outstanding contributions made by individuals from within the movement.

With modesty, considerable intellect and a genuine intellectual curiosity, and with a strong belief in humanity and the power of ideas, Hanna Newcombe set a fine example, and made a difference.

From the World Federalist Newsletter, May 2011 http://www.worldfederalistscanada.org/Mondial%20May%202011.pdf

Plans, Personal and Continental

 

A Plan and Two Ideas

By John Taylor; 2011 May 01, Azamat 03, 168 BE

 

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Contents

A Plan and Some Thoughts about Weight Loss

Idea One: An Idea About Continental Embassies

Idea Two: Pooled Funding and Voting

 

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My Plan for Weight Loss

 

 

My body mass index is, as I recall, 36, just over line into "obese," as opposed to just overweight, which is under 35. I just weighed myself, and I presently weigh some 232 pounds. About five years ago I became a vegetarian, and stopped eating the horrible diet of junk food, sugary cereals and TV dinners that my wife prepares for our kids. I started cooking my own meals, which tend to make more sense from a dietary point of view. At the time I dropped down to about 205 lbs. Unfortunately, the weight loss lasted less than a year. As happens in about 95 percent of diets, I shot right back up to where I had been before, to slightly less than 240 pounds.

 

Now that I think of it, probably what happened was that I started to eat my meals and the junk food that is always left lying around the kitchen as well. If food is set before me, I eat it. It is not only hunger, but a desire not to waste. As a result, I become around here a sort of walking garbage can. This is probably because I was an athlete as a teenager, and I got into a lifetime habit of vacuuming up whatever is presented before me. So now I subsist on two diets at once, one sensible and the other junky. I do not know much about dieting, but I think it is safe to say that two diets are not a good idea, even if one of them is a fairly decent diet.

 

Last week, some hope broke on my horizon as I was going through a science magazine. I read about a study that was inspired by an old bit of folk wisdom, the proposition that if you drink a glass of water before a meal, it will be easier to lose weight. These scientists decided to test it with a controlled experiment. They set up a year-long randomized study that had some subjects do nothing, just eat normally, while others drank a half a litre of water just before each of three meals a day. The results after six months showed that in fact they had lost weight. Subjects were so encouraged by their weight loss that after a whole year all but one of them were still drinking the two large glasses (by my calculation) of water before meals, and still losing weight.

 

You could not ask for a cheaper and easier diet! I swear, even I, weak willed non-entity that I am, could do it.

 

So, I think I will try.

 

I have been on the water before meals diet a couple of days now, and it is easy as pie to follow. Already I find I can go longer without eating than I tended to do before. It is so easy probably because I already drink prodigious amounts of water during the day in order to control my migraines. Now it is just a matter of switching the times that I drink water over to just before mealtime.

 

I noted above what I weigh right now. Next year at this time let us note on the blog what my weight and BMI are. Hopefully, this will work.

 

Continental Embassies.

 

 

We have friend who is a teacher at the high school where my daughter is a student. This teacher runs an annual school sponsored trip, lasting ten days or less, sometimes. This year they are going to Paris and Spain, at a cost of several thousand dollars, well beyond our means. Even if I could afford it, though, I would hesitate to send our daughter on such a brief trip. It seems extravagant to travel so far, and burn up so much carbon into the upper atmosphere, just for an experience, however edifying, of only a few days.

 

To save on flying, and to encourage immigration, we should start up continental tourism centres tied to the educational system in each locality. Then we could eliminate much unnecessary travel, while still reaping the advantages of frequent flying. With these centers, tied in closely to local immigrant groups, whenever tourists, students and businesspersons contemplate visiting a certain continent, they can go to the center and take an orientation or a more in depth course. Contacts can be made and consultations carried on virtually, without having to leave in person at all.

 

Build a continental embassy and tourism center into every neighbourhood, and you would expand the educational uses of tourism -- and, better still, you would do it in a much more egalitarian way. Let every student take a virtual tour of a given continent as a class trip, instead of the small minority who can afford it, as now. A continental center would be much closer and cheaper to visit, so why restrict students to a rare trip to one continent? You could require, as part of the curriculum, that students visit and study virtually at least one new continent every year.

 

Starting in the earliest grades, send every class of young people every summer or Christmas vacation on a two or three week virtual tour of one continent. Make sure that when every student graduates from high school they have studied and toured all of the continents. This would, at the very least, assure that parochialism, local bias and geographical ignorance would soon be a thing of the past. Once students enter post-secondary education, they could then be prepared to go on to visiting places in the flesh.

What would be in these continental tourist embassies? Build in them huge multimedia cinemas that can duplicate as closely as possible a trip to any point on that continent. Stage in the center epic educational adventure games set in the continent to which it is dedicated, rather like the old computer game, "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" Bring along touring musicians, artists and other cultural groups from that continent; this would expand contacts of visitors with that continent's legacy to the world. Also, the center would strive to tie in local residents who are native to that continent.

 

The great advantage of these continental centers is that, organized properly, they would equalize the cultural impact of the several continents. The domination of the rich continents, meaning Europe and North America, over the minds and hearts of the world would be gradually reduced as each school child throughout their formative years visits virtually all continents, include places presently ignored, like Antarctica, South America and Australia. Indeed, why not consider the sea as a "continent," the most ignored one of all, the one that takes up most of the surface area of this planet? We would be much more cosmopolitan if we visited places like that as often as we do the usual tourist magnets.

 

Pooled Funding

 

 

How would all this happen? Such things always start with money. All you need to do, then, is forbid donations directly to the embassy/tourist centers of any given continent. Every dollar, be it a donation or tax allocation, must go into a common pool, which then is distributed by a world cultural authority equitably to all of the continental educational centers. That way, the poorest continent, Africa, would have same representation as any other continent.

 

This has to apply especially for the rich nations. Right now, the United States, Earth's richest nation, spends great sums spreading its influence, which goes beyond cultural to the geopolitical realm. With a world government all geopolitical spending would simply be converted into international taxes. If the U.S. wants to spread its cultural influence, let it contribute to the central continental tourist center fund, which in turn will improve all continental centers, including those of North America.

 

Generally speaking, this idea of limiting funding options should be applied to other areas as well. Medical research, for example. For whatever reason, people are willing to open their wallets to fund research on breast cancer but not on lung disease or lower bowel disease. As a result, diseases that are more likely to kill us are ignored, while those that pull on our heart strings are given lavish attention, even when, as with cancer, the possibility of a cure or of having an effect on mortality is remote. Let epidemiologists and other disease experts decide where research money is spent, not the general public.

 

This principle of funneling funding into larger pools should apply for science generally. For example, it should be illegal for companies to pay for research in areas in which they have a vested interest. All money for forestry research, for example, should go into a single fund that is distributed in such a way that humanity, not any single industry or company, will be the main beneficiary. If a company wants to spend money researching something in their interest, let them do so, but do not call it scientific unless and until it bears scientific scrutiny. If a scientist wants to research something that is clearly wrongheaded or futile, let him, but strip him of the title "scientist" until he proves to his peers that he is right and they are wrong.

 

This is what my Cosmopolis Earth book series contemplates for the funding of religion and politics too. When I give money to my religion, a percentage of my donation should automatically be directed into an interfaith funding pool. If it is true that all religions have a common purpose and similar ideals and teaching, then that should be reflected in how people fund their faith. A common interfaith pool would pay for projects that are in the interest of all religions, not just my parochial religion.

 

Same thing for political donations. Redirect part of every political donation into a common fund promoting the purpose of politics, which of course is peace. Let this peace fund help fund world peace through world government, and then when that is secure, direct it into more local bases of peace.

 

Pooled Voting

 

 

 

 

Not only funding and taxes but democracy as well should reflect our commonalities and the fact that we live on one planet. Why not have votes and representation not only for politics, but for official interfaith affairs organizations? These interfaith groups would have a neutral goal, to encourage cooperative initiatives that involve all faith groups in the local population, as well as all people who are not committed to any particular affiliation as well. Elections should be a part of the world of work and careers -- why do so few workers have the right to vote in their own bosses? -- and schooling too.

 

Future historians will look back at us and wonder why were content with so little democracy, and why our so-called democracies tolerated such primitive, stunted ways of choosing our leaders.

Escutcheons

Six Stages of Reform

 

By John Taylor; 2011 Apr 19, Jalal 11, 168 BE

 

 

Comments on Panorthosia, Chapter 19: "Concerning The Initial Stages Of Universal Reform And Its Subsequent Progress Towards Success, And Explaining What Is Required For Its Wise Execution."

 

The mind of John Amos Comenius was rooted in the Middle Ages. I mean, in a good way. In fact, to grasp his medieval sensibilities is key to understanding how a Reformation thinker could after so many centuries still be in the van of progressives. Admittedly, there are good reasons why chivalry was left by the wayside, just as there are good reasons that Greek and Latin are no longer the languages of scholarship, and why witch burnings, aristocracy, autocracy, patriarchy, hierarchy, trial by combat, animal executions and many other corrupt practices were abandoned. The code of chivalry, however, did have its advantages, which Comenius appreciated. He included some of its better elements in his plan for a new world order.

 

 

 

==========

 

The 19th Chapter of Panorthosia lays out a process of global reform in six "stages," each of which he expands upon in a subsequent chapter, going from the individual, the family, schools, churches, politics and, finally, universal reform of the entire human race. This strict set of procedures he compares to the way builders put together a building.

 

"This gradual advance towards the improvement of our affairs and the development of our happiness follows the example of the wise architect who first works on the stones and beams, then erects the walls, and makes a vaulting to join them together. Finally he puts a roof over them all, and sees that many component parts constitute one single home." (Panorthosia, Ch. 19, para 15, pp. 15-16)

 

The editor of the English edition of Panorthosia points out that Francis Bacon, whose works Comenius read carefully, had made a similar point that the technique for erecting a building on site is not the same as that used for assembling its component parts, and that analogously society is joined and protected by different means. Undoubtedly, both writers had in mind the remarkable techniques by which those anonymous geniuses built medieval cathedrals across Europe. This achievement is still recognized as one of the greatest technological wonders of the age.

 

 

 

Unlike gradualists today, however, Comenius did not think that methodically going through a set procedure meant that it would be impossible to tackle personal, familial, local and global problems all at once. Just as the cathedral builders, once their techniques were refined and the local populace involved, knocked together many buildings in relatively quick succession, so the process of global reform could potentially work at several levels at once. In the 19th Chapter, Comenius hastens to point out that rapid, simultaneous reform was commonplace when the need for it was deemed urgent.

 

"I say all people at the same time, because the first way towards speedy success is to tackle the task on a universal scale. For example we frequently see our largest cities being cleaned up all at once in a single day on the approach of an anniversary or the arrival of a king, when everyone attends to the sweeping of every space that belongs to him in front of his own house. Therefore let us all begin in God's name to play our part together, scholars, churchmen, and politicians alike, no matter how small our individual share of the world may be." (Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 19, para 9, pp. 13-14)

 

Comenius goes on to point out that the key to speeding up global reform will be to learn to enlist the wholehearted support of experts in all three of the central elements of progress, those who, once corruption is eliminated, can engage the untapped intellectual, spiritual and executive powers resting dormant within us all.

 

"So from now onwards let scholars begin to enlighten their own and other men's minds more fully, and churchmen to inspire their own and other men's hearts more passionately with true heavenly fire, and politicians to administer justice better (according to true laws of justice) in their own and other men's courts." (Ch. 19, para 10, p. 14)

 

As we unleash these three potent forces on every level of society at once, we can rapidly grasp our reason for being and attain to happiness. We will,

 

"truly release ourselves from the labyrinths, and be truly restored to God and attached to freedom, and truly achieve the supreme end of life, which is peace of mind." (para 12, p. 14)

 

Coordinated Operations

 

 

It may seem paradoxical to suggest that reform can be both methodical and universal at the same time, or, to use more current buzzwords, at once algorithmic and multi-tasking. He resolves this by pointing to an image, the illustration that he apparently chose as the headpiece to the series of works that he collectively called the Consultatio, of which the Panorthosia was the final volume. The several chapters that follow Chapter Nineteen each end in a summation, usually using a citation from this illustration, each of which comes out of imagery in a Psalm or a Biblical prophecy. Unfortunately, I have not located this picture, but he describes it in a note to the 13th paragraph of this chapter,

 

"It is for this reason that I have an illustration in the frontispiece to this 'Consultatio' depicting

i. Lights being kindled from the light of God and shedding in all directions;

ii. Righteousness and Peace kissing each other, and everything beginning to flourish again on the Earth;

iii. All the inhabitants of the earth occupied with the worship of God, so that the prophecies of Psalms 86:3 and 100:1, etc., may appear to be fulfilled." (Panorthosia, Author's Notes for Ch. 19, p. 19)

In choosing this unifying structure, Comenius clearly had in mind an early multimedia technique known as the emblem. Emblems included quotes from several sources, often in several languages, as well as graphic representations, often using the visual language of heraldry. Heraldry is a medieval tradition where a knight sports a particular device on his shield, a family displays symbols of its honour, origin, ideals or accomplishments using prescribed images on an emblem or escutcheon, accompanied by a motto, often in Greek or Latin. In the same way, kingdoms symbolized the virtues to which they aspired through depictions of beasts, either real or mythical. This was a good aspect of chivalry that fell unfortunately into desuetude.

 

Since, as we have seen, Comenius believed in leadership not by compulsion but by advice and accreditation, he clearly intended in these six chapters of Panorthosia that individuals, families, schools, churches and nations should earn the right to display the saying that he places at the end of each chapter.

 

For example, the twentieth chapter of Panorthosia, that concerns the "first stage of reform, which must begin within each individual," would offer the right for individuals to wear, like a medieval knight, this device on his or her escutcheon:

 

"Here is a splendid image of God."

 

 

This refers to the assertion in the Book of Genesis that man was created in the image of God. Abrahamic religions tend to be suspicious of images because the mind needs to block out external images in order to perceive the inner virtues that make humans images of God. This is why Comenius suggests that a declaration affirming that society recognizes that a person is displaying divine virtues would be the pinnacle of human attainment. The full final paragraph in this chapter states,

 

"Therefore no matter who you are, you must reform yourself according to God's good pleasure and with His help, so that angels and pious men are able, as it were, to read on your forehead the inscription: `HERE IS A SPLENDID IMAGE OF GOD.'" (Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 20, para 24, p. 28)

 

It is obvious that individuals, even if they work as soldiers, no longer walk around carrying a shield displaying a heraldic device. We do, however, display our credentials in the form of degrees, credit cards, driving licenses and, on the Internet, passwords and digital sign-on procedures. In the second volume of Cosmopolis Earth I will discuss in detail how world governance in future might make use of such declarations.

 

Similarly, Comenius in the twenty-first chapter suggests how families who "conspicuously" display unity between husband and wife and show affection between parents and children, might earn the right to display another device, one based on a quote from Corinthians, which declares of that home,

 

"THIS IS THE DWELLING PLACE OF VIRTUE, ORDER, AGREEMENT, AND GOD AMONGST MEN! Therefore let nothing that is evil ever enter it!" (Panorthosia, Ch. 21, para 18, p. 37)

 

In chapters that follow, Comenius offers similar suggested mottos for schools, faith groups, politics and even, in Chapter Twenty-Five, the world government, which he calls the World Assembly or Ecumenical Council. The device he suggests for this supreme body is a direct quote from Isaiah,

 

"Thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night for the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish." (Isa 60:11-12, cited in Panorthosia, pp. 152-153)

This citation, again, is astonishingly modern in spirit, not only in its emphasis on "openness," which of course is the mantra of the open software movement, but also in its emphasis on voluntary membership in the family of nations. The prophesy suggests that world governance will use self-interest -- or, at least, fear of perishing -- as the motivator for continuing in that world government.

 

All in all, what Comenius suggests is a system of reform through rewards and honours, one that offers, before all else, prestige to those who would live up to clear standards of the highest virtue. For instance, in Chapter Twenty-Four, which is devoted to how to universalize the world of politics, he suggests the following byword:

 

"Any state which frames its laws with a view to the blessing of God and its own salvation will earn the right to use the inscription, `HERE IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH, WHERE RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PEACE HAVE KISSED EACH OTHER.'" (Psalm 85:10, cited in Panorthosia, Ch. 24, p. 127)

 

 

This essentially foreshadows the content of the most recent and probably the most realistic proposal by a world federalist. In it, James Yunker proposes a stage of transition to world government in the form of what he calls a "Federal Union of Democratic Nations." (see James A. Yunker, The Idea of World Government, Routledge, New York, 2011, pp. 106-111) This union would be open to all nations who call themselves democratic.

 

Once a borderline country joins the organization, however, it would be offered incentives to improve their freedom of the press, transparency, election fairness ratings, and so forth. Such positive reinforcement of improvements to the preconditions of democracy would eventually raise standards to the point where all nations become just and democratic. This, Junker holds, would be more effective than threatening to declare war on nations who decide to withdraw from a global government. A Federal Union, Yunker proposes, would be an acceptable first step to a stronger world government to be introduced later on.

Come the Postliminium

 

Preparing for a Postliminium

 

This is a draft of a chapter in my book-in-progress, Cosmopolis Earth

 

 

Section Title: Cosmopolitan Leadership

 

By John Taylor; 2011 Apr 08, Baha 18, 168 BE

 

Preparing for a Postliminium

 

A New Trivium

 

Comenius envisaged the introduction of two new professions, the tribune and the magistrate, as well as the RTC-ROC, or the right to advisors and a reciprocal obligation to comply with their advice, as coming at a later stage in what he calls the Postliminium. This unfamiliar term originally referred to the administrative changeover when a knight errant returned from soldiering and took over the management of his farms and estates from their trustees. Postliminium is also a legal term, dealing with the rules for restoring land to its original owners after the re-conquest of a territory.

 

 

For a Christian leader, "postliminium" would also have a religious resonance. At the end of the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:25) the boss in his postliminium takes his trustees into account for how they invested a sum of money (talents) in his absence. In an earlier work, Comenius wrote,

 

"Remember the reward that He promises to His good and faithful servants who employ the talents entrusted to them in such a way that they gain others, and the threats that He utters against the slothful who bury their talents in the earth." (Great Didactic)

 

Christians, then, expect a divine Postliminium where God takes human management into account. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Comenius made no sharp dichotomy between postliminium as the end time promised in the Bible and the political and scientific unification of the planet that will take place after a world government has been formed.

 

In Panorthosia, then, Postliminium describes a sea change in all human affairs, religious, political and educational, that must begin as soon as war is permanently outlawed by a grand conference of humankind.

 

Comenius expected a long period of soul searching leading up to the postliminium. He does not say how long the preparation would take, only that everybody, especially leaders of thought, would be busy unifying language, philosophy, faith and practical policy. He devotes well over half of Panorthosia -- not to mention the several books preparing for Panorthosia, called collectively the Consultatio -- describing the transformations in thought, morals and habits that would ready the world for the Postliminium.

 

 

Come the Postliminium

 

Comenius may have expected it to take a decade, perhaps longer, for thinkers from all continents to prepare the world of thought by converging in their own ideas and rectifying and standardizing the climate of opinion in the peoples of the world. Early in Panorthosia, he suggests that three earlier works in the Consultatio series would be helpful in preparing for universal reform, since they show how to diagnose the wrongs and distractions in human affairs that will need to be eradicated first.

 

"The evils that have arisen in our lives even up to the present day have perhaps been clearly exposed in my Universal Wisdom, Universal Education, and Universal Language, inasmuch as we forgot how to attend to the essentials of Education, Politics, and Religion, and instead filled all these with the non-essential, the irrelevant and the trivial." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 5, para 23, p. 96)

 

Comenius had, in these earlier works, put forward what he regarded as a modernization of the old trivium that had dominated the elementary curriculum throughout the Middle Ages.

 

The trivium taught what were thought to be three fundamental elements of thought, grammar, logic and rhetoric. Grammar forms thought, logic puts it together and rhetoric communicates it. These elementary disciplines prepared for the quadrivium, which was taught in the universities, the four disciplines being: arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Unfortunately, since it was taught in Latin only to sons of the gentry, this educational program failed to unite the locality or the whole of Europe, much less the whole world. They were much too general, theoretical and, well, trivial, to be useful in comprehensive reform.

 

 

Instead, a curriculum is needed that will balance social responsibility with our three inner powers, mind, soul and spirit. Comenius's trivium was designed to serve the natural philosophy (science and education) that had just come into existence, as well as to renew politics and revivify religion. It sought to do this by placing each of these three, science, faith and practical politics, at the center of children's studies from the earliest age. This would unite outer with inner realities and pave the way for universal reform and the Postliminium.

 

Towards a Global Constitution

 

We have already discussed two applications of this trivium that could hurry the coming of the Postliminium -- the simplification project and the use of wisdom as a global ideology -- which he termed pansophism. Both are part of a broader project to enlighten all humans, a massive educational initiative that would not end with the arrival of a world government but in fact would accelerate, since funds formerly wasted on war would be released into more productive investment.

 

 

 

Comenius here addresses our lack of what a recent textbook on the subject calls a "widespread sense of shared values and aspirations," since the "precondition for world government is world community." Thus the bulk of Panorthosia, and the books leading up to it, attempts to solve a problem that is still regarded by specialists in international relations as the chief obstacle to a world government. In a recent world federalist assessment of this expert consensus, James A. Yunker expresses a hope that our lack of a sense of "world community" among civilizations and cultures can be overcome by what Comenius would call a Postliminium.

 

"Once a limited world government has been established, it might then evolve, by gradual stages, toward a more authoritative and effective government authority. In other words, the existence of a formal world government, even though relatively weak at first, would tend to support a growing sense of supernational patriotism (i.e. "world community"), and strengthening world community would enable a stronger and more effective world government, which in turn would further strengthen the spirit of world community, and so on. A snowballing effect might take place, leading eventually to a very strong sense of world community, and a commensurately authoritative and effective world government." (James A. Yunker, The Idea of World Government, Routledge, New York, 2011, pp. 80-81)

 

Once the program of universal reform is well underway, Comenius proposes, our next step will be to agree upon a global constitution. The entire lead-up to the Postliminium should be a period of reflection, consultation and preoccupation with what the content of this global constitution should be. He does not say so openly, but Comenius evidently intended that the final book he was writing, Panorthosia, should be a draft of this constitution, if not the actual text itself. Immanuel Kant had the same ambition over a century later when, also at the end of his career, he wrote his famous "sketch" for a permanent peace.

 

 

During the past twenty years, there have been efforts by many groups in "civil society" to draft a broad based constitution in the form of the Earth Charter.

Whatever the contents of the world constitution may be, perhaps the most striking feature of Comenius's suggested process for implementing and safeguarding its provisions is another new profession, which he called "senators of the world." In coming chapters of Cosmopolis Earth we will look at how these agents of a global constitution would operate.