ADVERTISEMENTS:
World Community: Useful Notes on World Community!
Since the close of the Second World War the interest in world community has become greatly intensified. Even before the ink with which the United Nations charter was written was dry, critics began to claim that the U.N. was incompetent to deal with the problems of peace and security. The doctrine of national sovereignty was held out to be the villain of the peace and it was argued that there can be no international community.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Above we have seen that two elements go to make up a community i.e., common territory and a community sentiment. How far are these two elements found in the world community?
There is no doubt that geographically the world is a closely-knit unit. The modern development of communications and transportation has rendered less and less significant the physical barriers that separated the larger groups of peoples.
Geographically the inhabited areas of the earth are fast approaching “one world” condition. The modern technological advances have set the world itself as the only geographical locality appropriate for large-scale community. Thus it may be said that the territorial basis of an international community is in large part already established. But community is more than place.
The second element, i.e., community sentiment is still lacking among world people. However great the role of the United Nations might have been in preventing international conflicts developing into a war, it is a hard fact that it has not so far been able to remove national rivalries and group prejudices from among its member nations.
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The atmosphere of emotional prejudice, the product of excessive nationalism abetted by narrow economic and political interests, is all-pervading. In the world today, there is no keen consciousness of a world community. The great powers secure in their strength and in their pride rely upon international bargaining practices being guided by their own interests rather than being guided by any clear recognition of world interests as such.
Without a passionate desire for world community, it cannot be brought about. “The community cannot be coerced into basic order; the basic order must come from its innate cohesion.” There is as yet no “we feeling” in the world. Loyalty to the state is a supreme societal value. The concept of national sovereignty stands as a road-block to the development of an effective international control system. Of course, the smaller and weaker nations are for a world community obviously to protect their own interests, but such a world community cannot be established unless the big powers are ready and willing for it.
However, the importance of establishing a world community cannot be minimised. Economically self sufficient nations no longer exist. There are already dozens of international societies dealing with the common interests of humanity like international Postal Union, International Aviation Organisation, International Telegraph and Communication Union, International system of weights and measures, International Trade Organization and World Health Organization, etc. Each of these accents the advantages of co-operation among all societies.
There can be little doubt that the people of the world want peace. One of the most important contributions that sociology can make is to determine the relative degree of inter-dependence of the various parts of the world now separated by arbitrary political boundaries. Unless we have a world community, unnecessary hardships, tensions and conflict are inevitable. “Technology”, as MacIver observes “makes the world one, and if our sentiments do not ultimately adjust themselves lo the fact, as they have to others in other ages, we face the possibility of destruction heretofore undreamed.”