REVAMPING THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PLANET
Beyond civilization we could develop a sociology-a cluster of associations, institutions, outlooks, purposes and practices designed to revamp the social life of the planet in much the same way and with the same general outlook with which we approach the political, economic, sociological and ideological problems arising from the presence, on the planet Earth, of some 3,700 million different human beings.
There are at least two approaches to the sociological aspects of our planet-wide, coordinated society. One way is that with which nature's cyclism has made us familiar—the "day" of manifestation (activity) and the "night" of rest (recuperation, restoration and renewal). This might be described as a natural, gradual evolutionary way.
The other way is based on creative intervention which shortcuts evolutionary gradualism in the same way that a great leap shortcuts many ordinary steps.
Perhaps the conception can be illustrated in a most effective way by the alternative presented during the great revolution of 1750-1970. At the beginning of this epoch man walked the earth literally, except when he sailed on the water or used the horse or some other swift animal to travel by land. In the course of the great revolution mankind has learned to move his body at speeds which sometimes exceed the movement of sound, on the land, on the water, through the air and into space. He has done this short-cutting by revolutionary changes in types of energy coming from outside his physical body. In another sphere—communication devices—man has stepped up the movement of his emotions and thoughts and his creative imagination beyond the speed of light.
This analogy is not complete, nor is it wholly convincing. But the great revolution in science and technology, applied in the field of social science can quite conceivably provide humanity with the means of short-cutting the normal or "natural" processes in sociology as it has already short-cutted the normal or "natural" process in human transportation and communication.
As long as human beings accept the normal, traditional, "natural" principles of association and group action, humanity will continue on the tread-mill of civilization with its long established cycles of beginning, expansion, exploitation, maturity, conflict, decline and extermination.
This aspect of planetary sociology may be illustrated by the rise and decline of total membership in the human family. We know that Roman civilization passed through a completed cycle of population expansion to an optimum, followed by a catastrophic population decline. Western civilization has been experiencing a population expansion or explosion that can be measured with a moderate degree of statistical accuracy. Planetary human population doubled from 500 million in 1650 to 1000 million in 1850. Between 1850 and 1950 population more than doubled (from 1000 million to 2,500 million). In 1975 the human population of the earth is close to 3,700 million.
An essential aspect of world government will be a population program designed to adjust social structure and planning to the means of production and to make generally available to all humans and, where possible, all living things, the results of invention, discovery and experience with affluence, general security and wide variations of vocational and avocational choice. In practice such a program would include the planned utilization and conservation of nature and the conscious improvement of society by society.
Social planning at the planetary level could deal chiefly with large national or regional groupings, more or less divergent in viewpoint but conscious of the necessity for bringing local and regional groups together in order to secure common agreement and to take part in directed joint actions. Such efforts must aim at sufficient cohesion to provide for normal social function at all levels; sufficient permissiveness to allow for a measure of self-determination at all levels; sufficient authority to carry on production and distribution at all levels, and sufficient libertarianism to tolerate discussion and opposition at all levels, with a maximum degree of self sufficiency and self-determination at all levels.