Abstract
In this chapter, we take a systemic approach to developing a psychological understanding of processes of social health in a global socio-historical, political, and economic context. We examine levels of social health and associated psychological skills on each level.
The primary question to be resolved is how the present world, with its entrenched pattern of conflict, can change to a world in which harmony and cooperation will prevail. World order can be founded only on an unshakable consciousness of the oneness of humankind, a spiritual truth, which all the human sciences confirm. Anthropology, physiology, psychology recognize only one human species, albeit infinitely varied in the secondary aspects of life. Recognition of this truth requires abandonment of prejudice of every kind—race, class, color, creed, nation, sex, degree of material civilization, everything which enables people to consider themselves superior to others. Acceptance of the oneness of humankind is the first fundamental prerequisite for reorganization and administration of the world as one country, the home of humankind. Universal acceptance of this spiritual principle is essential to any successful attempt to establish world peace.
Universal House of Justice. (See Hayes et al. 2007, pp. 14, 15.)
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Notes
- 1.
For an at-length elaboration of this historical process and the tide of integral thinking that both expresses and propels it forward, readers may wish to refer to McIntosh’s Integral Consciousness.
- 2.
The Center for Democracy and Citizenship is located in Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN. http://www.augsburg.edu/democracy/
- 3.
See Glenn Cotten’s case study, Authentic Communication as a Catalyst for Developing Critical Moral Consciousness, (unpublished manuscript), which explores how authentic communication promotes a sense of community and can be highly effective in closing the ‘achievement gap’ between academically advantaged and disadvantaged students from estranged racial and socio-economic groups in a U.S. public high school.
- 4.
See Fromm’s discussion of democracy in Sane Society, pp. 184–191, and the problem of how people can express their authentic will in a context of alienation, and large-scale manipulation of tastes, opinions, and preferences by corporate interests and political machinery—forces largely beyond the control and knowledge of the individual.
- 5.
Those interested in this kind of dialogue can find it in organizations such as http://ncdd.org/.
- 6.
There is also the platinum rule, which suggests that rather than treating others the way we want to be treated, we should do our best to treat them the way they want.
- 7.
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007.
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Mustakova-Possardt, E., Woodall, J. (2014). Toward Social Health for a Global Community. In: Mustakova-Possardt, E., Lyubansky, M., Basseches, M., Oxenberg, J. (eds) Toward a Socially Responsible Psychology for a Global Era. International and Cultural Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7391-6_5
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