[PREV - LONG_VIEW]    [TOP]

WORLDGOV

World Government

H.G. Wells indulges in much wishful
thinking about the prospects for
a world government:

  "Our true nationality is
   mankind."  p.1087

Oddly enough (to my thinking)
Wells ties his hope for a
world government into a hope
for a new religious revival.     ONERELIGION


It's tempting to sneer at Wells' naivete:
did he believe that the War to End All Wars might
have really done it? That the League of Nations
was really the ultimate hope of mankind?

But Wells isn't quite that silly:

   "History has never gone simply
   forward." p. 1091

He's well aware that there may yet be many
set backs, many more wars, and he doesn't
believe in the League, so much as hold out
hope for a successor (as the US
Constitution followed the Articles of
Confederation) A "world league of men".

And:

   "It may well be that several
   partial leagues may precede any
   world league.  The common
   misfortunes and urgent common needs
   of Europe and Asia may be more
   efficacious in bringing the
   European and Asiastic states to
   reason and a sort of unity, than
   the mere intellectual and               This is not so very far
   sentimental ties of the United          from the current state
   States and Great Britain and            of the world.               (5/6/92)
   France."  p. 1091


And I can't help but be impressed with the
audacity of Well's project.  I gather that his
_Outline_ is really the first attempt at a
World History.  He attempted it not just
because he thought it was a neat project, but
because he thought of it as a first step
toward global unification.

   "There can be no peace now, we
   realize, but a common peace in all
   the world; no prosperity but a
   general prosperity.  But _there can
   no common peace and prosperity
   without common historical ideas._" p.vi

There's the goal, stated right up
front, right out in the open:

To conquer the world with a book.                       "break some
                                                        necks for me." ?
I'm almost tempted to join in on his
project.  Perhaps a new set of
footnotes to the _Outline_, and a
supplement bringing it up to date.

But still, I can't help reject this
obssession with unification:

       One world,
       One religion,
       One neck.

--------
[NEXT - MULTIPLICITY]