Five Worlds
January 11, 2008
We think of our planet as one world, and it
can be beneficial for us to share a sense of solidarity with all our fellow
human beings, wherever they might be. But there is a negative aspect to the one-world philosophy – it overlooks differences in culture as
important to individuals as our commonalities. There are many ways we might segment our world, all of which will be somewhat arbitrary;
here I divide the planet into five worlds, each representing
a different set of cultural forces – a different superculture, if you
will.
We are quite familiar with thinking about
the West as a entity – that is,
Only one of the five worlds I propose is
larger than the Secular World – the region which (in population terms) is
dominated by China and India, and which I shall call the Middle World,
in reference to China’s name for itself as “the Middle Kingdom”, but also in
reference to the way India is caught between the great history of the Chinese
region and the influence of the Secular World. This is a region dominated by
Dharmic religions (such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism), which stress
individual duty. The superculture of this world is radically different from the
Secular World in many ways, and it contains about half of the human
population.
The next largest world is that of the
nations of
About half the population of Africa can be
found in
Finally, the smallest world of all is that
of the Muslim nations. Here, there is great affluence thanks to the huge oil
supplies that exist below its many deserts, but there is also an enormous disparity
of wealth – much of the money is in the hands of rich elites. This Muslim
World has become a flashpoint for a number of reasons: both the Secular
World and the Middle World have a rapacious need to acquire oil to fuel their economies,
and nearly two thirds of the world’s oil can be found here. But additionally, the superculture
of this region is greatly unsettled, and still developing. The Muslim faith requires renovation
from within in order to recapture the vital message of its teachings and
strip away nasty feudal habits such as honour killings (which are non-Qur'anic in origin), or perversions of Islam such as the use of violence against civilians (which is expressly prohibited in the Qur'an). These cultural problems dishonour Islam’s grand history and central
teachings of liberation, moderation and peace. This world contains
Each of these worlds represents a distinct
superculture, with different problems to address and varied solutions to be
found. The future of our planet lies not in an attempt to produce a single
global culture, but in the fostering of an attitude of tolerance within and
between each of these five worlds.
A novel and interesting way of thinking about the planet, Chris. I'm happy to say that while traveling, I spent at least some time in all five of these supercultures (though only tagentially in the Latin World).
I think it's beneficial to think in these terms apart from the now common "global" thinking because there's something so mysterious yet so utterly human about the diversities of distance, that we'll never overcome (nor would we want to!).
Any group of people, homogeneous as they might strive to be, will calve and splinter off from the main given enough time and distance--the more time or distance, the more intense the mutation... and despite all the globalizing effects of the internet, mass media, and ubiquitous air travel, many of those large differences will remain, if maybe in different forms that before.
Just as science shows that humanity is not headed towards a genetically homogeneity as some expected might happen, we also know we'll never see a global monoculture. Which again--why would anyone want to even try?
Like you say, difficult as it can be given the often sizable clashes between these worlds, the goal is to foster as much understanding and tolerance as we can--hopefully enjoying all the invigorating effects of cross-pollination in the meantime.
On a slightly different tact, this update reminded me of an interesting observation.
William Gibson in his latest novel, Spook Country, described medieval Christianity in fairly novel terms--that because of the technology (or lack thereof) for disseminating the Gospel, much of the work of the Church in Europe could be conceived of as a constant fight of signal-to-snow ratio, with the "noise" or natural mutation through slow communication channels constantly threatening to overwhelm. But I can't say enough good things about that book, really--Gibson has always been an astute observer, and Spook Country may be one of his best yet.
Posted by: Jack Monahan | January 11, 2008 at 05:37 PM
There's some interesting disparities between the catalyst theme for your post and the taxonomic guidelines you use. For instance, the wealth you ascribe to separate 'worlds' is global free market wealth - Africa is one of the richest landmasses in real terms, but that wealth is indebted to or owned by much of the rest of the world in the global economy. Similarly, I find it strange that the Muslim world doesn't include Indonesia or any of the other largely Muslim but non-Arab countries. What about east and north Africa? Muslim or African?
But aside from taxonomic wrangling, its a nice model to get away from mono-cultural bias.
Posted by: zenBen | January 11, 2008 at 06:44 PM
If you looking for low population density, but don't like sand wedgies, I recommend Latin America. The south of South America, in particualr, is interesting, its kind of like the Secular World but with a Latin tinge - during boomtime. If you go to Chile, thats always, but you can't beat the bargains in Argentina.
Posted by: Patrick | January 11, 2008 at 07:45 PM
Thanks for the comments!
Patrick: I have to say, I'm keen to visit South America. I'm hoping to make it to every continent, and still have Australasia, South America and Antarctica to go. Maybe you'll be where you are long enough for me to visit. ;)
zenBen: think of this piece as setting the scene for the discussions of the next few weeks; I didn't intend for it to stand up to analysis, so much as I wanted to draw out this idea of contrasting the "one world" image with a "many world" image. Tomorrow's post will probably explain why I choose this iconography.
You're right that there's overlap between Africa and the Muslim World, but I didn't intend for the Muslim world to mean only the Middle East (if I had, Arab World would have an alternative name, although I purposefully avoided racial terms here, preferring cultural referents). Certainly, Indonesia (while not an Islamic state) is part of what I term the Muslim World here: it's relationship to the Middle East is perhaps similar to Australia's relationship to the Secular World...
Jack: I've not gone back to Gibson since he inadvertently killed the cyberpunk movement of the 80's and 90's. It wasn't his fault, of course, but still it left a bad taste in my mouth to see an interesting literary movement quashed by slavish loyalty to the dystopian near future aspects of the sub-genre, rather than it's more interesting psychological undertones.
Not that I have a problem with Gibson himself, you understand. ;) If I go back to reading fiction (I've wholly stopped right now - it's most odd), I could see myself giving his later works a try.
Best wishes everyone!
Posted by: Chris | January 14, 2008 at 03:13 PM
What is most fascinating (to me) is that I had read someewhere that there is a tone and sound sequence that is global... and has the same meaning in every one of them. It is the childhood sound we all made when we were suggesting we had gotten away with something, and someone else could not... "Nyah, Nyah Na Nah Ya!". Whether it is God or nature, or pure dumb luck that caused it, it sure seems evidence that "it" has a serious sense of humor... AJ
Posted by: Anon | January 18, 2008 at 10:57 PM
Anon: I've not heard this before! :)
For many years anthropologists claimed all sorts of things about relativity of cultures, including that emotional responses were culturally dependent. Ekman crushed this view: we all share the same emotions, we all have the same facial expressions when we experience these emotions. We have many differences, but we still have a great deal in common.
Thanks for commenting!
Posted by: Chris | January 21, 2008 at 01:26 PM