(W.E.Talk) Stephen Brawer: The significance of natural law in these uncertain and turbulent times(3)

The pathway that brings understanding and friendship in international relations

The extension of this basic understanding of human nature to the greater social context of human civilizations and nations is extremely challenging. Presently, the world is divided. This is leading to a highly dangerous "cold war" situation, or even in the worst case to a new world war. On one side is the unipolar world. Europe and the USA hope to continue to dominant global policy based on liberal ideology, and free market economics. This is old world of colonialism, cultural arrogance and ethnic superiority, ultimately driven by the Hobbesian "Law of the Jungle". It is presently failing, yet Western leaders are still desperately clinging to it, like "A Ship of Fools". On the other side, there are emerging new alignments of the BRICS, and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization). These together with the initiatives from China's Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and most recently the Global Governance Initiative are shaping an entirely new direction for international relations. This one is oriented towards peace and development and respect for the sovereignty of all nations. Yet the two different directions are, in essence, mutually exclusive.

It is the proper framework for understanding "natural law". The great problem today is that European thinking has abandoned and even rejected Leibnizian thinking. Instead, they follow his lifelong opponent Thomas Hobbes and his "Law of the Jungle". To overcome the dangers that confront the world today, it will be necessary to bring back the thinking of Leibniz. This is the pathway that can bring understanding and even friendship in political international relations. In this context, the idea of "natural law" can be given new life and the possibility of guiding the World towards "A Community for a Shared Future for Mankind". Global Governance Initiative can work to bring fruit to this type of dialogue and understanding between cultures.

Humanity is currently challenged not only to avoid war and conflict, but more emphatically by the need to grasp this higher ordering of reality with a causality which defines the unfolding of events. It is not mere mechanical random interactions which shape the future. It will require much hard work and effort to redefine human relations and thinking in this important light. It will, however, be the pathway to true happiness and success for humanity, and the freedom to finally escape the enslavement of thinking in geopolitical and pragmatic terms forever.

　

Stephen Brawer's profile:

Stephen Brawer is the Chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies.