How to make world peace? Troy Davis at TEDxStrasbourgUniversité

[Music] mer [Music] how to create world peace in our times uh this is a very big topic very ambitious topic and one of the reasons is that when people think of world peace they think of uh nearly religious images they think of an Ideal World they think everybody loves each other and where you have social progress environmental progress today and it sounds so uh difficult that world peace is not taken as something practical in fact world peace is an agel dream people think about world peace all the time but it's also the butt of jokes you know when you have Miss World the Miss Universe uh on stage and and the organizers ask so what is your biggest dream world peace you know it's it's kind of a joke but unfortunately uh it's too bad that it's a joke because I say that we should redefine our expectations which lower the expectations and we should really think about how to do World Peace but not in the way in this idealistic fantasy world of of world peace so how do we do this well another thing about world peace is that ironically it has been the goal of nearly all conquerors and of all Empires from the Egyptians and the syrians to Charlamagne to the Romans nobody ever said well we're going to conquer people to go to war they'll say We'll conquer people and the world to have peace of course it will peace it will be peace under my rule I will be the king and I will rule and there will be peace even Hitler said the third R the goal of the was to create World Peace not at all war war was just a little detail on the way and that's the problem that you use the most the most idealistic notion the most wonderful notion but to do the most horrible things so we really have a problem here now let's redefine world peace in a more modest way as I said before we have this very um harmful notion of world peace as un ense Paradise on Earth well as a political scientist and as a physicist I do not believe in idealism idealism in politics doesn't exist idealism in fact kills people in politics so let's redefine it and of course I know that you need to have social progress progress but I say that uh peace in a very in a very defined modest way is the first necessary step and how do I Define it simply as the absence of war in a sense military war now you might say this is not enough I know it's not enough but this would be already a huge and worthy goal think of what what's happening in Syria today people might say oh uh we have um economic war between China and Europe and the US I'm sure that the syrians will be ecstatic to have economic war with their neighbor and not real military war so when people answer you oh but there is more than just military war then say well okay let's get rid of the military war first and then we can talk about the other goals because to recap other human progress depends on the absence of War we've seen this in the prosperity Europe is the most socially Progressive continent or area in the world and in history why because we got rid of War inside the European Union at least so how do we make peace traditionally there are two main paradigms two main ways to make peace one is cisak Parabellum puus flavus 4th Century Roman adage peace through strength if you want peace prepare for war that is the most traditional it sounds paradoxical you can give good Arguments for it but this is the most traditional way which is still used today by the way I'm not this is not things which is you know just Antiquity it's still used today the second one is love your neighbor most religions love your neighbor love individual morality peace will happen through love well I can give you many theoretical reasons why this doesn't work but you just have to look at history for for atic reasons for instance we did create peace in Europe after 1945 in fact the first step was reconciliation in France and Germany now you can imagine that there was no love between French and Germans in 1945 in spite of that we created Peace So anybody who tells you ah to have peace we need love gave that counter example so neither work well but there is one way that works I will not give the theoretical justification but just pragmatic we know it's political engineering what I call political engineering people might call it something else but I call it Engineering in other words to before remember you had in the love Paradigm you were trying to put individual morality in the center but this is very dangerous if you put individual morality in the center of politics this is very dangerous that means the state cares about your individual morality that means you don't have freedom anymore what we should do is not have individual Morality In the politics but political morality when I say morality I don't mean that uh a politici is not supposed to cheat or be corrupt of course well not to be corrupt at least but it's not this person morality of the politician I'm talking about the the infrastructure of politics itself should be based on ethical principles and we will see two of those principles later I'll give you two historical examples of this political engineer in fact maybe those are the only two examples that we really know in the world that have been very successful people are not used to thinking of them as examples but that's what they are they're examples of political engineering the United States of America which was by the way created in 1789 nearly nobody knows that fact everybody thinks it's 1776 even Americans think that it's 1789 and Europe now notice I don't say the European Union because Europe is not a country so I mean in general the process of Europe in construction including European union and Council of Europe most people forget the Council of Europe but this is very important um one very important thing is that people have forgotten the goal of European construction I claim the goal is World Peace how can I make that claim well in fact it's very simple Robert Schuman tells us this in his own speech of n May 9th 1950 he tells us that the goal of construction is World Peace most people forget also that the founding fathers of Europe had not just gone out of one war they had experienced the first world war as teenagers so they had experienced two world wars in their lifetime this is very important to understand the psychology the psychology and the motivation the psychological motivation for those people to create peace in spite of the fact that there was still so much hatred in spite of that fact and the the proof is here a faximile of the Schuman plan the first words of the um of the talk by Schuman is La M World Peace because they do very well that if Europe is part of the entire world which we seem to have forgotten today today is as if we're we're just looking at our Naval and trying to build our little Europe okay slowly expanding okay fine but we forget that the ultimate goal was world peace and it was to be a three-step process first peace between France and Germany then you expand it slowly to including all all Europe and then they didn't know how but somehow ultimately the real goal is World Peace they didn't have a specific plan or method at least for World Peace but at least this gave a meth a plan for European peace but notice it's not written European peace it's World Peace so the founders of both political entities the United States of America and Europe as a generic concept were the first true what I call political Engineers they set out to consciously build political structures not by chance not haphazardly they set out to think in fact if you read The Federalist Papers this is a wonderful um it's like a an instruction manual of it's like a bunch of Engineers coming together and say okay how are we going to build this building and they argue about this and that and that but if you build it this way this going to happen and so forth it's it's wonderful most people in the US do not see and read it and it's not taught like that but this is what it is and they use many language many terms that have this idea of building and of constructing and so forth but they were political Geniuses but is there's a problem in fact they're amateurs because there was no theory of political engineering so they operated by the seed of their pants I interviewed once uh George beran who the former Chief of Staff of Jean Monet and they were I mean people think now it was European the European construction was very you know series of linear events and everything very logical but no they're crisis all the time they were trying to cope with crisis all the time and there was not a sort of big master plan like an architect would have to build a building there wasn't there were General ideas and general thoughts how to do them but there wasn't so there are two weaknesses weaknesses in both cases were the same it's very interesting 200 years apart 150 years apart both the same weaknesses there was not enough application of the democratic principle very important I think you can you can see that and secondly there was no shared identity no shared narrative in both cases what was the consequence the consequence is that after 70 years after the US was created you had a civil war the most destructive the most deadly war in the history of the United States tearing the United States apart and about 60 years after that famous speech by Schuman you have the Euro crisis very interesting to see about the same time frame even though there's such a big difference in and I mean you know over 100 years in in difference so what we need is not just a theory of political engineering but of democracy engineering so that we do things in a democratic way and also we need a shared story we need an identity and how do we do this well the way it's been done throughout the ages in always the same way through a shared identity myth or creation myth if you study the origin of politics every human group has always created their identity through some kind of creation myth it's always like that so what are the lessons for the world at large of those two historical examples well first of all the global political architecture must be re-engineered or re architected but it must be done in a more democratic way than we engineered or architected the US and Europe otherwise we'll have the same problem we will repeat the same problems and secondly we need to create together a global creation myth so that we are identified as human beings not as members of a particular tribe A subribe of the human species and so that we see ourselves as citizens of the world not just of one little subunit now what are the dangers by definition the global politic architecture will be supernational okay this is quite obvious but it could be Democratic or autocratic democracy is very very hard work you have to fight for it all the time if you don't if you don't it's like it's like in the um in Wonderland the Red Queen who keeps on running all the time and Al say well why you running well because if we don't run I mean you'll never keep in place you have to keep to keep in place you have to keep on running democracy is the same way you can never stop and if you stop you will slip into autocracy so the most likely outcome today because we're not building consciously a global democracy is actually slipping into a world autocracy and this is by the way what people who believe conspiracies keep on talking about oh New World Order which will be the global dictatorship on the face of what's happening this is what we're slipping into so we must fight for World Peace but under freedom because it's very easy to have World Peace under dictatorship this is what we had throughout history every Empire said I will be the king I will conquer you and then there'll be peace but we do not want a world empire under a world king or World Emperor and then it will be World Peace under a dictatorship that would be the worst possible scenario especially given modern Technologies which could have an absolute totalitarian state then this will be a nightmare in fact you see this in science fic science fiction movies all the time because otherwise the world peace will be used as an excuse to create Global dictatorship which is has been all the time so how do we prevent that how do we prevent Global dictatorship well we have to invent institutions and This Global identity myth with some basic principles which is what I mentioned for and I suggest two basic principles which I didn't invent those principles come from the universal declaration human rights come from the Declaration of Independence come from and so forth those are fundamental political principles which everybody pays lip service to but in reality they're not applied as fundamental laws to build political structure human dignity the equality of human dignity for everybody everybody has equal human dignity and that the sovereignty belongs to the people political sovereignty belongs to people not to the king in other words in the old days the sovereignty came came from the sky from somewhere up there and usually the king said I am the representative of God from the beginning history that's how kings have Justified their power from China to Japan to Sumer to the Aztecs of ran they represent the gods the Pharaohs but I say no the sonty comes from the bottom from the people so it's a completely opposite it's the reverse of what has been happening for thousands of years so to be at peace and free we need Justice and to have Justice that's why we need those global institutions that are democratic that protect human rights otherwise you'll have rebellions if the Roman Empire had been more democratic it might have survived up to today example the European Union is at peace today and Freer than and it's ever been because it has those kinds of Institutions it has a parliament and it protects human rights even though the protects human rights is actually delegated mostly to the court here which is a court of the Council of Europe but still um it is applies for the for the European union now this brings us to Strasburg Strasburg has a huge role to play in world history which nobody realizes I say that in 5,000 years and 10,000 years people will remember St like we know Babylon now now we know one of the big cities in human history how is this possible well let's assume we have world peace on the freedom the human race still exists and we haven't been enslaved and so forth what will children in History Class learn about the evolution of the world in history how will they learn that they know that there was war Once Upon a Time what would they learn how did the war disappear how did we get to world peace with Freedom they will learn well history started in Sumer 10,000 years ago 5,000 years from now but 5,000 years later which means right now Strasburg in Strasburg were born the first institutions which were the precursor of the institutions that you need to create World Peace the DNA of the future Global political architecture which is needed for world peace is represented here in those in those institutions those are the first political animals that were created it's like a new species of animal that we created and from this species animal will descend all the other animals which will help which are who necessary to create World Peace because Strasburg is the seat of the first ever supernational institutions in human history it has never existed in history of humanity the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights so what is the now of course this is a very short talk so you know many more things to say but what is a simple recipe to create world peace to create World Peace you need to do two things which are relatively simple just a matter of our Collective will you don't need billions and trillions of uh Euros or dollars you need to create Global institutions with the DNA that you find here the Strasberg DNA which you could also Define as supernational democracy and supernational human rights but you have to do it in a democratic way and based on what I call the global social contract which is the globalization of the ideas of lock of Hobs and Je jaac ruso and secondly you have to consciously create a shared identity story a global creation myth to give birth to humanity as humanity and this is what human groups have done at every level for Millennia since the beginning of History so this is a my presentation thank you very [Applause] [Music] much

Channel: TEDx Talks

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Id: 4Y7XWpe0Zyc

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Thu May 08 2014