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Reverend Moon's Proposals: Global Prosperity
| Article
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19792 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1991 |
5,352 Words |
| Author
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Se Won Yoon
Se Won Yoon is president of Sung Hwa University in Korea. He
is the Korean president of the International Highway Project
and former vice president and professor of physics at Kyung
Hee University. Yoon was the first director of the Korean
Nuclear Regulatory Agency, president of the Association of
Physicists, and chairman of the Committee of Graduate School
Deans in Korea. |
The twentieth century is about to come to a close. Evaluations by future historians not withstanding, it has been a period of worldwide changes. Developments in science, technology, and political reforms based on diverse ideas, and the popularization of the arts and culture, have brought about changes in human relations, life-styles, customs, and traditions. In this sense, the twentieth century has witnessed a great upheaval in value systems.
Today's intellectuals, though not futurologists, have expressed widely varying ideas about what the world of the twenty-first century will be like. Some look forward to a future of infinite possibilities arising from the current pace of advancement in scientific and technological knowledge. Others put forward somewhat gloomy prospects on the basis of projected sharp increases in world population and limited natural resources--including food--due on the one hand, to normal consumption and, on the other, to unpredictable disasters resulting from the increasing pollution of the environment.
The nations of the world today, through striving toward the common ideal of democracy, have seen several diverse political systems emerge, such as communism, socialism, capitalism, and modern theocratic states, such as Khomeini's Iran. Although in the past these systems have, to various degrees, obstructed the progress of freedom, there is presently a widespread trend toward openness, dialogue, and reconciliation among races, nations, and religions, centered on the common desire for world peace and security. This has given more hope than at any other time in history. At the same time, however, we cannot exclude the possibility of warfare continuing into the twenty-first century. Wars could arise from conflicts among regions, systems, or religions, or result from differing national interests based on: poverty or affluence; differences in population size; or clashes between homogeneous people and/or multiethnic peoples preserving old enmities.
One clear sign of hope is that although many people have suffered from the loss of freedom under colonialism, totalitarianism, and communism, liberal democratic ideas have spread widely in this century. Liberal democracy is likely to be a universal, leading idea of the twenty-first century, and one hopes that by then all people will enjoy freedom, human rights, and equality. Unfortunately, some undesirable results of this century's life-styles--stemming from unrestrained individualism and egoism, and the moral collapse characterized by drug use, sexual promiscuity, and lawlessness--follow us into the next
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