A Values-based World Order

• Main Author: Ashok Natarajan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Risk Institute, Trieste- Geneva 2021-06-01
• Series: Cadmus
• Online Access: https://cadmusjournal.org/article/volume-4/issue-4/values-based-world-order

The challenges we face today can be transformed into opportunities if the motivation of short-term, myopic social values is replaced by commitment to psychological values such as unity, harmony, freedom and equality. Values are commonly dismissed as utopian ideals of little practical relevance, whereas in fact they possess an enormous power for selfrealisation. A study of history makes this apparent. The utopian values espoused during the American War of Independence, the French Revolution, the Indian Independence Movement, the founding of the United Nations, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have gradually acquired the status of law and been transformed into globally accepted social standards and goals, as embodied in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The article examines crucial socio-political issues and analyses the role of values in determining their outcome. Current social theory focuses mainly on the role of objective external factors such as economics, geography, and technology in determining the course of events. In doing so it overlooks or grossly underestimates the role of subjective factors such as rising social aspiration, acceptable norms of behavior and universal values. A valid theory of history must come to recognize and give due importance to the determining power of the psychological forces that govern the course of human events. This theory will confirm that the solution to humanity’s problems lies along an evolutionary axis toward a values-based world order.