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The world community is generally defined as all people in all lands, presumably on Earth, albeit the original connotations of the term world were synonymous with cosmos, which today means the Universe. The word community also has an ever-expanding context, in that its meaning is inclusive not only of humans but also the horses they ride, the cattle they eat, their pet dogs, cats, hamsters and goldfish, the wild birds that visit their bird-feeders, all the way down to the spiders and insects that live under their homes. As communities in terms of ecological succession include even the smallest one-celled animals, the result of combining the terms world and community grows ever larger. The perception that our communities have trees growing in them make trees also a part of a local community. It would follow then that all plants that share the elements in the air with us are community as well. So, if we are to use a modern world-view that assumes that life is probably not unique to this planet, we would have to say that world community includes every living thing in the universe.
As scientists peered out away from the Earth discovering an expanding universe, the world-wide notion of community through industry and commerce grew through the Modern era to horrifying dimensions, such as driving mankind to the brink of nuclear war. While the World Wars catapulted science and technology toward the heavens, the collective unconscious of humankind may have developed a more manageable term for conceptualising the world as one: the Global Village.
The term is used primarily in political and humanitarian contexts to describe an international aggregate of nation states of widely varying types. In most connotations, the term is used to convey meanings attached to consensus or inclusion of all people in all lands and their governments.
Politics
World community often is a semi-personal rhetorical connotation that represents Humanity in a singular context as in "...for the sake of the World Community" or "...with the approval of the World Community".
It sometimes is used to reference The United Nations or its agencies as a bodies of governance. Other times it is a generic term with no explicit ties to states or governments but retaining a political connotation.
Humanitarianism
In terms of human needs, humanitarian aid, human rights, and other discourse in the humanities, the world community is akin to the conceptual Global village aimed at the inclusion of non-aligned countries, aborigional peoples, the Third World into the connected world via the communications infrastructure or at least representative ties to it.
Economics
In terms of the Global economy, The world community is seen by some economists as an inter-dependant system of goods and services with semi-permiable boundaries and flexible sets of import/export rules. Proponents of Globalization may tend to establish or impose more rigidity to this framework. Controversy has arisen as to whether this paradigm will strengthen or weaken the world as a community. See World Trade Organization
Ecology
When considering Sustainable development and Ecology, the inter-dependence angle generally expands quickly to a Global context. In this paradigm,the planet as a whole represents a single Biome and the World's population represents the Ecological succession in a singular eco-system. This also can be recognized as the World Community.
Religion
Many religions have taken on the challenge of establishing a World Community through the propogation of doctrine, faith and practice.
In the Bahá'í Faith, `Abdu'l-Bahá, succesor and son of Bahá'u'lláh produced a series of documents called "Tablets of the Divine Plan". In these was an outline for the expansion and consolidation of Bahá'í communities in Asia, Asia minor, Europe and the Americas into the Bahá'í world community.
In Buddhism "the conventional Sangha of monks has been entrusted by the Buddha with the task of leading all people in creating the ideal world community of noble disciples or truly civilized people."
A Benedictine monk, Friar John Main, inspired the World Community for Christian meditation through the practice of meditation centered around the Maranatha mantra, meaning "Come Lord."
The Lutheran Church in America had issued a social statement - World Community: Ethical Imperatives in an Age of Interdependence Adopted by the Fifth Biennial Convention, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 25-July 2, 1970. Since then The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has formed and retained the staement as a 'historical document'.
World Peace
The term world community is often used in the context of establishing and maintaining world peace through a peace process or through a resolveable end to war and world war. Many social movements and political theories that deal with these issues revolve around the institutionalization of propogating the idea of world community.
See also
Community, Global village
External links
- http://bahai-library.com/writings/abdulbaha/tdp/
- http://swamij.com/maranatha.htm
- http://www.wccm.org/
- http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/ebdha062.htm
- http://www.elca.org/jle/lca/lca.world_community.html
- http://www.experiencefestival.com/falun_gong
"World community"