Forming a Global Community is available at https://www.amazon.com/Forming-Global-Community-Philosophy-Joseph/dp/1648895166/
To address global problems such as pandemics, warming, economic inequality, mass migration, and widespread terrorism, Joseph de Rivera argues that we must form a global community. A community of eight billion humans is difficult to conceive. However, it can be imagined and created if we transform our understanding of who humans are and what ‘community’ entails. We can understand who persons are, how they are motivated, and how a community can be conceived in a way that offers an alternative to individualism and collectivism. The “mutualism” that is proposed provides a moral compass for navigating the challenges that confront us and encourages specific governing structures, political economies, and rituals that will further the formation of a global community. Based on the philosophical analysis of John Macmurray, the author’s argument relies on an extensive review of the current literature on self, personhood, emotional motivation, social identity, forms of community, and religious and secular rituals. Interdisciplinary in nature, it aims to direct philosophy and the social sciences to the challenges of globalism and the creation of a global community.
What reviewers say:
de Rivera has written a scholarly book that is both important and hopeful. It is based on the premise that we humans are arguably the most social of all social animals—for better and for worse. Yet, the great majority of us tend to think of ourselves as individual conscious beings. The author argues that this assumption is a fundamental mistake—with tragic consequences. According to the author, the most fundamental social motives are caring for others, fear for ourselves, and an aggressive insistence on what ought to exist. These motives are present in all of our interactions, and at any moment, the most essential fact is whether the love for others or fear for the safety of the self is dominant. When love is dominant, persons are authentic, assertive, and able to have open mutual relationships. When fear is dominant, it is managed by submissive conformity or aggressive dominance—preventing persons from fully being themselves. It also motivates them to reduce cognitive dissonance in irrational, self-serving ways that are destructive to trust and intimacy. The alternative lies in the unification that occurs in societies where caring for others dominates fear for the self and enables aggression to intend justice rather than violence. Such societies are communities and have rituals that express the joy of being together rather than the thrill of dominating. In a brilliant, original manner, de Rivera utilizes material from philosophy, psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology, and religion to show how such a community is possible.
[...] Anyone searching for solutions to our current problems will be interested. Elliot Aronson Professor Emeritus, Psychology Department UC Santa Cruz
Have you ever wondered about what is wrong with the world you live in: the deteriorating climate, the politics, your neighbors, inflation, racism, depression? You must have thought, at times, what can be done about it, them? Are we ever going to solve the obvious and simple, much less, the potentially disastrous problems that we face? Maybe unfair, silly questions, but have you?
I admit I have no direct evidence, but certainly, many of us have, and for the most part, sooner or later, we came to the bleak conclusion: it is useless. We repeatedly discover we are essentially powerless to make a difference, possibly because there are no solutions, at least none available to folks like us. The author of this volume de Rivera, together with Carlson, however, never gave up; instead, inspired by a Scotch Philosopher, John MacMurray, they convinced editors that their efforts had uncovered a path to mastering all the major threats to our survival and specific fears that haunt us.
Their solution for overcoming all that is evil and frightening involves forming a global human community consisting of an elaboration of socio-emotional mutual relations where love dominates over fear. According to MacMurray, those fundamental socio-emotional relations of love and fear first appear between infant and mother, and they continue as “emotional strands” to shape the rest of our lives.
I confess their citing and elaborating upon MacMurray was all new stuff for me, but It was well worth reading what they have to offer if, for no other reason, you will discover that we are really the solution to our problems. But you deserve forewarning: you will continually recognize that as they describe where MacMurray has led them, they have no fears or self-doubts, especially those involving fundamental concepts in the psychological and social literature. In describing what needs to be done for the sake of our survival and how it can be accomplished, the creation of a global community, they demonstrate through copious footnotes that they have consulted and analyzed examples of the best thinking and evidence available. Their supporting footnotes are so thorough and extensive that I would not hesitate to use this book as a main text in an advanced-level course in social psychology, sociology or political science, e.g., “Civilization and its Discontents.”
To be sure, the range of issues and enormously ambitious scope of this effort to solve our world-level problems, whatever negative responses, or lingering doubts, must be accompanied by enormous respect and admiration for the authors’ obviously wise and thoughtful scholarship.
They will take you through several similar difficult but intriguing and promising fundamental conceptual issues. Have you thought, for instance, of what a person versus self or identity could mean? Or the importance of “mutual relationships,” and the central concept of the “Other” and “Otherness” in human relations? How are the emotions and experiences that appear in infancy and childhood related to what appears among adults? Is it possible for a religion to be “rational” and sacred? Is it possible, maybe necessary, for the mutually supportive and caring relationships that often appear in small close communities to be extended and organized into a global community?
The authors provide creative and thoughtful answers to those and many similarly intriguing issues in describing how and why we need to create a global community. Dr. Melvin J Lerner Social Psychologist Florida Atlantic University De Rivera, with the help of Carson, has given a great deal of thought to the question of how we might extricate ourselves from the shackles of a global constellation of states that are in competition for power. They argue that a global community based on cooperation would be far better suited to address problems that bear on human survival and well-being. Their analysis has multidisciplinary moorings, drawing on theory and research in economics, political science, cultural anthropology, political economy, sociology, history, religion, and psychology. The emotional quality of human nature is foregrounded in many analyses, noting, for example, how the presence of justice depends on the dominance of love over fear, how fear and anger adversely affect rational decision making, how liberty engenders freedom from the fear that basic needs will not be met, and how problems arise when fear for oneself weighs more heavily in decisions than love of others. While the creation of a global community may sound like a utopian ideal, the authors offer a realistic proposal that calls for the transformation of our usual patterns of thoughts and feelings about ourselves and others so that love dominates fear and relationships are suffused with dignity and worth. Daniel J. Christie, Professor Emeritus Ohio State University
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