China is the wild card in any attempt to forge an Asian union. Because of its sheer size, China might simply try to dominate and intimidate its neighbors, forcing them to submit to its suzerainty as it has so frequently done in the past. The formation of an East Asian economic community with the potential inclusion of Japan and South Korea could serve as a counterweight to Chinese hegemony in the region.
How serious is the possibility that the member states of the Southeast Asian nations might forge an Asian version of the European Union, with or without the participation of Japan, South Korea, and China? The Asian Development Bank, for one, thinks that the prospect is likely enough that it prepared and published a report, in 2002, on the costs and benefits of a common currency for ASEAN. The report concluded that “although the constraints on the adoption of the common currency by ASEAN are formidable, the long-run goal of a common currency for the region may be worth considering seriously, especially because, judged by the criterion of an optimum currency area, the region is as suitable for the adoption of a common currency as Europe was prior to the Maastricht Treaty.”10
As of late 2003, ASEAN found itself at a historic juncture. Already well along the way toward creating an East Asia Free Trade Area, the member countries have now embarked on a serious discussion around the prospect of creating an ASEAN economic community, similar to the EU, by 2020.11 A full-fledged common market would mean a free flow of trade in the region as well as free mobility of labor and capital. Closer political cooperation and a pooling of national sovereignty interests within a larger transnational union are likely to follow suit.
No one doubts the commercial advantages of Asian countries pooling their economic interests. The question remains whether there is enough of a common bond beyond pure pecuniary interests to suggest that a more integrated political partnership is doable and viable in the long run. For all of the conflicts between nationalities and governments in Europe over the course of the past two millennia, there is at least some common philosophical, theological, and cultural bonds that Europeans share, including Greek science, Roman law, Christianity, the Renaissance and Reformation, Enlightenment science, and the first and second industrial revolutions.
In the fall of 2003, I attended a gathering in Seoul, South Korea, of government ministers and business leaders, academics, and CSOs from across Asia, on the subject of how best to create an Asian union similar to the European Union. The sponsoring organization, the East Asian Common Space, has been one of the key players in advancing the idea of a transnational governing body for Asia. I put the question of community to some of the members of the association’s executive committee. Koji Kakizawa, the former minister for foreign affairs for Japan, pointed out that the historical influence of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism in East Asia provided a common philosophical, theological, and cultural context for uniting Asian people and that, in many ways, Asians were even better prepared than Europeans to advance the European Dream of inclusivity, diversity, sustainability, quality of life, deep play, and peace because of their shared worldview.
Richard E. Nisbett has written an insightful book on the topic of “how Asians and Westerners think differently,” entitled The Geography of Thought. His account of the Asian mind gives credence to the idea that Asian peoples and countries might be even better suited than Europeans to create network governance, a transnational space, and a global consciousness.
Nisbett points out that the Western mind sees the world more as objects in isolation, while the Eastern mind views the world more as relationships that exist within an overall context. The Western mind puts a premium on the individual, the Eastern mind on the group. In the East, individual identity is inseparable from the group relations of which one is a part. In Confucian thought, writes philosopher Henry Rosemount, “There can be no me in isolation, to be considered abstractly: I am the totality of roles I live in relation to specific others. . . . Taken collectively, they weave, for each of us, a unique pattern of personal identity, such that if some of my roles change, the others will of necessity change also, literally making me a different person.”12
The Eastern mind is also conditioned to appreciate a world full of contradictions. The Western mind, and especially the American mind, is quite different. We tend to see the world more in rational terms and act to resolve or overcome contradictions, believing them to be impediments to pure knowledge and progress. The Eastern mind, notes Nisbett, takes the view that “to understand and appreciate one state of affairs requires the experience of its opposite.”13 The whole, in this schema, lies in the relationship that exists between opposite forces. Together they complete each other.
Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism all concentrate on the whole rather than the parts—what we in the West call a systems approach. “All three orientations,” says Nisbett, share “concerns about harmony, holism, and the mutual influence of everything on almost everything else.”14 The idea that every event is related to every other event makes the Asian mind more interested in the relationships between phenomena rather than the phenomena in isolation.
The constant attention to relationships also makes Asians more sensitive to the feelings of others, according to Nisbett. American parents concentrate on objects and prepare their kids to think in terms of expropriation, acquisition, and property relations—a “mine vs. thine” mentality. Asian parents spend far more time with their kids focusing on feelings and social relations, to help children “anticipate the reactions of other people with whom they will have to coordinate their behavior.”15
It’s not surprising, given their more holistic orientation, that Asians emphasize harmony of humans and nature. While Enlightenment science is based on the idea of remaking nature to suit man’s image, the Eastern way, says political scientist Mushakaji Kinhide, “rejects the idea that man can manipulate the environment and assumes instead that he adjusts himself to it.”16 In practice, Asian peoples have become as adept as Westerners at manipulating and despoiling the environment for short-term commercial ends. The difference, however, is that whereas in the West, the exploitation of nature is part and parcel of the Enlightenment worldview, in the East, current environmentally harmful policies are, at least, at odds with the traditional Asian notion of humanity’s harmonious relationship to the natural world.
Given their preoccupation with relationships, Asians are understandably less interested in discovering the truth than in knowing “the way.” It’s knowing how to relate to “the other,” not how to acquire “the other,” that’s ultimately important. If “the way” seems suspiciously close to Whiteheadian process philosophy, it is.
Because of their emphasis on harmonious relationships and the good of the whole, Asians are more likely to emphasize the success of the group rather than the self-interest of the individual. Indeed, in Chinese, Nisbett reminds us, “there is no word for ‘individualism.’ The closest one can come is the word for ‘selfishness.’ ”17
Try to imagine the Asian mind grasping hold of the essentials of the American Dream, with its emphasis on individuality, self-advancement, autonomy, and exclusivity. Nisbett sums up the difference between an Asian frame of mind and a Western frame of mind this way:
East Asians live in an interdependent world in which the self is part of a larger whole; Westerners live in a world in which the self is a unitary free agent. Easterners value success and achievement in good part because they reflect well on the groups they belong to; Westerners value these things because they are badges of personal merit.18
The Asian frame of mind, at first glance, seems tailor-made for a network world and a globalizing society, with its focus on relationships, inclusivity, consensus, harmony, and contextual thinking. To a good extent, this common mindset is likely to serve Asian societies well in a quest to create a transnational political space in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. On the other hand, and this may just be my Western bias, what’s lacking from the Asian frame is sufficient individual different
iation to make each person feel a sense of deep personal responsibility for making his or her own way in the new world. The Asian way doesn’t always allow the individual to flower. If the self isn’t completely sacrificed for the whole, at least its full potential is often muted in the interest of advancing the welfare of the collective. If the American mindset is too individualistic and Darwinian, the Asian mindset might be equally criticized for being too oriented toward “group think.” Neither mentality alone is ideally suited for a connected world. New technologies are so decentralized and democratized but at the same time so globally connective that they foster both extreme individuation and extreme integration concurrently. Creating a new vision of humanity that can bring together these two seemingly contradictory forces into a new synthetic relationship is the key to making the coming era a transformative period in human history.
My personal belief is that Europe is best positioned between the extreme individuation of America and the extreme collectivism of Asia to lead the way into the new age. European sensibility makes room for both the individual spirit and collective responsibility. To the extent that the European vision can incorporate the best qualities of the American and Asian ways of looking at the world, its dream will become an ideal for both West and East to aspire to.
Cold Evil and Universal Ethics
Creating a global consciousness presupposes an integrated persona that is capable of combining both individual free will and a collective sense of responsibility on a planetary playing field. Accepting another individual’s humanity is a deeply personal act. It requires each individual to recognize “the other.” While a group can help condition individual behavior and predispose its members to be empathetic, the feeling itself has to emanate from the individual, not the group. Where the collective responsibility comes in is in guaranteeing universal human rights and establishing codes of conduct and rules of enforcement to ensure compliance and punish wrongdoers.
How, then, does the European Dream become a truly universal dream? It would have to incorporate a new code of behavior that allows the individual to fully comprehend how his or her own very personal behavior and choices ripple out and affect the rest of the world. Universal human rights will succeed only if personal morality and ethics are universalized as well.
The European Dream has begun to advance the cause of universal morality, but only very tentatively. In a post-modern world where meta-narratives are treated with suspicion, any talk of universal morality is likely to be regarded with nervous dread. Post-modernism, after all, is a reaction to the Enlightenment idea that “one container fits all,” whether that container be a specific theology or ideology. But aren’t universal human rights a meta-narrative? The term “universal” before human rights certainly suggests so. Rights can’t exist without codes of conduct to go along with them. So if rights are universal, so, too, must there be a universal code of morality to accompany them.
The problem with our current notions of morality, at least in the West, is that they are too linear and localized to condition behavior whose effects are often far removed, far-reaching, and systemic in nature. Western morality is derived from the Ten Commandments. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all ascribe to what we might call a morality based on intimate, verifiable, causal harm. Murder, robbery, bearing false witness, and adultery are easily identifiable acts perpetrated by one person or group against another. These kinds of acts are relatively easy to attach responsibility to. They are what we might refer to as examples of “hot evil.”
But, in an increasingly globalized society of ever more dense connections, where everyone’s behavior affects everyone else, there is a new kind of morality, what one might call “cold evil.” (The term can be used in either a religious or secular sense to convey the idea of immoral behavior.) Cold evil is actions whose effects are so far removed from the behavior that caused them that no causal relationship is suspected, no sense of guilt or wrongdoing is felt, and no collective responsibility is exercised to punish the errant behavior.
For example, millions of Americans drive sport-utility vehicles (SUVs). These vehicles, in turn, burn far more gasoline per mile driven than other cars and therefore discharge more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, increasing the risk of global warming. While an educated elite is aware of the relationship between SUV use and global warming, the vast majority of Americans either don’t know or don’t care. Even though they might see a television news story attributing record rainfall, coastal flooding, and lost lives and property to the effects of global warming, it is unlikely they would associate their use of an SUV with the misfortunes unfolding somewhere else. And even if they did suspect some kind of causal relationship, it’s unlikely they would feel the same level of remorse and guilt as they would if, say, they were driving their SUV recklessly in a heavy rainstorm in some coastal region and smashed into another car, killing both its driver and passengers.
Or take another example. Millions of European and American youngsters wear designer athletic shoes from brand-name companies like Nike, not suspecting that the shoes might have been manufactured in a sweat-shop in Vietnam where child labor is exploited under the most draconian working conditions. If they were told about such conditions, would they likely still buy the shoes, knowing they would be contributing to the misfortune of exploited children halfway around the world?
Millions of well-to-do consumers in advanced industrial countries enjoy a diet rich in meat consumption, never suspecting a relationship between their food choices and increased poverty in the third world. Today, 36 percent of the grain grown in the world is fed to livestock. In the developing world, the share of grain grown for animal consumption has tripled since 1950 and now exceeds 21 percent of the total grain produced. In Mexico, 45 percent of the grain is livestock feed, in Egypt it’s 31 percent, in Thailand 30 percent, and in China 26 percent.19 Tragically, 80 percent of the world’s hungry children live in countries with an actual food surplus, much of which is in the form of feed given to animals who, in turn, will be consumed by only the well-to-do consumers of the world. It’s important to bear in mind that an acre of cereal produces two to ten times more protein than an acre devoted to meat production; legumes (beans, peas, lentils) can produce ten to twenty times more protein; and leafy vegetables, fifteen times more protein.20
The human consequences of the transition from food to feed grain were dramatically illustrated in 1984 in Ethiopia, when thousands of people were dying each day from famine. The public was unaware that, at the very time, Ethiopia was using some of its best agricultural land to produce linseed cake, cottonseed cake, and rapeseed meal for export to European countries to be used as feed for livestock.
The irony of the present food-production system is that millions of wealthy consumers in the first world are increasingly dying from diseases of affluence—heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and cancer—brought on by gorging on fatty grain-fed beef and other meats, while the poor in the third world are dying of diseases of poverty brought on by being denied access to land to grow food grain for their families. More than twenty million people die each year around the world from hunger-related diseases.
Few people in Europe, America, and Japan know anything about the relationship between food, feed, and hunger in the world. But if they did, would they feel morally compelled to eat lower on the global food chain with a more vegetable-oriented diet so that more agricultural land could be freed up to raise food grain rather than feed grain?
If we were to hear about our next-door neighbors’ starving their children, we would be morally outraged. Law enforcement would arrest the parents for child neglect and abuse. That’s hot evil. But could we muster up the same sense of moral outrage or feel as morally culpable if we knew that our dietary choices were contributing, at least in part, to maintaining an elite global food chain at the expense of the poor, resulting in starvation and death for millions of people throughout the world? In other words, would cold evil move us to act with the same moral
passion and ardor as hot evil?
Recently, a broad coalition of religious groups in the United States launched a public-education campaign decrying America’s profligate use of gasoline, and targeted SUV owners. The campaign literature asked provocatively, “What Would Jesus Drive?” One of the religious sponsors accused Chevrolet and other car manufacturers of “encouraging people to buy automobiles which are poisoning God’s creation.”21 Another religious spokesman asked, “How can I love my neighbor as myself if I’m filling their lungs with pollution?”22 The campaign touched a raw nerve. Other religious leaders and political commentators rushed to the defense of the auto industry. One irate respondent even suggested that “Jesus would drive a Hummer.”23 This exercise in the ethics of cold evil drew an angry response. It’s one thing to talk abstractly about the global-warming crisis. It’s quite another to suggest that millions of owners of SUVs might be morally culpable.
A similar campaign waged by social activists and trade unionists to boycott the products of Nike and other shoe companies whose subcontractors in Asia were exploiting child labor drew mixed responses. While some college students in the U.S. and Europe stopped buying the Nike brand, most consumers continued to remain loyal to Nike, showing little interest in the fuss around child labor exploitation in Nike’s subcontracting factories.
Campaigns waged against the fast-food hamburger chains have met with similar mixed reviews.
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