World community

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 affiliated agencies as 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, aboriginal 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-dependent system of goods and services with semi-permeable 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 propagation of doctrine, faith and practice.

In the Bahá'í Faith, `Abdu'l-Bahá, successor 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 statement 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 resolvable end to war and world war. Many social movements and political theories that deal with these issues revolve around the institutionalization of propagating the idea of world community. A world community is one that works for each and every person

References

Willard, Charles Arthur. Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy, University of Chicago Press, 1996.

ee also

* Community
* International Community
* Global village
* Moral syncretism

External links

*http://www.world-community.net
*http://www.creatingaworldcommunity.com