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paper and then take some time using the grading criteria to think about
what grade you would give this paper and why.
I agree with Frans de Waal, Lani Guinier,
and Mary Kaldor about the need to rethink the way our world is run today.
There are many problems, and they each suggest a way to solve one of
them. De Waal's survival of the kindest, Guinier's proportional voting,
and Kaldor's world court would all be wonderful, to a point. After this
point, all of these good things would cease to be good. Therefore, we
see that there are limits for each of these.
De Waal's survival of the kindest would be
wonderfully useful in diminishing, if not eliminating, the effect of
man's selfishness on daily life. In a world that was based more on survival
of the kindest than our current one people would care about each other.
They would be naturally moral and giving, much more often then we currently
are. De Waal bases this opinion of man's natural goodness on Darwin's
belief that, "Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social
instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would
inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual
powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as
in man". (De Waal, 353) There wouldn't be homeless people, or minorities
who never get to have their say. Cutthroat competition would not exist,
and there wouldn't be any of the dog-eat-dog mentality that pervades
the financial and business markets today.
Unlimited survival of the kindest would also
be a problem, though. There would be way too many providers for any
service because there would be no competition. If there were no competition
in society, there would be no drive to succeed, and thus, no satisfaction.
Also, like Darwin saw, natural selection of some sort must be allowed
to continue. If we were to support everyone, even the "weakest
links" at all times, the entire chain of humanity would eventually
be weakened. There must be checks and balances in everything.
page 2
Similarly, Guinier's view on proportional voting
instead of majority rule could be wonderful. All of the little people
in the world, whose voices are not heard right now, would be heard.
There wouldn't be minorities who had no say in how their governments
worked. Everyone would be able to elect representatives from amongst
their own communities, and make their votes count. Democracy would be
truer to itself if it were run this way, as Guinier says, "For
in the end democracy is not about rule by the powerful-even a powerful
majority-nor is it about arbitrarily separating groups to create separate
majorities in order to increase their share. Instead, the ideal of democracy
promises a fair discussion among self-defined equals about how to achieve
our common aspirations". (Guinier, 345) Proportional voting seems
to be the fairest way to establish everybody on level ground, as "self-defined
equals". It sounds like it should be the perfect solution.
Alas, unchecked proportional voting can also
lead to problems. Different ones than there are in America currently,
but problems none- the- less. There are many, many small political groups
who all have a say in what should happen, but not really enough power
to get elected or make any of their changes come about. Some of these
small groups band together to gain power, and this often leads to chaos.
A good example of this is the Knesset, in Israel. There is hardly ever
a stable Knesset. Parties are always making noises about going back
and forth between different camps because different parties share different
views on different issues. It is often a mess. In order to prevent this
from happening in America, I think that we should not be so hasty in
completely scrapping the majority rule model. We should try to create
a system with a little bit of both proportional voting and majority
rule. This may help to prevent some gridlock while giving everyone equal
opportunities.
page 3
Kaldor, in her essay "Beyond Militarism,
Arms Races and Arms Control", also advocates equality. She describes
several new types of armed forces, and several new types of warfare
that have emerged since the Cold War, and explains that the fighters
must be treated as our equals. Just because they may be denizens of
smaller countries, or no countries at all, doesn't mean that they don't
have to be reckoned with. These fighters have all come from different
places, and they all have their own reasons, but they cannot be dismissed
simply because they don't have a country like America backing them.
This has been discovered since the Cold War, in all the fighting during
the 90's. Kaldor is in favor of dealing with these marauders by establishing
international tribunals and courts more and more often. She says, "Perhaps
the most hopeful approach to the contemporary problem of controlling
war, nowadays, is not through arms control but through the extension
and application of international humanitarian law (the 'laws of war')
and human rights law". (Kaldor, 10) Kaldor is so sure that this
is important because, "As argued above, violations of humanitarian
law and human rights law are no longer 'side effects' of war, they represent
the core the new warfare". (Kaldor, 10) The old types of warfare
are no longer viable, because they will cause way too much destruction.
Therefore, in addition to calling these tribunals, she is, "talking
about a collective commitment by states, international organizations
and civil society to act when individual states fail to sustain these
norms and to do so within a framework of international law". (Kaldor,
11) In effect, this would be an agreement from all of the countries
in the world to meet as a court for whichever country needs to be brought
to trial, for whatever reasons. This all sounds quite nice. A completely
international agreement to act only humanely towards all other countries
sounds positively utopian. It would be nice if it would actually get
rid of all the current warfare problems.
page 4
The idea of all countries looking out for each
other's welfare is quite nice, but I'm not sure I trust it wholly. I
feel like it would be making the world into one big socialist country,
in a way. We, the countries, would obviously have more autonomy than
that right now, but what would prevent this group of countries from
moving in that direction? Each country has it's own identity and issues,
and I'm not sure we'd all understand each other's issues in enough detail
to actually do real justice to whatever issue we'd be working with.
I feel like there just wouldn't be quite the depth of understanding
that someone actually embedded in the issue would have. Also, because
America is still considered one of the leaders of the free world, and
because much of the world does think capitalistically and competitively,
there would be a race for one-upmanship even if we were all to agree
to work together. America would still just be seen as bullying other
countries to do what it wanted them to. If modern warfare as Kaldor
describes it really is gone, and it is because of the mass destruction
it would cause, I think that there needs to be some other type of warfare
or punishment for those who commit warfare-like crimes, in addition
to this. Countries that are at all harsh will have to worry about being
brought to court by the whole world, when maybe the whole world should
have stayed out a little longer. It will continue to be a really fine
line to wait to cross to know when to enter a situation, and when to
let a country resolve it's own issues.
page 5
I agree with De Waal, Guinier, and Kaldor about
the need to rethink the way the world is today. Survival of the kindest,
proportional voting, and a world court would all be wonderful; to a
point! There are limits that should be put on each of these efforts
to rethink the world.
