Discussion Group Report

Carl Coon is the Vice President of the American Humanist Association and a former ambassador to Nepal. In this article he outlines what he feels is a humanist foreign policy that should be adopted by the United States. He starts by declaring that the foreign policy of President Bush is a disaster. On many issues, not just Iraq, he has been wrong. These include global warming, missile defense, population growth, and now Iran. He has had a narrow world view combined with a desire to seek advice only from people who will fortify his prejudices, rather than from the ones who know and understand the issues, and this is a dangerous combination.

He quotes Henry Kissinger who once observed that absolute security for any one country meant absolute insecurity for its neighbors. This point is critical and is least understood by Bush and his accomplices, but by many, if not most, Americans. The fact of the matter is that we can't have it both ways. We cannot insist on total security for us and us alone, and expect full cooperation from everyone else. Cooperation requires some sacrifices, some concessions, from each of the partners.

There has to be a better way, and of course there is. We need to lead by example, not threats. We need to listen to others, learn what their problems are, and exercise our talents and ingenuity toward finding solutions that help everyone to the extent it is possible. We need to take the dawning environmental crisis seriously and show that we're willing to make our share of needed sacrifices. Above all we need to recognize that we have to sacrifice some of our national sovereignty if we are to cooperate effectively on global problems with the rest of the world.

Until now, there has been no such thing as a global society. The most complex societies have been nation-states. There is a global authority, the United Nations, but it has no teeth. On the most important issues, a sovereign nation can ignore any UN attempt to constrain or control its behavior. It is true that many international and regional organizations, buttressed by treaties and conventions, bring a modicum of law and order into specific areas of international relations. They are useful and respond to real needs. But on the most important issues, any member of the UN can defy its authority, and the only recourse the UN has is to try to persuade other nations to put pressure on the miscreant. This sometimes works with small and powerless countries but the big ones can behave as the please. When the chips are down, the current global society resembles Dodge City from the mythology of the cowboy movie, where victory goes to the fastest draw.

Mr. Coon then outlines humanism's role in the evolution of a global society. Humanity, he states, is now in a transitional phase, moving reluctantly from Dodge City to a global society ruled by law. He understands that creating some kind of law and order that will include the whole globe will be an enormously complicated task, one that certainly will not be fully accomplished during the lifetime of anyone alive today. But, he states, it is equally plausible that some such order will evolve eventually, if humanity is to survive at all. Right now we are living in a fool's paradise, based on an uneasy equilibrium backed up not by an effective international rule of law but by a balance of terror.

He envisions an active, explicitly humanist policy centered on a renewed dedication to basic rules of good conduct amongst nations. This would include the concept of universal human rights. Humanists should support a stronger United Nations and more effective means of controlling conflicts, and especially nuclear weapons.

A world at peace is and should be a primary long term goal of the humanist movement. Most of the rest of humanity is floundering at this point, too involved in parochial concerns to see the big picture. We humanists are unencumbered by religious prejudices and are open to objective consideration of international ethical principles. Let's get out in front with a defined, well recognized posture in favor of a world at peace, governed by law and not brute force, with the values of universal human rights undergirding the law, and shared by all.