Faith in Humanity

Over dinner a few days ago Malen treated us to the reading of one of those remarks that she loves so much: “Aliens exist. The proof is that they don’t show up.” We laughed and then I pointed out: “Of course there are aliens and the best thing for them would be not to show up on the Earth right now,” whereupon the conversation took a more serious course. As serious as these questions: Can we go on believing in this humanity? Is there any solution for life on this Earth dominated by Homo Sapiens?

I confess uneasily that my faith in humanity has been seriously undermined over the last 20 years. Could my age and reduction in vital energy be the cause? Could it be the growing crisis in this model of predatory, competitive, violent, macho civilisation, of which the 2008 crisis was no more than a logical corollary to everything that had gone on before and a brief foretaste of the impending final catastrophe? Could it be due to the world we actually see or due to the eyes through which we contemplate it? Could it be the influence of my avid reading of Harari’s works because of the alarm bells that are rung? Or could it be due to a bit of everything?

Whatever it may be, the panorama of the world because of humanity is horrific, and I repeat, because of humanity, or to be more precise, because of the powerful within it, and their unbridled greed. Obama’s disappointments, Trump’s insolence, Putin’s lies, Xi Jinping’s quiet despotism, insatiable multinationals, the financial dictatorship across the planet, win, win, and win again. The destruction of jobs, the constant precariousness of working conditions, our youngsters en masse without a future. Syria, Yemen, Libya, the Sahel paint an image of a torn world. Environmental meltdown, climate alarm bells, the headlong rush. Relentless acceleration, overwhelming hurry, ferocious competitiveness, growing stress. Ten thousand years of what we call progress are the irrefutable proof of this beginning that is announcing the end: more progress, more suffocation.

And now… this coronavirus pandemic that is besieging us and sinking us even further in anxiety, uncertainty, the pandemic about which I would not go as far as to say is a direct consequence of human intervention. It does, however, remorselessly reveal the deep frailty of our species at the pinnacle of its power and the radical disarray of this model of inhuman civilisation as it aches to compete and win until a vaccine has been achieved, whatever the cost. And it is exacting a price in terms of our personal, family, social, planetary and eco-planetary life.

I am tempted to say, even though saying it frightens me: this species is beyond repair, it is unviable, it is heading towards wholesale destruction and its own self-destruction. Someone defined it as “a species lacking the capability to manage its own capabilities”. It is capable of infinite tenderness, of smiling sweetly, of losing everything to help the helpless, of composing the The Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross and singing it like Amancio Prada, of inventing myths and dancing tangos. But it is also capable of the greatest cruelties driven by hate and vengeance and is incapable of overcoming its memories, fears and anxieties and remaining peaceful. It is incapable of overcoming its own power and controlling its unruly emotions. St. Paul summed it up in one memorable sentence: “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7,15).

And that’s how we are going and how the world is going because of us. Is it that we are marching hopelessly towards universal downfall? Resigning oneself to it would be tantamount to bringing it about. We won’t solve all the evils afflicting us if we fail to revive faith in ourselves and in our common humanity. “Your faith has made you well,” (Mark 5,34) said Jesus to the sick people he healed. They were cured by the faith or trust that Jesus awakened in them.

A few days ago during a plenary session of the European Parliament, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen delivered a vibrant address entitled “Building the world we want to live in: a union of vitality in a world of fragility”, and she began her solemn speech evoking the figure of Andrei Sakharov and his “unshakeable faith in the hidden strength of the human spirit”. She appealed to Europe’s best tradition and will, and to the urgency of multilateralism and co-operation. She pointed out that “major powers are either pulling out of institutions or taking them hostage for their own interests”. She called for the recognition of “the sacred dignity” of work, leaving indecision on one side and working for a “just globalisation”. And she stressed, in particular, the urgency of seeking a solution for migration from “a human and humane approach”. And she concluded by saying: “Europe will be what we want it to be. Let us build the world we want to live in.”

It stirred me. She is right: we will not advance towards a different Europe and another necessary global world if we do not have faith in the best that we are capable of. Without our best will. Faith is about wanting our best and trusting in it, or trusting in our best and really wanting it. But the excruciating doubt emerges in me once again: are we capable of really wanting or trusting in the deepest and most human aspect that pulses in us as our best possibility?

Ursula von der Leyen must be overwhelmed by the same doubt as a few days later she did not succeed in getting European States to unanimously accept the political and human measures that she was proposing with a view to a Pact on Migration, and had to be content with “voluntary solidarity”, which boils down to saying: let each State do whatever it wants, whatever it feels like doing… The wish of egoistic interest rather than of solidarity-based good was asserted. A wish without any true will, a superficial desire without any authentic or deep faith in the best possibility that dwells in us. And along this path we will go on heading towards the abyss.

So if there were aliens out there across those endless spaces and who are more intelligent than ourselves and if I could talk to them, I would tell them not to come to our beautiful, sick Earth unless it is to bring us a solution. But I do not believe that a solution can come to us from another planet. Nor can we expect an all-powerful, external “God” to intervene, because we can’t even believe that he exists.

So what can we expect? Can we still have trust? Is there any way of saving life, our own and that of everyone else? I see no alternative other than to act in a deep, concerted, planetary way in four closely-linked fields: policy, education, science and spirituality.

There will be no solution if we fail to believe in and truly want a global policy in capital letters, a new and effective United Nations Organisation because, as Emmanuel Macron said very recently, “the UN is a chaotic system in a chaotic world”. There will be no solution without global consensus on the progressive setting up of democratic, planetary eco-socialism. Violent revolutions have for millennia been demonstrating their ineffectiveness as well as their inhumanity.

However, concerted, global policy action will be impossible without family, school, university and permanent education in respect, dialogue and solidarity as the only path for a good, happy, collective and personal life.

But neither policy nor education can do without scientific knowledge about this wonderful, contradictory living species which is Homo Sapiens. Science alone cannot offer us the solution, but there will be no solution without the sciences. What I believe is that neurosciences and various biotechnologies and pharmaceutical products will be absolutely indispensable to correct neuronal and genetic disorders that have dogged our species since its origin. It has nothing to do with any “original sin”, but with serious shortcomings in an unfinished evolution which the sciences may help to properly channel. The key will lie in putting science and its knowledge to wise use. While military and economic interests determine the sciences as much as they condition them today, they will contribute towards our personal and collective downfall.

And lastly or firstly, I believe that we will not be able to truly trust in the future of humanity while we fail to assimilate the most human, deepest wisdom that over millennia has been developed by the various spiritual, religious or secular traditions, with or without dogmas, with or without “God”.

Homo Sapiens will not succeed in becoming wise, in other words, it will not succeed in wanting profound wellbeing for itself and everyone else nor, therefore, will it be able to live in peace with itself and everyone else while it does not learn to allow what is most intrinsic and true to it to flourish naturally within it, ren or benevolence in its relationships (Confucius), while it does not learn to be like water and empty itself and to allow itself to be carried along without competing (Lao Tzu), while it does not rid itself of its attachments and superficial, deceptive desires (Buddha), and while it does not discover the only true happiness or bliss: peace, gentleness and compassion for the sick (Jesus of Nazareth).

And if that were the case, we would be able to revive our faith in humanity, the faith of deep vital energies that pulse in the soul or in the breath that enables us to be. Will we be capable of believing it and really wanting it?