The book denounces the irresponsible recklessness of some
geopolitical agendas which are pushing the world relentlessly
toward a major global war, and possibly toward nuclear destruction
or apocalypse. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently
placed the "Doomsday Clock" at three minutes to midnight. Signs
pointing toward a possible grand disaster are multiple: everywhere
one looks in our world today one finds ethnic and religious
conflicts, bloody mayhem, incipient genocide, proxy wars and
"hybrid" wars", renewal of the Cold War. Add to these ills global
economic crises, massive streams of refugees, and the threats posed
by global warming - and the picture of a world in complete disorder
is complete. Thus, it is high time for humankind to wake up.
Starting from the portrayal of global "anomie", the book issues a
call to people everywhere to oppose the rush to destruction and to
return to political sanity and the quest for peace. This is a call
to global public responsibility. In ethical terms, it says that
people everywhere have an obligation to prevent apocalypse and to
"maintain" our world or "hold the world together" in all its
dimensions - including the dimensions of human and social life,
natural ecology, and human spiritual aspirations (or openness to
the divine). Differently out: in lieu of the prevailing disorder
and brokenness, the book urges us to search for a new "wholeness"
and just peace. The book is intercultural and also
inter-disciplinary. Since the aim is holistic - to hold the world
together - the book necessarily has to draw on many disciplines:
including philosophy, theology, social science, history, and
literature. In terms of Western philosophical and intellectual
legacies, it draws mainly on the teachings of Nietzsche, Heidegger,
and Derrida. It also offers a completely new interpretation of the
work of Thomas Hobbes, unearthing in this work an ethical demand to
exit from the state of perpetual warfare in the direction of a
shared commonwealth. The text also relies on the teachings of
Christian theology (both Catholic and Protestant), invoking at
crucial junctures the works of Karl Barth, Raimon Panikkar, and
others. In terms of non-Western intellectual and spiritual
legacies, the book offers new interpretations of leading texts in
the Indian and Chinese traditions. Thus, emphasis is placed on the
ideas of "world maintenance" (loka-samgraha) in Hinduism and of
"All-Under-Heaven" in classical Chinese thought. Although a central
thrust of the text is for a new wholeness, the goal is not a
uniform synthesis where everything would be swallowed up in a bland
unity. Rather the issue is how to preserve diversity of the world
in its rightful integrity, by linking all elements in a complex web
of interconnections and "relationality".
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