Political Implications of Planetization
Togetherness versus Proximity
Planetization brings into our human experience a new togetherness at the planetary level. Togetherness is to proximity what location is to presence. It's the engagement of conscious awareness of place - or the lack of it - that distinguishes 'presence' from 'location'. It's an emotional connection/bond - or the lack of it between people - that distinguishes 'proximity' from 'togetherness'. Ten people can be shoulder to shoulder in a crowded elevator with each individual psychically encapsulated within his or her own personal space and totally oblivious to all others present. This is proximity. Proximity relates to physical closeness only. Togetherness, on the other hand, is an emotional connection. The planetary togetherness we'll come to feel through Planetization is a higher order connectivity that transcends the local, or that which our senses are able to validate. This emotional connectivity at the planetary scale is something totally unique in human history and is being greatly facilitated by our modern electronic communications.
"Achieved with sympathy, union does not restrict but exalts the possibilities of our being."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Stripped of all detail and embellishment, the basic patterning template which currently structures our stance in the world as a species; is that of being in our own particular sub-group, and co-existing with a variety of other human sub-groups. This patterning template is instinctual. It's discussed more fully in the section, INSTINCTS. But there's another, more inclusive way of being in the world that we can adopt, one more in harmony the higher order unity that evolution is now leading us towards.
Already, some individuals experience (to a more limited degree), such bonds of emotional connectivity and sense of Oneness at the planetary level. It's commonplace among those in scholarly groups to feel a global affiliation that transcends all ethnic and national divides, and unites together all those within a chosen field who share the same passionate interest and area of expertise. Historians, doctors, engineers, biochemists etc., everywhere in the world, experience this sense of collegial affiliation and belonging with all others in the global fraternity of their profession. They share membership in the same professional organizations, pour over the same peer-reviewed journals; and attend gatherings in their chosen field that are international in scope. All these activities and more, create in them an emotional bond that transcends all national and ethnic divides. These professional affiliations - planetary in scope - are just one example to show how essentially fluid, flexible, and open to re-evaluation our sense of identification really is... These individuals already experience a planetary bond that is consciousness-based - not one based on geography or genetics.
"(T)he dream of a different state of affairs, (is one) in which the present multiplicity of focus-points of consciousness would in some way or other disappear, and each ego would find it coincided not simply infinitesimally but integrally with the plentitude of being."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Through Planetization, a similar type of consciousness-based identification will become the norm. We've all heard the saying, "A child has to be taught to hate". In a similar fashion, we're taught as children just who we should identify with, and who to regard as 'other' - and just how narrowly or broadly we're supposed to define 'our own kind'. Our electronic communications, specifically the internet, is already broadening the sense we have of 'our own kind'. It's helping to dissolve the internalized barriers that keep us separated, and also helping to create a higher order Oneness at the species/planetary level... Planetization merely takes this process to its ultimate conclusion.
"Brahmi Chetna - Unity consciousness - is the goal toward which all other states of consciousness are evolving."
Deepak Chopra
The Emerging Planetary 'We"
In terms of its political and social implications, this new planetary unity will bring into being a planetary 'We' which will significantly alter how we self-identify beyond the individual ego-based level. It will replace old entrenched sub-group divisions with a more unitive awareness of our common specieshood. It will take the vaguely regressive and pejorative tinge out of the notion of 'the human species' and replace this misguided aversion with our finally owning and embracing the incontrovertible fact that we are a species.
This new planetary "We', based on our species identification, will radically expand our frame of reference - the lens through which we view the world. The vantage point from the emerging Planetary 'We' - and the Nation/State perspective - are mutually exclusive. Just as we can't visualize a landscape from two different points of view simultaneously, or visualize ourselves being in two different places at the same time; we can't maintain the Nation State perspective and the perspective of the planetary 'We' simultaneously. It's an either-or proposition.