Panmobilism and optimism in teilhardian humanism

9.1. The panhuman convergence: a reliable hypothesis

The theory that there is a human synthesis seems indubitable and it is taking place gradually as days and centuries go by in the universe. Teilhard de Chardin himself is aware of this fact and he asserts:

The hypothesis that a human concentration is taking place is satisfactory therefore because it is utterly coherent with itself and the facts. But it also possesses the second sign of all truth, that of being endlessly productive. To admit, in fact, that a combination of races and peoples is the event biologically awaited for a new and higher extension of consciousness to take place on earth, is at the same time to define, in its principal lines and internal dynamism, the thing that our action stands most in need: an international ethic.^'

We need to admit the fact that there is a coming together of human races and of peoples in order to appreciate that which humanity needs most: an international ethics. This international ethics is what we have been considering in a wider context as the Civilization of the Universal, the convergence of all human races towards the Omega Point. Teilhard de Chardin is himself conscious of the fact that this phenomenon calls for no detailed description:

It takes the form of the all-encompassing ascent of the masses; the constant tightening of economic bounds; the spread of financial and intellectual associations; the totalisation of political regimes; the closer physical contact of individuals as well as of nations; the increasing impossibility of being or acting or thinking alone - in short, the rise, in every form, of the Other around us.^'

Hence, we are now in the phase of planetisation. "The age of Nations is past, says Teilhard de Chardin, the task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the earth."³ We will build the earth by humanizing it, by spreading love, mutual acceptance and mutual

^I Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Vision of the Past, London, I966, p. 2II.

² Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, New York, I964, p. II8.

³ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Building the Earth, U.S.A., I965, p. 6.

recognition and by spelling away the forces of division, hatred, racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia.

9.2. The panhuman convergence: against westernisation

The Teilhardian panhuman convergence implies that all cultures, all civilizations and all peoples should keep their specificities in order to converge together towards the Omega Point. In this way, no culture, no civilization or people should pretend to be the universal culture, civilization or people so as to dominate the others, considering them as inferior. It is on the basis of ethnocentrism and racism that western man went to Africa to civilize the negro-african who was considered by some philosophers such as HEGEL, ARTHUR DE GOBINEAU, GUERNIER, LEVY-BRUHL and even HEIDEGGER as an inferior human being characterised by irrationality and a prelo gic mentality which could not enable him philosophise.

In order to be able to speak about a synthesis of all human races, then differences and specificities among cultures and civilizations should not be broken down so as to reach a sort of standardized culture. Yet, nowadays, globalisation just appears as the westernisation of the planet. Western culture is being imposed in some parts of the world in the name of media power.

In an article entitled "Globalisation or Westernisation?" Godfrey B. TANGWA criticises this instinct of domination of western civilization on other civilizations, thus westernising the world instead of making it a table of dialog, a rendez-vous of giving and receiving. In effect, he begins by defining globalisation in these terms:

Globalisation, as a descriptive process, has been made possible and inevitable by advances in science and technology, especially in loco-motion and communication technologies. The net result of these advances has been increased contact between the various peoples and cultures that populate the world. Thanks to this state of affairs, the world is today, unlike yesterday, aptly described as a `global village'. This villagisation of the world should have as one of its logical consequences the slow but sure transformation of the world into a `rainbow village', by analogy with our appellation of South Africa, in our optimistic moments, as the `Rainbow Nation'. Resistance to this aspect of the process of globalisation, exemplified in the savagery with which persons from some parts of the globe are sometimes forcibly excluded from some other parts, cannot but create a lot of tension within the process. Modern technology, in general, and locomotion and communication technologies, in particular, are, of course, inventions of the Western world which have been very effectively used, inter alia, in colonising and dominating peoples in other parts of the world.^'

And he goes further to point out the risk of westernisation in the global village when he asserts:

Globalisation, as a prescriptive process, arises from increasing awareness of both the diversity as well as interdependence of the various parts, peoples and cultures of the world. Globalisation in this sense, is essentially a moral concept. Underlying such blueprints of globalisation as the Biodiversity Convention and the Human Genome Project, are clear ethical impulses, concerns and imperatives. But between globalisation as a descriptive process and globalisation as a prescriptive ideal, there is a difference which involves the danger that globalisation

might end up as or, in fact, might not and never has been more than, mere Westernisation, given the history and reality of Western industrial-technological power, colonisation of non-Westerners, domination and insensitivity to all things non-Western.¹

Finally, he defines Westernisation in these terms:

The spirit of omnivorous discovery which the Industrial Revolution engendered and made possible in Europeans guided them to all parts of the globe where they discovered peoples and cultures so different from theirs that they felt reluctant to qualify them as 'human'. From then on, Europeanisation (Westernisation) of other peoples and cultures appeared naturally in their eyes as humanisation and civilisation. It is in this way that both altruistic and egoistic motives became mixed and confounded in the relationship between the technologically very advanced Western world, peoples and culture and other (technologically less advanced) worlds, peoples and cultures.

2

And he adds:

Since the Industrial Revolution, technology has been propelled to great heights by Western commerce and the profit motive, by war and the will to dominate, by pure epistemological and scientific curiosity, as well as (occasionally) by the altruistic urge to improve human wellbeing. In this process, Western culture has developed the penchant for patenting, monopolising and commercialising any of its so-called discoveries and a nach for spreading and promoting its ideas, vision, convictions and practices under the guise of universal imperatives of either rationality or morality which ought to be binding on all human beings who are sufficiently rational and moral.³

Indeed, Europeanization is to be fought because it is founded on the will to power of the western world, technologically developed, and based mainly on egoistic

^I Godfrey B. Tangwa, Op. Cit., p. 2I9.

² Ibid., p. 220.

³ Id.

166 motives marginalising the third-world, less technologically developed, in the dialog of civilizations. As a bioethician, TANGWA goes a step further in expressing the enduring danger of Westernisation at the level of biotechnology, thus affirming inter alia:

Today, biotechnology, an aspect of Western industrialized culture, is capable of manipulating or modifying the genes of living organisms. This raises many ethical problems, some relating to biodiversity and the environment in general. Bioethics owes its own development to awareness of the seriousness and magnitude of these ethical problems which cannot leave any culture indifferent, no matter its own level of technological development. Africa, for instance, which presents remarkable biodiversity, against the background of which human values and attitudes different from those of the Western world have developed, cannot be indifferent to the problems raised by biotechnology. It is possible for global ethics to emerge, provided globalisation does not simply translate in to Westernisation.^'

Placed in the midst of Western and African values, modern negro-African is called to remain himself, accepting what is good in the western world and at the same time valorising still the virtues of African cultural values. Leopold SEDAR SENGHOR then appears as an example to follow for Africans who tend to lose their identity or their personality because of the influence of the western world. This is also one of the aims of our work, to fight against the inferiority complex, the dual personality and the depersonalisation which is gaining ground in the lives of most young Africans. They are called to go back to their cultures in order to know them, in order to live them and in order to express them while discerning between good and bad foreign values, accepting what is good in other cultures and rejecting what is wrong. They should, for example, accept the benefits of the scientific culture, avoiding technophobia, and at the same time, they should reject practices such as abortion, homosexuality or the changing of sex which are becoming part of daily life in Europe and America. Also, they are called to

fight against superstition, which is developed and expressed in African traditions, and avoid practices such as excision, which is still found in some cultures.

9.3. The panhuman convergence: an unconscious phenomenon

The Teilhardian panhuman convergence seems to be an unconscious and irreversible phenomenon and this leads us to some conclusions: first, because it is an unconscious phenomenon, it does not depend on us. Whether we want it or not, we are embarked in a phenomenon that encompasses us and that is beyond our control. In this way, there would be no effort needed on our own part to build the earth by spiritualisin g it with love. If we are unconsciously moved towards the Omega Point, then do we need to strive to come together? Are we not in the same determined world of the Stoics who had to live according to nature in order to find their happiness? If humanity decides to occasion wars in several parts of the planet for peoples to kill themselves, is the panhuman convergence still going to take place?

Secondly, if as Teilhard de Chardin says, the panhuman convergence is an irreversible phenomenon, then, there is nothing humanity can do or needs to do about it. There seems to be one choice left to us: cooperate in this coming together or be dragged by force. Where is the place for human freedom of will and of choice? Is the Teilhardian conception of the collectivisation of humankind still compatible with human liberty? Are men not free to refuse to unite or to come together in synthesis towards the Omega Point?

It is essential to consider these questions which enable us to clarify our understanding of Teilhardian conception of panhuman convergence. In fact we think that in the phenomenon of panhuman convergence, there is still a place for human freedom. This is why Teilhard de Chardin considers that

It seems more and more evident that only one thing is capable of bringing us victoriously past these (...) perils. The sole event to be hoped for at the point of Hominization that we have reached is the appearance in the world of a psychic flux (impulse, passion, faith, etc.) powerful enough to reconsolidate in freedom, both with themselves (on the individual scale) and with one another (on the planetary scale) the emancipated multitude of human molecules. And it is here that the dynamic value (one might say the value of salvation) of an awakening of our minds to the enormous phenomenon of human convergence comes into sight.^'

Thus, Teilhard de Chardin does not exclude freedom in the phenomenon of human convergence; but he believes in man, considering him as a whole phenomenon, placing him at the centre of convergence through what he calls Hominisation. Man is capable of spiritualisin g the earth by spreading love at a planetary scale. It is this optimism that keeps us wondering, when we know that man has proven to be, even in this century, dangerous for fellow man.