This will mean starting to imagine — without panic or rush, and with all the care and thoughtfulness that this conversation requires — a global civics standard. Current and probable future levels of global connectivity and interdependence enable and require us to start this conversation.
Whether or not we realize it, we have comparable conversations every day. For example, every day millions of people drive at high speeds encased in a tonne of metal and they do so extremely close to others who are doing the same thing. A slight move of the steering wheel in the wrong direction would wreak havoc, but we cruise carefree, because we have reasonable expectations about the behavior of other drivers.
Our expectations of other drivers, which serve to mitigate the theoretical risks of driving, can exist because people adhere to a framework of laws, habits and conventions about how to operate automobiles. In an increasingly interdependent world, we need a corresponding global framework to put our minds at relative ease. That framework has to be based on global civics, a system of conscious responsibilities that we are ready to take on — and corresponding rights that we are ready to claim — after due deliberation.
To imagine the shape of global civics, a worthwhile exercise would be to take 15 minutes to consider what we would say to the 7 billionth human being — who will join us in less than a thousand days — about the human condition awaiting him or her. This hypothetical conversation would help us take stock of global conditions that we have all helped produce and would set us on a path toward discovering our core responsibilities to each other and the next generation — the essence of global civics.
Hakan Altinay is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE/INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN SCIENCES
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