About 3.5 billion years ago, the first life forms evolved on earth. The first life forms were prokaryotes, very simple single cell entities. As the years passed, by the process of mutation, life continued to become more and more complex, until approximately 400,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged. [1] In quick fashion, we became the dominant species on the earth and are now set at the pinnacle of our next stage of evolution, the unification of our species. If the human species acted as one entity, both mentally and spiritually, we would be a formidable life force that may have the ability to expand into the universe. Unfortunately, we are far away from this ideal.
What stands in our way? Just one thing: ourselves.
From the earliest days, humans gathered into small clans, mostly for protection against the harsh realities of nature. This was the beginning of our social evolution. Now, these clans would often fight with other clans in order to ensure the survival of the clan. As we developed, the clans became larger and therefore so also did the social networks. Also, the fights became larger and ultimately became wars. Eventually large countries emerged. The United States of America, the country I am fortunate to live in, emerged with a highly developed democracy and strong national values.
Since the birth of this country, there have been two World Wars and the Cold War, the latter being a stand-off that barely kept the two most powerful countries at the time from hurling enough nuclear weapons at each other to destroy all life on the earth. Fortunately, that never happened, but even today, there are enough nuclear weapons to destroy ourselves several times over.
That may not be our biggest threat. More insidious is the polarization occurring in our country today. There are diametrically opposed political views that split the country, with no real attempt to understand the other side’s concerns. People hide behind ignorance rather than to learn the facts about an issue and why the viewpoints may differ. We hoard what is ours, yet, there are those in our midst that do not have food to eat or shelter to protect them. We still discriminate against those that are different from us in any way, whether it would be color, religion, occupation, upbringing, or some other factor. We even struggle in our personal relationships – with spouses, family members, and our friends. In these relationship struggles, often the issue is simply not living by the Golden and Platinum Rules: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you;” “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.”
In order to reach the next stage of our evolution, our species needs to achieve social justice at a global scale. Social justice is the concept where all people have equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities. [2] In our country, we are far from having social justice. We squeeze the budgets of the school systems in the inner cities, where children are lucky to get a high school diploma, much less get enough education to find and hold a satisfying job, while in a neighboring suburb, the rich residents send their children to exclusive private schools and the most prestigious colleges. There is still insidious discrimination in this country against minorities, foreigners, the lower classes, and even to this day, women. Does a high school graduate from a poor section of Boston, MA who comes from a poor black single parent family have an equal chance to a high school graduate from Newton, MA, who comes from a rich white two-parent family, even if the former has BETTER grades in school? Only when we are totally honest with ourselves that this isn’t the case can we then take positive action toward leveling the playing field.
One of the sad facts of our society is that an agenda of social justice is not being driven by our elected officials, many of whom are elected on platforms of lowering taxes, whether or not they support gun control, their professed position on creating jobs, or their stand on abortion. The average voter could easily argue that government is not the most efficient way of distributing wealth or enforcing measures ensuring social justice. Anyhow, social justice is not the government’s responsibility; it is responsibility of each and every one of us. It is the right way to treat each other, all of our fellow human beings.
Every human being on the planet has a soul, our spirit within. This very fact should be enough to revere each other, for each of us carries a piece of the Higher Power, or in my professed faith, God. If we simply remember that fact, it is far easier to treat each other with positive emotions: love, compassion, empathy, kindness, interdependency, and respect for each other. We can learn to suppress the negative emotions, such as anger, hatred, jealousy, and greed. We can choose to uplift each other and share with those less fortunate than us. Help someone in trouble. Take an inner city youth under our wing and nurture them into a rewarding adulthood. Invite a poor family over for a holiday meal. Most importantly, do someone we don’t know a favor. Little gracious acts of kindness go a long way to uniting people together. Think globally, act locally works not only for the environment but for social justice.
If everyone acted like this, what would happen? People would unite together and truly uplift each other. As we unite together physically and mentally, something greater happens. Our souls unite. We get a little closer to our destiny, the next logical step in our evolution. Mankind evolves together as one entity. Think about how powerful a positive force this would be. We would start revering nature and do whatever it took to reverse the damage we have done to our planet. We would then be poised to start proliferating into the solar system, perhaps even our galaxy. Our scientific advancement and further evolution would result in higher and higher intelligence; we would do things considered impossible by today’s scientific standards. As a benevolent race in a warm universe, could we ourselves in some distant lifetime actually claim to inherit the universe?
It takes just one simple concept to further our evolution: social justice. Think globally, or if we choose to think of grander designs, think universally. Act locally.
[2] http://www.naswdc.org/pressroom/features/issue/peace.asp
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