# The Unity of Nations

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Stanwood Cobb, The Unity of Nations, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> The Unity of Nations
> 
> Stanwood Cobb
> published in Bahá'í WorldVol. 7 (1936-1938), pp. 693-697
> 
> 1938
> 
> "Human history sometimes drifts aimlessly along without
> seeming to go anywhere, then at other times it rides fast on a flowing
> tide that cannot be stopped or turned aside," says David Coyle in his book
> "Uncommon Sense."
> 
> We are in such a swift moving period today.
> It is indeed a crucial moment in the world's history. Vast changes
> have already taken place. Still greater changes are imminent.
> Where is all this leading to?
> 
> Minds are made confused by all this change.
> Hearts are made anxious. For this process of human evolution, if
> we can call it such, has its immediate implications for every individual.
> The sense of certainty, of security, is destroyed by this ominous and bewildering
> destruction of old forms and institutions going on before our eyes.
> Every such destruction suggests the danger of drastic changes in personal
> fortunes. What lies ahead for us as individuals we know not.
> What lies ahead of us in the way of group forms and fortunes we can only
> guess.
> 
> If we could be but certain that this breaking up
> of old forms were leading to something vastly superior; if we could rest
> in the assurance of a stable and universal order developing for future
> humanity out of all this welter and chaos of the workshop period of today,
> we could afford to accept not only with equanimity but even with satisfaction
> the present conditions out of which such a world order would seem to be
> developing.
> 
> In the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh given
> to the world over seventy years ago may be found the clue to these vast
> changes that are taking place. Old forms had to be broken up, in
> order that the glorious structure of the new World Order might arise out
> of the ruins of the godless and semi-pagan civilization of today.
> 
> This new World Order of Bahá'u'lláh
> implies universal peace; the brotherhood of man; the unity of religion;
> the establishment of an equitable, stable, and prosperous economic system
> of worldwide proportions; the setting up of an auxiliary universal language
> as an instrument for world travel, world commerce, and culture; the formation
> everywhere of just governments assuring economic security to the individual,
> restraining the great oppressors, and guaranteeing in actuality and not
> in words a square deal to even the humblest person in his pursuit of life,
> liberty and happiness.
> 
> It may seem paradoxical to state that this glorious
> vision for humanity cannot be achieved save through the creation of chaos
> in human affairs.
> 
> But how would war ever cease, save that the instruments
> of war became so terrible and devastating, so wholesale in destruction
> as to purge the heart and purify the soul of men to that point at which
> actual plans for universal peace could be effected? How could the
> brotherhood of man come about until humanity wearied of the cruelties and
> confusions due to racial and national hatreds? How could one supreme
> and vitally active world religion be achieved, until the peoples the world
> over despaired of the efficacy of their old traditional cults? How
> could the perfect economic pattern be forged out, until capital and labor,
> through battling one against the other, through the attrition and loss
> and chaos of economic warfare and class struggle, reach a point where each
> side is willing to relinquish somewhat of power in order to find in harmonization
> and mutualization of their desires and needs the fair and shining way to
> equitable, stable and universal prosperity? And how could governments
> become just, until the oppressed should rise up with such might as to pull
> down the proud oppressor from his power?
> 
> We shall not grieve over the chaotic conditions today,
> we shall not even be bewildered at these swift changes everywhere occurring,
> if we hold steadily before our eyes the glorious vision of the new World
> Order as revealed by Bahá'u'lláh. Here is a definite
> pattern for human society. An all-inclusive pattern for the expression
> of man's power and abilities in the social, economic and political domains.
> Holding this pattern before our eyes we can work toward it gradually as
> the architect turns into noble reality the blue prints which lie upon his
> desk.
> 
> Instead of confusion we shall then have certitude.
> Instead of despair we shall have courage and glorious hopes. The
> more we see the old forms tumble to ruin before our eyes, the more we shall
> rejoice in the opportunity thus given to us for building new and better
> forms in their place.
> 
> Institutions are not immortal. They rise and
> fall in periodic rhythm--expressive of the growing power of man's ever
> inventive spirit, and obedient to the dictates of destiny. Why mourn
> the failure of old institutions in which crystallization has become an
> omen and a cause of death? Let us rather hail with joy the rise of
> glorious new institutions which promise immense benefits to humanity.
> 
> I
> 
> Let us now view in detail the structure of the new
> World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, announced by Him to the world
> as the Will of the Eternal Mover of cosmic events. Let us view it,
> as the architect helps us to conceive his plans, in the form of the perfected
> structure pictured concretely.
> 
> We are in the year 2001. We look back upon
> the twentieth century as a period of enormous vitality, of stupendous structural
> changes. Out of the apparent chaos and confusion we have seen emerge
> great and universal institutions founded upon the predication of the Oneness
> of Mankind, secured and stabilized by a new human conscience of universal
> brotherhood.
> 
> War has disappeared now and forever. In its
> place we see the promised and long-dreamed-of Federation of the World;
> the League of Nations, so feebly struggling in its early days, having now
> become a universal and effective institution for super-national government.
> The rulers and peoples of the world, wearying of the devastations caused
> by war, have at least actually agreed, in world conference, to simultaneously
> cut down national armaments to that minimum essential for internal order.
> In the place of these fatally competitive armies and navies an international
> police corps has been created, naval and aeronautic, obedient to the will
> of the League of Nations Assembly and upholding the decisions of the Wold
> Court. Swiftly effective is this great international armed force
> in keeping all the peoples of the world subservient to the demands of international
> law and order.
> 
> A world metropolis acts as a nerve center of a world
> civilization, the focus toward which the unifying forces of life will converge
> and from which its energizing influences will radiate. The economic
> resources of the world are organized and an equitable distribution assured
> by the world parliament and international executive. The technological
> power of humanity is fully applied to the exploitations of the earth's
> physical resources. World markets are coordinated and developed and
> the distribution of world products are equitably regulated. Thus
> the major causes of modern war have been removed, since the new international
> government of this Federation of the World so regulates world economy as
> to produce greater prosperity for each individual nation, as parts now
> of a harmonious whole, than have ever been achieved in the past by means
> of the selfish and brutal self-seeking of nations through the instrumentality
> of war and conquest.
> 
> The ancient ancestral quarrel between labor and capital
> has been healed and all their joint problems solved by the far-reaching
> economic laws of Bahá'u'lláh. What are these laws?
> The first is that of profit-sharing, that the net profits of industry and
> business are divided between capital and labor. That is to say, labor
> in addition to a basic minimum wage, has a definite predetermined share
> in the profits. Thus there has been achieved a perfect mutualization
> of capital and labor. New potentialities in labor have been awakened
> and tapped, potentialities of energy and of inventiveness. The productive
> power of industry under this new arrangement has been greatly multiplied,
> and the consuming power of the general public has been enabled to keep
> up with this heightened power of production.
> 
> II
> 
> Yes, through the application of a very simple economic
> principle, the age of abundance dreamed of by the young economists of the
> 1930's has actually been achieved. Whereas before, in the confused
> economic period of the twentieth century, too much of the proceeds of industry
> flowed to capital to become investment money and too little to labor in
> the way of becoming consuming power; now the law of profit-sharing, elastically
> applied, has helped to maintain consumption on a parity with production.
> A second great law, that of graduated income and inheritance taxes, so
> steep in the upper registers as to prevent excessive fortunes, further
> serves to divert income from investment to consumption channels.
> This new economic regime, adapted by the respective nations to their internal
> needs and aided by the international government, maintains an equitable
> and permanent parity between production and consumption.
> 
> This same parity is maintained in the agricultural
> domain. For the first time in world history it has been found possible
> to obtain markets for all food products grown. The immense agricultural
> potentiality of the earth's surface is now exploited with all the skill
> and technological planning of a human society that has at last reached
> maturity.
> 
> The world's agriculture is now practiced on a universal
> basis. The great staple crops of the world are kept flowing from
> high levels of productiveness to areas low in productiveness but high in
> consuming power. Agricultural engineering and planning of world-wide
> scope supersedes waste and chaos. Backward people are assisted by
> technological leaders lent to them from other countries to train them in
> scientific methods of agriculture.
> 
> Now all the world is fed, clothed and housed with
> a fair degree of comfort. No one on the surface of the planet goes
> to bed hungry--not even the humblest individual of the most backward country
> of the world. Such is the far-flung efficiency of the great super-government
> of the World-State.
> 
> The vast industrial potentiality of humanity, now
> stimulated by a stable and universal consuming power, turns out necessity
> and comfort goods in such quantities and at such cheapness as to enrich
> the humblest home with ample means of comfortable living. Yet our
> industrial and technical engineers tell us this is only the beginning.
> For they aim to improve industrial methods by their technology and at the
> same time work out efficacious ways and means for increasing the consuming
> power of the public, so as to bring not only the necessary comfort goods
> to every home, but also a constantly increasing range of pleasure and luxury
> goods. For humanity, having begun to satisfy its necessary wants,
> is rapidly developing new wants of an esthetic nature. The home of
> the humblest workman has a beauty of architecture and interior decoration
> possible only to the wealthy in that period of confusion, which prevailed
> in the early part of the twentieth century.
> 
> A vast energy is being directed into civic betterment
> and into the beautification of village, town and city. Parks, schools,
> civic centers, recreational centers, public libraries, museums, institutions
> for adult education--all of these are stimulating the masses and raising
> them to ever new cultural levels.
> 
> The love of beauty has grown universal. The
> simplest articles of daily use have beauty of design and color. The
> radio, the moving pictures, the symphony orchestras spread everywhere within
> reach of every community, are developing esthetic tastes and opening up
> opportunities for new artistic talent and achievement.
> 
> For the world order of Bahá'u'lláh
> is not a mere proposition of counting-house and mart. It is dedicated
> not only to order and prosperity, but also to beauty and to joy of living.
> 
> The World Federation of Bahá'u'lláh
> is united by a universal auxiliary language which was selected by the rulers
> of all the nations meeting in Congress and thereafter prescribed in all
> the schools of the world. This does not displace the native language
> but is auxiliary to it. The international language has become a most
> essential implement for international commerce, travel and culture.
> Important books appear simultaneously in the native and in the universal
> language. International conventions and conferences are held in this
> new language. Its use also helps in developing the psychology of
> brotherhood. The importance of linguistic unity in the development
> of a cohesive nationalism had long been recognized by the leading nations
> of the world; the same psychological implement is now applied to the forging
> out of a cohesive internationalism.
> 
> Universal education spreads its blessings throughout
> the world. The school curriculums in the various nations of the world are
> fast approaching a common educational aim and ideology. This educational
> homogeneity is in itself a powerful aid toward world unity of thought and
> feeling. Through the aid of the universal language scholars can now
> travel from country to country and attend universities anywhere in the
> world.
> 
> A new world culture is fast developing as the final
> majestic flowering of that culture called Renaissance which saw the first
> faint beginning of a harmonization of Oriental and Occidental culture-modes.
> We had seen this cultural unification of Orient and Occident developing
> with considerable acceleration during the last half of the nineteenth,
> and throughout the twentieth century. The coalescence has now become
> practically completed. The treasures of Oriental culture have been
> joined with the best and richest values the Orient has to offer, producing
> a universal culture of remarkable virility, charm and progress-mindedness--a
> culture in which the esthetic quality of the East is mated to the technological
> prowess of the West.
> 
> This final and complete coalescence of culture has
> come about through the emotional unity caused by the spread of the Bahá'í
> Faith throughout the world, and the development of a unified conscience
> of brotherhood, now firmly uniting every nation and people on the planet.
> 
> The important factor in the world unity now being
> achieved is the establishment of a universal religion in accordance with
> the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh. The various races of
> the world have come to see that life spiritually is one; that as there
> is but one universe, so there is but one God and one Truth. The religious
> ideology and practice of the planet have for the first time in history
> been brought into an effective unity through acceptance of the Revelation
> of the new World Order of Bahá'u'lláh.
> 
> This new and miraculous spiritual unity of the human
> race is the most important single factor in the creation of an effective
> working unity of thought and action among the two billion people that inhabit
> the globe.
> 
> The apex and keystone of this world structure is
> the institution of the Guardianship established by Bahá'u'lláh
> as the focal point around which the world's thought and action revolve,
> creating a functional unity unassailable by the dispersive quality.
> 
> This same spiritual force of divine guidance and
> protection permeates to greater or lesser degree the functioning of the
> various legislative and administrative bodies--local, national and international.
> In fact, a new type of government has sprung into being, combining the
> important elements of democracy, aristocracy, autocracy, and theocracy.
> It would not be possible here to describe fully the plans and working out
> of this Bahá'í type of civilization which avoids the weaknesses
> and inefficiencies of democracy, and brings to bear upon its various functions
> the abilities of the most gifted and devoted citizens. Permeating
> universally the ordering and functioning of this new government is the
> practice of collective turning to the Divine Ruler of the universe for
> guidance in the solution of all difficult legislative and administrative
> problems.
> 
> This titanic enterprise--the creation in actuality
> of the world vision of Bahá'u'lláh--is now, in this beginning
> of the third millennium of the Christian era, well on its foundational
> way toward success. But it will take centuries to complete the structure
> in all its perfection. What had appeared an impossible dream in the
> age of confusion of the first half of the twentieth century, has proceeded
> to its marvelous consummation with constantly accelerated and miraculous
> speed during the second half of that century.
> 
> The Kingdom of God, pre-existing architecturally
> in the Realm of Causation--that Archetypal World of which Plato knew--has
> at last descended to earth and evolved its perfect pattern in this fair
> and noble structure, the new World Order of Bahá'u'lláh.
> 
> Thus the blueprints of God have become the New Jerusalem
> visioned by the apocalyptical seer of Patmos. The world brotherhood
> of Christ has been achieved.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views20458 views since posted 1998; last edit 2024-10-14 04:50 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../cobb_unity_nations;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
> Language
> English
> Permission
> © BIC, public sharing permitted. See sources 1, 2, and 3.
> History
> Typed 1998 by Ralph Wagner.
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> Shortlink: bahai-library.com/132
> Citation: ris/132
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> — *The Unity of Nations (Used by permission of the curator)*