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Inside this Issue



ARTICLE |

The unanticipated consequences of COVID-19 are impacting every sector, field of activity and level of global society today. They are raising unemployment and inequality, compelling adoption of unconventional economic policies, polarizing societies, activating political extremism, aggravating competitive nationalism, contesting the veracity of scientific knowledge, undermining international cooperation and the functioning of the multilateral system.

At a more fundamental level, the Pandemic has exposed a plethora of hidden threats to human wellbeing which challenge prevailing notions of security, laid bare the inadequacy of partial theories and siloed disciplines, revealed the limitations of narrowly framed sectoral policies and strategies implemented by specialized agencies, and highlighted fundamental questions regarding the complex, interconnected nature of the social reality on which our understanding of the world and ourselves is based.

A new approach to security is urgently needed which relates and synthesizes the multiple dimensions of human life to present a comprehensive, integrated concept of human security. The Sustainable Development Goals identify all the major components but deal with them separately as independent dimensions. Human Security places people at the center and views all these elements as inseparable and interdependent dimensions of an indivisible social whole.

The pandemic thus reiterates the need for fundamental changes in theory, intellectual disciplines, educational curricula and content, the structure and coordination within and between different departments and levels of government, policy-making institutions, programs for implementation and measures for assessment.

At the international level it has profound implications for our conception of multilateralism and the type, structure and relationship between the complex array of international institutions established to foster peace and human security for ‘we the people’.

At a still deeper level it points to the need for a fundamental shift from analytic thinking about specialized, compartmentalized subjects to comprehensive perspectives that include all parts of global society and also perceive the deeper forces and process of social evolution by which the various fields, sectors, levels, ideas, values and aspirations are related and integrated with one another as dimensions of a single transdisciplinary knowledge of the whole.

COVID-19 is a call for new ways of thinking, knowing, educating, decision-making and practical execution of measures to promote human security of all for the common good.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the 60th Anniversary of WAAS and the 10th anniversary of CadmusJournal. It is no minor coincidence that COVID-19 has drastically transformed every aspect of our lives during this time. The pandemic has come to teach us what we have long known but ignored: that it is the unique capacity of human beings to convert the long, slow process of subconscious evolution into a conscious process of social transformation. This has never been more necessary, urgent and possible than it is today. The pandemic delivers an unequivocal message: “Change or be compelled to change.”

To commemorate the 60th anniversary of WAAS, we are republishing an article by Robert Oppenheimer, who was a chief architect of the Academy. In his words, “What is new is new not because it has never been there before, but because it has changed in quality.” Humanity is called on today to change many things, but most of all our understanding of the world we live in, our place in it, and our relationship to it and to one another.

We hope you enjoy this issue.

Editors.

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