Lets' start with the death and resurrection of Christ.
Christianity spread like wildfire through the known world thanks to the "acute" timing of Pax Romana. The blood of the martyrs pave the way that by the 3rd century, Christianity is not anymore a "sect" but the embraced "religion" of the known and civilized world.
Thanks again to the roads build by the Romans to secure the empire, Christianity traveled. And thanks to Alexander the Great, too, for because of his empire, a common language permeated in the known world.
Christianity traveled to the ends of the earth that early church leaders, in order to be "at par" with the church martyrs, had to travel inwardly to spread the faith. Thus, the monks were born. Clear example, St Augustine.
As we passed by the 1,000 years mark, the faith had to be 'reborn'. The epitome of this movement were the lives of St Aquinas and St Francis and later on in the life of Martin Luther and Swingili (?).
But by the 1,500 year mark, and the first version of globalization in the guise of the Conquistadors, faith had to be 'reborn' anew. Thanks to the life of John Calvin and Wesley Brothers, it kept on marching on.
But by this time, faith had a 'mysterious cousin' - reason and logic introduced by the likes of Voltaire and Descartes on one end and balanced by Blaise Pascal on the other end. This times were times of great debates that led to the bloodiest of wars.
But by the turn on 1,700 years mark, the whole world was becoming 'crowded'. The wars of the past used by kings and queens is not anymore enough to sustain life. Its allure was growing stale. A new system had to be born - free markets. Thanks to the likes of Adam Smith. The idea of free markets became the 2nd degree cousin of logic and reason.
As industrial revolution gained steam to reach where we are now, we are faced with a new reality. A reality that shaping to be like "the whole world belongs to everyone". That the whole world does not belong to rich countries but it belonged to all us. That the world is a common wealth.
By today, the first 8 years after the 2,000 year mark, we are once again asked to be still and see the whole new world unfolds.
High oil prices, so high that solar and wind power is starting to look like a clear and viable choice. Ever wondered where the wind came from? I still remember that experiment they had when they kept a number of people caged called "biosphere"? Scientist observed trees falling down at a certain height and weight because inside the biosphere, wind did not exist to strengthen the barks of the trees as it grows. Interesting = )
What if the whole world can only afford to have one country like that of the US in its present set-up?
What if for the whole world to truly succeed in its 2nd round of globalization, it had to redesign and rethink the ideas of Adam Smith in a profound way. I mean, Smith assumed that resources are infinite, right?
To borrow the lines of Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
Brilliant. He speaks anew.
But here's another line, "... the love of money is the root of all evil."
I love that even better.
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