How Useful Is It to See the World as a Society of States - Essay Example

? How useful is it to see the world as a society of s? The world’s communities, societies and s, as complex as they may be, came from simple albeit humble backgrounds. Before exploring the idea of seeing the world as a society of states, this article will attempt look into the origin of the societies then onwards to attempting to visualize a world in which these societies are the central theme that define the relationship between the states. Introduction At this point in time, this article will attempt to delve into the definitions of key terms in the topic. The first term is society. This is a collective of people who share a common identity, a culture, a tradition, a collective memory, a belief system, social structure and institutions (Bellamy, 2005, 218). These individuals will experience a sense of solidarity and unity which drives them to establish, in essence a common social identity (Bar-Tal, 2000, 1). Conversely, the state is the body that according to Weber has the sole right or monopoly of power over anyone living within its jurisdiction. Lenin, on the other hand, has a similar definition of the state as being bodies of armed men (Parkin, 2003, 13). In the definitions of both men, one overriding theme in the interpretation of the state is the monopoly of power. If a body of people can claim this monopoly and have legal backing, for example, through elections or constitutions, they will then have then the right to claim the state tag on them (Dunne, 1998, 124). Origin of societies, states and man The societies and states have their origin in the Homo Sapien Sapien. This is the modern man starting from the Cro-Magnon Man all the way to the current man. There are a number of evolutionary stages, three in number that led to the complex societies that exist today (Buzan, 1992, 343). The first stage is the structure of consciousness emerging, which consists of the magical, the mythical, the deep consciousness, and the ego-focused mental consciousness. The second stage is that of the development of communication from development of speech, writing, print, wired and wireless, electronic and now internet, and the third stage is that of three evolutionary stages namely the “human revolution” causing emergence of the Homo Sapien Sapien, the agricultural revolution and the scientific plus industrial revolution (Banathy, 2000, 107). This article wishes to recognize the Genesis story in the bible and will continue to draw comparisons between the evolution story and the creation story. A lot of similarities will be drawn from the two stories. For example, the evolution of agriculture features on both stories. The creation story is based around this stage, for example, the statement in Genesis chapter 3 verses 17-19 where man is cursed to tend to the ground so that it may produce food for him. This ground is cursed to produce weeds and thorns as per the need to punish man. The bible is replete with agricultural settings that enhance this argument. The same applies to print technology, which allows the ancient writers to preserve the various works of God and Jesus as they form the state of Israel. Though many may beg to differ with this article, the facts are that the two stories are more similar than they are different. Back to Banathy’s argument, there are six stages of the change to the current status of man. These stages are archaic sapiens at the bottom; the Cro-Magnon Man who comprises the first stage in Homo Sapien Sapien’s evolution, the next stage is that of agriculture/ancient Civilizations, the next stage is that, of scientific and industrial evolution, the next stage is emerging stage. The final stage comprises the consciousness, intellect and the way of life clusters. It is not easy to quantify the actual origin of human society. Question that begs an answer is when exactly human society began. Early man was quite social. This is driven by the fact that evidence points to small groups coming together to hunt, gather fruits as well as protection. At this early stage of life when man still lived in caves, he still valued blood relations and thus the father would protect his mate and offspring in the cave where they lived. This is evident from numerous rock paintings done at this time, which depict groups hunting together and living in the same quarters (Blackmar, 2010, 124). With this evidence, therefore, it is proper to state that society in its primitive and simple manner traces its origins to the time of early or ancient man. With time and with the agricultural revolution happening, societies and later states are founded. Egypt is able to thrive, thanks to the Nile River as well as the discovery of papyrus reeds that allow them to learn, store information as well as keep proper accounts of their farm produce. This allows them to thrive. In Europe, city states like those among the Greeks came up along the same lines as was the Roman Empire (Blackmar, 2010, 119). Into the 21st Century: Globalization and Information Age To this point, this article has looked at the evolution of the society and the state. This then leads to the call to view the world as it is today (Buzan, 2010, 2). Unlike the case in the past, the world as it is today does not have the need to build a wall around its cities in order to protect itself from invading barbarians as Europe did against the Mongol hordes led by the great Khan Ogadei and his general Batu Khan who pillaged whichever city or countryside that they came found (Sedlar, 1994, 3). The world as is currently, though experiencing wars and conflicts, very different from the world as it was then. Scientific and industrial revolutions have happened, and currently power is slowly shifting from the individual state towards multi-national organizations like the United Nations, European Union among others. At the same time, the matter of globalization has enabled large companies to hold sway in some small economies, in the third world (Pierson, 2004, 13). Globalization is a term that has a wide variety of definitions. Waters (2001, 24) defines a globalized world as one where only one society and culture exist. This is an ideal society where people all over the world have a common culture (Hoogvelt, 1997, 42). The ease of movement of people within and across borders has allowed the interaction of different ways of life, and this allows people to influence each other thus creating new unique cultures (Smith & Debrah, 2002, 73). The other issue of concern that must be looked into is the information age. This can be defined as that capability of man to manipulate information using technology to thus change the environment around them (Porter & Read, 1998, 142). With the role played by the internet and the media, this is a possibility as the media can act as an influencing factor in the manner of dressing, eating, language among other crucial aspects of human life (Vertovec & Posey, 2003, 12). Interaction in the modern setting has changed with the inception of the information revolution (Hundley, 2003, 54). The manner that business is conducted, interaction and how government is run has changed. This has been both for the better though there are negative impacts that have resulted from this (Kinnvall & Jonsson, 2002, 123). On the positive side, democratization has been enhanced in many regions, for example, the rebels during the Arab spring which utilized social media, wall-to-wall television thus keeping up with news on events that were on-going in the rest of the Arab world through (Schattle, 2012, 174, Slevin, 2000, 18). The role played by social media especially in organizing meetings, rallying for support and sympathy from the international community as a whole plays a crucial role in getting out information of what is happening on the ground when the government of the day attempts to gate keep on the information that is flowing out (Anderson, 1996, 142). How useful is it to see the world as a society of states? As per the definition of society defined earlier, the question as to how the relevant is it to look at the world as a society of states comes in. At this point, the English School of thought comes to mind. This school focuses on two principle elements namely the three key concepts and its pluralist approach. The three key ideas are international society, international system, and world society (Buzan, 2004, 348). International system refers to the system of power being centred among states (Kenneth & Laudon, 1991, 16). This relates to the manner in which the states use power within themselves as well as how they interact with other states and haw they impact on each other (Dreher, Noel & Martens, 2008, 41). This is what was discussed above on the impacts of both globalizations, as well as the information revolution (Marfleet & Kiely, 1998, 123). It is within international systems that impacts of colonialism are also seen because colonialism and neo-colonialism are instrumental methods of a state to ensure that its influence and culture is absorbed by the weaker state (Buzan, 2004, 41). International society moves hand in hand with international systems. This refers to the integration of the shared interests that the states have (Sammie & Roth, 1992, 12). This means that states have come to the point where they form trading blocks, alliances during war time among other aspects (Buzan, 2004, 46). World society on the other hand will transcend national, state boundaries and have a wider reach in its influence (Hochschild, 2005, 14). Communism, for example, though originating from the then Soviet Republic (now Russia) had the far reaching effect on Somali during the reign of Siad Barre. This shows the difference between International systems and International societies (Hall & Soskice, 2001, 18). An example here would be capitalism or communism (Buzan, 2004, 24). Conversely, there is the idea of international human relations. This is a case of human beings who interact with each other on the international arena (Jackson, 2000, 74). The usefulness of the world as a society of states is that it allows the equality of all the players in the world stage as the ideals are shared all over. This means that the interaction would be more intimate, and as a result, the states would be better placed to help each other out. An example is that trading partner states will advance each other goods on credit and thus prosperity is assured. At the same time, culture can transcend across boarders and permeate into new societies. This is a positive thing since it will allow a society to adopt new ways of life that help that society to move from retrogressive ways into progressive ones (Carbaugh, 2009, 114). The coming together of states as a society will mean that some weaker states will be exploited by the stronger ones. This has been seen in the exploitation of countries during the colonial era (Vaidya, 2006, 34). In that era, the colonies had their resources plundered, and before that, their most productive people were shipped to Europe, Arabia, and South America among other regions to work as slaves. After all that, came neo-colonialism where the former colonial masters continue to trade with them in an unfair balance of trade. Conclusion As seen throughout this article, there are benefits in looking at the world as a society of states. However, the manner that different states will relate with each other in this society must be evaluated in the best interests of the member states. References Anderson, J. A. (1996). Communications Theory: Epistemological Foundations. New York: Guilford. Banathy, B. H. (2000). Guided Evolution of Society: A Systems View. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Bar-Tal, D. (2000). Shared Beliefs in a Society: Social Psychological Analysis. California: Sage Publications, Inc. Bellamy, A. (2005). International Society and Its Critics. 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