To Westphalia or not to Westphalia, that is the question

We are not ants.

We have no hive mind.

This is the essence of both the beauty and the destruction of the human race.

After reading the introduction to this section of the reader I presumed that the articles would take my mood downhill as I moved through the three of them; that as they grew less optimistic I too would grow less hopeful. On the contrary, despite the fact that Harris in the second article, uses the incendiary 'cancer of Wesphalia' to describe what he percieves to be the defining feature of International relations, and Falk ends the section on a low note “...there is no reason for confidence.” I was actually slightly lifted by Harris and Falk's arguably 'downer' articles. Perhaps this oppositional mood lifing was caused by intellectually empassioned adreneline, coursing through my veins. Perhaps I'm becoming emotionally numbed from studying the current global environmental situation. Whatever caused it I was plesantly surprised that I wasn't depressed.

This does not mean that I necessariy agree or disagree with one of the authors more than the other. The system is flawed sure, most (all?) man made systems are. This system has been in place for hundreds of years, it has seeped into our cultures, into our collective view of the world we live in, and it we can't easily step out of it. Out of it and into what? We would need an entirely new world wide arrangement.

Overhauling the system is in many ways an attractive idea. But, whenever I 'go there' mentally it seems that a system overhaul would simply be too much work. As an American I believe that anything is possible, but there are so many roadblocks to a system overhaul; so much bureaucratic red tape, so many opposing ideologies, so many differing opinions, that I cannot help but feel that a system overhaul is not a realistically effective option on the table. So despite the fact that I belive that if some magical omiscient being came down and wiped everything away and put it all back clean, fresh, and reprogrammed that we could exist comfortably inside a system that works with the environment, I think that this is unlikely to happen. Thus, I believe in something that I find to be more realistic, and hopefully more effective in the long run, baby steps, or rather one adult step at a time. If we make change slowly within the system we have in place I think people and states will be more likely to go along with it. Of course there is the question of time, how long do we have? How many people can the earth support? Is slowly putting on the breaks while careening down the hill towards the cliff's edge going to stop us in time? Are we careening? I don't have specific answers to these questions of course. I believe masive ideological changes are necessary. Small changes and movement are happening as Clapp and Dauvergne point out at the end of their article in their discussion of Critical Mass and Reclaim the Streets. These movements alone are not big enough to be truly effective, but I think they are a hopeful start.