H.G. Wells (21 Sep 1866 – 13 Aug 1946): The Open Conspiracy for Peace
BIOGRAPHIES, 21 Sep 2020
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
“Behind the short-sighted governments that divide and mismanage human affairs, a real force for world unity and order exists and grows.”
— H. G. Wells in, A Short History of the World, 1943
Author H.G. Wells (1932)
Herbert George Wells, an active world citizen, is usually known as just H.G. Wells. (1) From the publication of The Time Machine in 1895 to his death in 1946, Wells ‘bestrode his world like a colossus’. He was a creator of modern science fiction, a pioneer of women’s rights (though he treated some badly in his many love affairs), a journalist, historian and novelist. Above all he was a social thinker devoted to peace and a stable world order. (2)
Wells first studied biology under Thomas H. Huxley, the leading Darwinian of Victorian times, and came to see the ethical principles underlying humanity’s social systems as being rooted in the evolutionary process and therefore having the potential for onward development. Just as there was one major factor in biological progress − natural selection − so in social progress, there was one major factor − the quality of enlightened thought. As he wrote,
“However urgent things may seem, a great mental renascence must precede any effectual reorganization of the world. A systematic development and a systematic application of the sciences of human relationship, of personal and group psychology, of financial and economic sciences, and of education − sciences still in their infancy − is required. Narrow and obsolete, dead and dying moral and political ideas have to be replaced by a clearer and simpler conception of the common origins and destinies of our kind.”
Wells was critical of democracy as being too slow and always tending toward the middle of the road on important issues. In 1928, he tried to alert to new dangers and possibilities by proposing an “open conspiracy” − an elite group of pioneer world citizens who would organize to move humanity forward. (3). The Open Conspiracy was his organizing manual for the diverse constituencies of globally-minded citizens to bring sanity to the organizing of human affairs.
Wells clearly foresaw the need for a re-organization of the economic affairs of humanity. As he wrote,
“A federation of all humanity together with a sufficient measure of social justice to ensure health, education, and a rough equality of opportunity to most of the children born into the world, would mean such a release and increase of human energy as to open a new phase in human history.”
Some progress has been made in the identification of endangered species, and a variety of international conventions have at least slowed the despoliation of an amount of our natural heritage. Yet the ongoing destruction of forests, over-exploitation of the oceans as well as other signs of the environmental crisis are constant reminders of how much distance is left to travel.
Wells was harshly critical of Marxist theory and of the Communist rule of Stalin in the USSR. Thus he contrasts his “open conspiracy” with the closed conspiracies and vanguard approach of Lenin whom he had met in 1920. He was also highly opposed to Fascism and its closed conspiracies. The “open conspiracy” is a project for every manner of person once an individual has developed a ‘world consciousness’, though Wells was himself very Eurocentric in his world outlook.
He summed up his views as a race between education for world citizenship and catastrophe − a task or bold and creative minds.
NOTES:
- For a detailed biography see: David Lodge A Man of Parts (New York, Viking, 436pp.)
- For an overview of his political thinking see: John S. Partington. Building Cosmopolis: The Political thought of H.G. Wells Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)
- The Open Conspiracy was first published in 1928 and slightly revised published in 1933. The 1933 edition is republished much more recently with a strong introduction and notes in W.Warren Wagar. The Open Conspiracy/H.G. Wells on World Revolution (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 151pp.).
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René Wadlow is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. He is President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation and problem-solving in economic and social issues, and editor of Transnational Perspectives.
Tags: Biography, H. G. Wells
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It is foolish to talk world unity without attaining world peace, and it will be more foolish to talk world peace without attaining peace at the individual level. And there is possibility if man is set right, the world would automatically be set right. For more details one may refer to;
Peace and Nonviolence
Focus Article
By Surya Nath Prasad, Ph.D.
Sang Saeng, A UNESCO-APCEIU Magazine,
No. 27 Spring, 2010, pages 8-11 http://www.unescoapceiu.org/board/bbs/board.php?bo_table=m411&wr_id=57
Values like democracy, justice, peace, tolerance, nonviolence, altruism and other values are the integral manifestation of universally inherent the five elements, viz.–body, vitality, mind, intellect and spirit – which constitute every man and woman,, everywhere without any discrimination, and the non-realization of these elements leads man or woman to create disvalues like non-democracy, injustice, war, intolerance, violence, selfishness, and other disvalues followed and practiced. For more details one may refer to:
Manifestation of Inherent Human Elements in Creating Values for Sustainable Peace
Surya Nath Prasad, Ph. D.
Peace and Conflict Monitor
https://www.ideasforpeace.org/es/content/manifestation-of-inherent-human-elements-in-creating-values-for-sustainable-peace/
If people do not eat by proxy, drink by proxy and marry by proxy, then why they should be ruled by proxy, they must be masters in the houses of their respective nation-states with regard to good governance, till they are not truly educated in man-making universal peace education, their elected representatives in proxy governments must serve them whole-heartedly in their development, not to rule them as their masters, and they should also be trained in man-making universal peace education to provide better governance. For more details one may refer to:
Peace Education for Genuine Democracy, Good Governance and Nonviolence
By Surya Nath Prasad, Ph. D., Transcend Media Service
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/04/peace-education-for-genuine-democracy-good-governance-and-nonviolence/