Revolutionary Holism: The Only Way to a Viable Human Future

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 1 Dec 2025

Glen T. Martin, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service

23 Nov 2025 – It is time our politics matured to the level of what planetary thinker Ken Wilber calls “Integral Global Politics.” That means that most of the world’s population has yet to grow up, including those at the head of nation-states.  Mature human beings understand that every person, no matter their religion, gender, nationality, culture, or other differences, has the right to equal treatment under the law, the right to peace, and the right to a healthy environment.

They understand our common humanity, and our common human situation. They understand that government arises from the people and its sole job is to interface individual freedom with the common good. Government arises not from this or that territorial segment of the people but from all people because we are all human. Emery Reves made this very clear in The Anatomy of Peace (1945). The only truly legitimate government is one for the whole of humanity.

Nevertheless, the world is organized into nearly two hundred sovereign (mostly militarized) fragments.  To say that these many governments legitimately arise from their respective peoples is to commit a gigantic error.  Government arises from the people.  The people of Earth are sovereign and the only legitimate source of government. Authority is properly delegated to each territorial government only by the sovereign people of Earth.

In the Constitution for the Federation of Earth, the people of Earth are in possession of a revolutionary document—because the Earth Constitution declares their collective sovereignty.  Whatever authority nations have derives from the people of Earth represented by the World Parliament under the Earth Constitution.  We the people of Earth, with this document in hand, must take charge of our planet thus protecting the environment, disarming the nations, and ending global poverty.

The age of the nation-state is at its end. The age of humanity has begun. In the name of the Constitution, we the people of Earth have the right and the duty to ratify this constitution and thereby seize legitimate governmental power on behalf of the whole of humanity. There is no way on Earth that the militarized sovereign nation-states can redeem our planetary biosphere, nor end war, nor protect human rights everywhere, nor end global poverty. The very fact that they are fragments denying the whole is the source of their failure. Only the sovereign people of Earth under their revolutionary Earth Constitution can do these things.

The present world system, believe it or not, originated at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 after the Thirty Years War in Europe. Yes, you read that right: 1648, when they were riding horses and fighting mostly with swords.  Today, it is the same system, the product of an earlier historical era, only now the system has intercontinental ballistic missiles with independently targetable nuclear warheads. How absurd is that?

Do you want to save humanity and our planet?  Then sign the Earth Constitution and join the revolution. Welcome to Integral Global Politics.  To think in terms of sovereign nation-states is just childish. The world becomes paralyzed by its mass of territorial fragments, each egoistically appealing to the “patriotism” of its prisoners (for the population of each sovereign nation is prisoner to that government and that territory).  If you don’t believe me about being a prisoner, just try traveling somewhere. Each nation has a set of visa rules and carefully regulates who can get in (or out).  Travel (except for the super-rich) is a nightmare under today’s broken world system.

So is economics, with tariffs, sanctions, exploitation, and greed for natural resources crisscrossing the planet in every which direction, causing confusion and economic difficulties for everyone (except the super-rich). Why should there be super-rich at all?   Why should there be unlimited accumulation of private wealth?  Who thought up and defended this absurdity?  Why—the super-rich, of course, going all the way back to the 17^th century.  This is clearly not the will of the people of Earth but is something the rulers in fragmented sovereign nations want to keep in place.  The super-rich love fragmentation because it empowers their exploitation and political control.

If we follow the Earth Constitution that places integral political power in the hands of the people of Earth, then we are bound to get reasonable economic equality (and hence also authentic democracy).  The Provisional World Parliament at its 7^th session in 2003 already addressed this issue and gave us radical reasonable equality.   But this equality can become a reality worldwide only when the Constitution is ratified and comes into force.  Reasonable economic equity is also essential to democracy.  As long as there are super-rich, there can be no genuine democracy.

Human freedom is not the “right” to act on every impulse regardless of consequences. Human freedom is created by law, and only by law, because human freedom defines the relationship I have with all others, who also need to be free.  As soon as “freedom” is linked to a sovereign nation-state it becomes undercut by the anarchy of competing states and by the supremacy of the super-rich.  Therefore, the only genuine freedom (that human beings have been struggling for since ancient times) is created by the Earth Constitution, ensuring freedom for all within the context of our planetary common good.

We tend to think of political, social, and economic problems as “national problems,” but they are not and cannot be so.  The very existence of a world of 200 or so prison camps in which each government has control over its “sovereign” territory creates immense “internal” problems for each state. The only way to solve such problems is through the Earth Constitution that puts everyone on the same page in the service of the common good of the whole. This is where Integral Global Politics comes to maturity. It begins with you and I advocating the supernational constellation of Earth Federation and it fulfills itself in authentic global democracy, disarmed, with poverty eliminated, and a healthy environment.

In the 18^th century, Immanuel Kant had made it very clear that the system of sovereign nation-states is inherently a war system. It is so even when no fighting is taking place. Reves summarized this beautifully: “War takes place whenever and wherever non-integrated social units of equal sovereignty come into contact.”  If a country amasses troops on its border, or enters into “war games” in a certain region, or increases it military spending, other countries immediately become concerned and react.  The world is like a tinderbox, waiting to explode.  As the speed of delivery systems increases to astronomical proportions, the stability and security of all peoples are reduced proportionately.  The war-system of the world now puts us daily in danger of nuclear holocaust and immanent destruction.

“Holism” does not mean the obliteration of differences. It means embrace of the diversity of humanity simultaneously with its unity. The two are inseparable.  The Earth Constitution grants the people of Earth the authority to advance the principles of democratic world law even prior to its ratification.  Under the authority of the Constitution, we people of Earth promote uniting our planet under its holistic authority through participation in the Provisional World Parliament, thus ending both the war system and the economic exploitation system with its climate destruction consequences.

The sovereign authority of the people and nations of Earth is invested in the tricameral World Parliament: the House of Peoples, House of Nations, and House of Counselors.  The Parliament passes world laws according to the democratic principles embodied in the Constitution and the Bills of Rights in Articles 12 and 13. There is an effective World Judiciary, an effective World Enforcement System, an effective World Executive, and an effective World Ombudsmus that serves as a watchdog for the people and a protector of human rights.  With these checks, balances, and defined responsibilities in place, the people of Earth can rapidly disarm the world, restore the environment, and end extreme poverty.  There is no other way to achieve these goals.

People born anywhere in today’s world think of themselves first as Chinese, Russian, American, Indian, or British, etc.  They have it exactly backward and their immature egoism is what is getting us all killed.  Every person born is first and foremost human.  If we want to honor or preserve the richness of China, Russia, America, India, or Britain, then we need to start with the whole, which alone can elucidate and preserve the parts.  Parts without a whole, are always simply chaos.  As a matter of fact, contemporary science has shown that there is no such thing as parts without the whole of the entire Universe.

The ancient Maha Upanishad declared that “the world is one family.”  But a world fragmented into absolute sovereignties cannot possibly actualize this truth.  A fragmented world requires that my family end at the border, and beyond that, my military has a right to bomb, kill, or destroy anyone that my government designates as a “mortal enemy.”  Like Arjuna in the Mahabharata, I am required to kill members I recognize as my family.  Why?—because my “sovereign government” has ordered me to do so.  To refuse to do so is considered “treason,” sedition, with severe punishments.

Every one of these nations demands that my loyalty to my human family be placed second behind loyalty to some fragment that falsely claims it is “sovereign” and independent in a lawless world (international law, so-called, is no real law).  The UN is predicated on this lawless world and that is why in 80 years it has failed on all these fronts.  The UN has a profound “Declaration of Human Rights” (of 1948) but it also has an antiquated organizational structure (going back to 1648).  The Declaration of Rights manifests mature, worldcentric, integral politics. The organizational structure manifests a nightmare of war, genocide, poverty, climate destruction, and injustice.

The Earth Constitution brings forward the mature Declaration of Human Rights” into a mature, 21^st century organizational structure.  It is time we grew up.  The parts cannot function properly without the whole.  As in the human body, the liver, spleen, stomach, heart and lungs, cannot function without the integrated whole. Our bodies manifest a supreme unity in diversity, as does our global ecosystem. Our planetary organizational structures manifest the disintegration and death of all wholeness.  Now is the time to choose, to make a “Declaration of Independence” from this chaos and ascend to the whole.  One Humanity, One Biosphere, One holistic Cosmos, One Earth Constitution.  Let’s do it.

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Dr. Glen T. Martin:
– Member, TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment
– Professor of Philosophy Emeritus
– Founder/Chairperson Emeritus, Program in Peace Studies, Radford University
– President, World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA);
– President, Earth Constitution Institute (ECI)
– Author of twelve books and hundreds of articles concerning global issues, human spirituality, and democratic world government; a recipient of many peace awards.
www.earthconstitution.world – Email: gmartin@radford.edu

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 1 Dec 2025.

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