{"id":167821,"date":"2020-09-21T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=167821"},"modified":"2020-08-31T06:37:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T05:37:26","slug":"h-g-wells-21-sep-1866-13-aug-1946-the-open-conspiracy-for-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/09\/h-g-wells-21-sep-1866-13-aug-1946-the-open-conspiracy-for-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"H.G. Wells (21 Sep 1866 \u2013 13 Aug 1946): The Open Conspiracy for Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBehind the short-sighted governments that divide and mismanage human affairs, a real force for world unity and order exists and grows.\u201d <\/em>
\n\u00a0— <\/em>H. G. Wells in, A Short History of the World, <\/em>1943<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Author H.G. Wells\u00a0 (1932)<\/p><\/div>\n

Herbert George Wells, an active world citizen, is usually known as just H.G. Wells. (1) From the publication of The Time Machine <\/em>in 1895 to his death in 1946, Wells ‘bestrode his world like a colossus’.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Above all he was a social thinker devoted to peace and a stable world order. (2)<\/p>\n

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 \u2212 natural selection \u2212 so in social progress, there was one major factor \u2212 the quality of enlightened thought. As he wrote,<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever urgent things may seem, a great mental renascence must precede any effectual reorganization of the world.\u00a0 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 \u2212 sciences still in their infancy \u2212 is required.\u00a0 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.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wells was critical of democracy as being too slow and always tending toward the middle of the road on important issues.\u00a0 In 1928, he tried to alert to new dangers and possibilities by proposing an \u201copen conspiracy\u201d \u2212 an elite group of pioneer world citizens who would organize to move humanity forward. (3). The Open Conspiracy was<\/em> his organizing manual for the diverse constituencies of globally-minded citizens to bring sanity to the organizing of human affairs.<\/p>\n

Wells clearly foresaw the need for a re-organization of the economic affairs of humanity.\u00a0 As he wrote,<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Wells was harshly critical of Marxist theory and of the Communist rule of Stalin in the USSR.\u00a0 Thus he contrasts his \u201copen conspiracy\u201d 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.\u00a0 The \u201copen conspiracy\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

He summed up his views as a race between education for world citizenship and catastrophe \u2212 a task or bold and creative minds.<\/p>\n

NOTES:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. For a detailed biography see: David Lodge A Man of Parts <\/em>(New York, Viking, 436pp.)<\/li>\n
  2. For an overview of his political thinking see: John S. Partington. Building Cosmopolis: The Political thought of H.G. Wells <\/em>Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)<\/li>\n
  3. The Open Conspiracy <\/em>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 <\/em>\u00a0(Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 151pp.).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    ______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/em>Ren\u00e9 Wadlow is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a><\/em>. He <\/em>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 <\/em>Transnational Perspectives.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Herbert George Wells, an active world citizen, is usually known as just H.G. Wells. 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":167822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[214],"tags":[900,2128],"class_list":["post-167821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biographies","tag-biography","tag-h-g-wells"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}