The Revolt Within Society

Among the results of the manifestation of spiritual forces will be that the human world will adapt itself to a new social form, the justice of God will become manifest throughout human affairs, and human equality will be universally established.

(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 131)

The signs that the energies of Revelation are diffusing through society are two: unifying movements slowly growing in power and influence, but discord, commotion and dissension spreading more quickly.  Internal disintegration characterizes ever more areas of society, institutions falter then fall, new movements, politically and economically separatist, religiously sectarian, culturally divided from the mainstream, appear with greater frequency.  Over time, disintegration not only spreads, but accelerates, the world becomes more complicated and strife torn, divided and anarchical, increasing in speed and destructive power with every passing decade. Every year fewer things work.   While most of this upheaval is the commotion characteristic of a disintegrating order, some of it is the result of unifying efforts to bring humanity into a new social order that are resisted by the remaining strongest sectors of the passing order.

The new and larger social unity being established is a global civilization that embraces all humanity as one family, for the fundamental purpose of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh is the realization of not only the spiritual unity of humanity, but also the organic unity of the entire human race.  This world civilization can only be founded upon a consciousness of the oneness of humanity, which is, in turn, grounded in the universal Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.  “In the Bahá'í view, the oneness of humankind represents an organic interdependence within a corporeal social entity. This implies that the welfare of the constituent components of this body is inextricably interwoven with that of the whole. Moreover, the essential oneness of the human race is not restricted to the physical dimension; it extends to the social and spiritual aspects of human life. Through the nurturing and unfolding of man's transcendental potential, cultural diversity can begin to be viewed as the expression of this universal and basic truth.” (Bahá’í International Community, 1990 Jan 26, Combating Racism) 

As I have been arguing, the emergence of this new and larger unity itself provokes dissension, tumult and commotion in the established order, which is a unity of less complexity, order, and coherence.  While all sovereign nations have political and economic challenges and problems to work out between themselves bi-laterally or multi-laterally, all lands and peoples are challenged by the God-given goal of uniting within one social unity founded upon the principle of the oneness of the human race, for this means, among any other things, the abolition of all forms of prejudice, equal opportunity in education and employment for all regardless of race, class, ethnicity, gender or nationality, the just distribution of the world’s wealth, the protection of civil rights, the promulgation of universal human rights, and more, and all on a global scale. To reach this is not just a matter of vision, moral idealism, good planning and hard work. Shoghi Effendi believed: “That nothing short of the fire of a severe ordeal, unparalleled in its intensity, can fuse and weld the discordant entities that constitute the elements of present-day civilization, into the integral components of the world commonwealth of the future, is a truth which future events will increasingly demonstrate.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 46)

At their end stage, “the signs of universal discord” that appear “among the peoples of the world,” and the “commotion” which seizes “the dwellers of earth and heaven” become more powerful than any force for unity except that generated by Revelation.  But Revelation does not come into the world to save the old one, but to build a new one, and a new world is what is required from humanity.  This is hard to discern amid the welter of conflicting passions and movements, some of which are very progressive.  How is humanity to form into a new social unity? 

That question is both separate and inseparable from the questions of religion and consciousness, which are the other two revolts against materialism.  In essence it is all one revolt. But in manifestation it is many revolts going on at the metaphysical, mental, and material levels, each of these levels experiencing their own manifold internal struggles and changes.  Social advance is separate because integration and disintegration are going on socially without any awareness on the part of most people of the origin of the new spirit of religion that is, in my view, generating global ferment.  Yet, all these movements, upheavals and changes, are inseparable just because they are the myriad effects of and varied human responses to the workings of the same sovereign Power and Will.  And, it is in the social dimension that the actual workings of the Spirit can be observed most clearly: more clearly than in religion, where a materialistic world dismisses it outright as either a metaphysical conceit or merely another social force, or in consciousness, where all vision can be thought to originate with humans themselves.  But socially, the pattern and nucleus of a new unity is actually present and manifest for all to see.

Exploring the process of humanity’s social advance will take us alternately and often back and forth between the inside of society to examine the confusion and discern some differences in movements and outside humanity to gain some objective overview of the tumult of transformation.

This double vision is necessary to gain a spiritual perspective which is both penetrating and encompassing.  Remember, Bahá’u’lláh’s characterization of the existing order as “lamentably defective” did not mean that it was totally so.  Much good remained, but what was good could not be saved and also have that order continue. Neither could the good be surgically separated out and saved. Humanity had to transform to save what was good.   The lamentable defect of the materialist order always was, in my opinion, the lack of a transcendent, spiritual dimension to its life and thought due to the decline of true religion.  Thus, it had no means of animating, coordinating and grounding its collective moral life, leading to barbarism, confusion, chaos, and rising levels of violence.  Thus, we must see things not only in their immanent changing state, but also as moving toward a socially transcendent goal.