A Commitment to
Rationality
Moral
commitment and fidelity to our cultural heritage doesn’t conflict with applying
the maximum of objectivity and rationality in the analyses of international
affairs, and of reality in general.
If we deem that other peoples’ successes and tragedies concern us as well,
it is also because we are convinced that there is neither inevitable conflict,
nor incompatibility among cultures; that there are languages that are understood
by everybody: the language of science, the language of independent research, the
language of reason. This we see in the symbol of basic geometry: Pythagoras’s
theorem.
The language of reason can enable us to communicate and find a common
ground with any thinking creature. When around 1800, over two centuries ago, the
idea became widespread that there could be intelligent life on other planets,
notably on Mars, different ways of communicating were considered. A German
amateur astronomer, by the name of Kros, proposed the construction of a giant
lighthouse that would send intermittent signals in a rational way: first one
blink, followed by a pause; the two blinks and a pause; then three and a pause,
and so on. If in space there were thinking beings, the meaning of this series of
rational numbers could not escape to them, and – allowing for the time necessary
for the construction of a similar lighthouse – a response would certainly come
from some other planet.
After a debate that lasted for about twenty years, an even better method
of ascertaining the rationality of the hypothetical inhabitants of other planets
was proposed. It consisted in lighting a giant series of fires in the Sahara,
shaped to represent Pythagoras’s theorem. This was considered the quintessence
of rationality. No living creature could defy the compelling logic it represents.
Any thinking creature would recognise us as equals to him. Rationality is
universal. If we could stick to it, no faiths, no ideologies, no opinions, no
vested interests, no addiction to power positions could prevent a peaceful
co-existence of the peoples of the creation.
Homo Sum, et Humani
Nihil a Me Alienum Puto
"I am a man,
and nothing human is indifferent to me".
This famous
sentence by Terentius explains well the way in which a contemporary European
observer cannot but look at world affairs, at all the tragedies and triumphs of
mankind. L'idée de l'unité morale du genre humain, conçue par les philosophes
grecs, avait passé chez les écrivains et les jurisconsultes latins.
To us
Europeans, this is part of our classical legacy, as Terentius – the Roman author
who wrote it – lived at a time when the Ancient World was on the brink of the
Christian revolution, still had not personally converted.
But this is
also part of our Christian culture, based on the idea of the moral unity of the
entire human gender. And none but Saint Augustine calls Terentius’ words "a cry
of nature", and relates that "when first this beautiful verse was heard in Rome,
a universal applause rose from the amphitheatre: hardly a single man who seemed
insensitive could be found in such a large crowd, composed of Romans and the
representatives of all the nations already subject or allied to their Empire".
More recently,
and more modestly, this truth has also inspired our modern secular philosophers,
as Voltaire wrote that "C'est au genre humain qu'il eût fallu faire attention
dans l'histoire ; c'est là que chaque écrivain eût dû dire : Homo sum, mais la
plupart des historiens ont décrit des batailles". Karl Marx considered these
words "his favourite maxim", and Alphonse Esquiros found that the time had come
for the Nations to tell "We are a people, and nothing that happens to other
peoples can be indifferent to us".
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