er the earth. Beyond each
frontier, however, nationalism has become one of the most divisive
sources of misunderstanding, controversy, disruption and conflict
presently cursing mankind. In the exercise of their sovereignty the
oligarchs who make policy and direct procedure in each sovereign state
put national interests first. On a planet which currently hosts 140
sovereign states this policy of putting the interests of the part before
the interests of the whole results in controversy, conflict, and may
result in collective self-destruction.

It is reassuring and encouraging to compare the rise of nationalism and
Europeanism during the past thousand years with the rise of planetism
and worldism from 1450 to 1970. The development of nationalism and
Europeanism is still incomplete, but the drive in that direction has
thus far survived the fragmenting forces of self-determination and
political independence which have played so vital a role in human
society since the beginning of the present century. Europeanization is
still a dream rather than a reality. The forces of regionalism,
nationalism, and separatism still dominate European life. But the
ideology and techniques of Europeanization are widely recognized,
accepted and put into practice. The development of worldism seems to be
following a parallel course.

Consequently, wisdom, foresight, and the acceptance of change as a major
factor in all social relationships seem to justify our assumption that
sooner or later man's survival on the planet will depend on a degree of
worldist thinking, association and institutionalism that will guarantee
the preservation of order and decency at the planetary level.

Since conformity implies and involves a will to diversity, measures to
establish and maintain order and peace would include the widest possible
latitude and the utmost effort to encourage the greatest possible
diversity at regional, national and local levels. Thus diversity would
become a virtue in much the same sense that conformity became a virtue
in bourgeois Europe toward the end of the last century and in North
America during the Joseph MacCarthy period. Through the past dozen years
American youth has reversed the trend, adopting a permissiveness under
which the sky is the limit in language, clothing, sexual conduct and
professional choice and behavior.

Non-conformity is all very well as protest against super-conformity, but
it fails utterly to meet the basic need