Challenges of the Construction of a New Morality
Exported from Holy-Writings.com on 2026-07-04 - 1 clipping

The theme I have been asked to address this morning is morals and ethics.  I
shall confess to you that I had many difficulties in preparing myself for this
speech.  I would ask myself: how should I address Bahá'ís on a subject in which
THEY are the experts -- so much so that it's towards their source that I strive
to draw closer? Such being the case, shouldn't I rather be in the audience than
at the podium?  But as I said before, Bahá'u'lláh's legacy does not belong
exclusively to the Bahá'ís, it is indeed a treasure of the entire humankind,
and I can draw inspiration from His analysis and doctrine as a bedrock for my
presentation.

By the way, concerning the relationship between Bahá'u'lláh and the Bahá'í
Faith, recall Mr. Hooper Dunbar's words, in a very rich conversation we
recently had in Haifa. The honorable member of the Universal House of Justice
told me that the Bahá'í Faith was simply an instrument of Bahá'u'lláh to
establish justice, and should the Faith fail to achieve this objective,
Bahá'u'lláh would certainly promote it through other means.

Justice -- this is the word round which everything else revolves.

A synthetic world that embodies the great drama of the contemporary world -- a
world in convulsion, lost in a multiplicity of false and wayward paths, a world
of disharmony, violence, of outrageous wealth and degrading misery, a world
illumined by science, but at the same time shadowed by darkness of spirit.

This is the picture that brings into focus the moral issue as one of the
central problems at the dusk of this century.

We can certainly discern moral decadence in all countries as a prominent
feature in the current stage of human civilization.  For my country, this
crisis can be perceived in the smallest things. In schools, parents' concerns
include not only school dropout, access to education or the quality of
education, but also the drug dealer stalking students.  In the corporate world,
employees live in constant fear of an unemployment that often transforms decent
citizens into society's pariahs. On the streets, the threat of being robbed
forces one to watch out his or her surroundings.  When it comes to families,
specially low income families, the breakdown of their unity is caused by
violent fathers who pour out abandoned children and wives on the streets. In
public agencies, generalized corruption destroys hopes and creates dangerous
leadership vacuums. Not to mention the pitiful situation of misery in which
millions of human beings excluded from markets and culture live.

In many parts of the world, this panorama of moral, political and social
decadence is further aggravated by racial and engender prejudice and above all,
by the belligerence of nationalistic and religious fanaticism, which bless
violence, incite mass movements and trespass the limits of tolerance.

Despite this tide of events, an important phenomenon can be detected in the
collective human psyche.  Whereas people marvel at the so called economic
globalization, there is a certain insensitivity towards ongoing human
tragedies, an inability to discern the complex causal links involved, and even
a skepticism concerning human nature itself.  There is a clear lack of course,
of strategic assurance towards the future.  All that remains is the enjoyment
of the moment.  To many minds, the tide of events bursting in the world arena
is not the expression of a deep crisis, but rather a trivial phenomenon.

This feeling of accommodation in the face of the present chaos -- a kind of
social disease -- is the result of the special dynamics that characterize
current events: their unpredictability, velocity and abundance.

These characteristics make us see world events as being ephemeral. This
impression of fugacity induces us to view such events with a strange lightness
and to absorb them as mere daily facts, no more than a repetition of facts that
have always been present in history.

Thus, the horrors in Biafra, Rwanda, or Bosnia end up being assimilated as
trivial, that is, as transitory and normal incidents, lightly perplexing,
perhaps, but soon to be relegated to oblivion.

If that is the case, then the current world crisis presents an element that
goes beyond the phenomena that engender the crisis, because it is located in
the social psychology of the crisis. And this social psychology manifests
itself in the trivialization of tragedy, and therefore in the dwarfing of our
sense of outrage. This illustrates how difficult it is to find solutions to our
present problems, because there is no greater tragedy than the trivialization
of tragedy itself.

In the field of economics, the terminology in use shows very well the limited
and tendentious interpretation given to phenomena where human beings are
reduced to mere statistics. (GDP, strong currency reserves, monetary budget,
income per capita, mortality rate, stock market indices, etc.).  This is the
realm of the deified market, where everything is cranked into monetary values.
There is no room for virtues in the "homo economieus".  This important field of
human knowledge must needs be remodeled with new elements reaching beyond
traditional paradigms.

A perspective of life that monetizes human relationships can only result in
social fragmentation in a battlefield crowded with individuals, corporations,
nations and blocks of nations and in an absolute inability to promote social
justice.

I refrain from presenting here the data reflecting the reality of social misery
swamping the globe. So vast is their amount that we are forced to search for
other words that may both synthesize them and expose the full extent of their
tragedy.

In a world of exacerbated competition, the values of freedom transgress the
limits of moderation and prudence.  Quite often, we indulge in an individualism
that exalts greed and selfishness, and makes the terrain of social
relationships arid and devoid of cooperation and friendship.  The exacerbation
of contemporary individualism seems to be one of the main causes for the deep
suspiciousness permeating human relationships.

Not so long ago, in the former Soviet Union, the raison d'etat suffocated the
individual dimension of human existence in the name of a supposedly fairer
type of social organization.  Indeed, human spontaneity and creativity had
surrendered to fear: Today, the hegemony of capitalism has reversed the tide.
It exalts a false view of freedom, stretches individualism to an extreme and
abandons social concerns to market forces.

We can even say that these two recent historical experiences represent two
extremes in the quest for an adequate role for the individual in society.  One
exalted the uniformization of individuals, the other, their differences.  The
former led to the annihilation of the individual's internal forces, whereas the
latter in taking individual autonomy to an excess and as a result to the
violation of its own limits.  The absence of a proper mediation between the
individual and society is conspicuous in both systems -- and it is no
coincidence that social deterioration and the loss of the truly unique
potentialities of human beings can be witnessed in both of them.

It is undeniable that the world today is headed not to civilization but to
barbarism.  Everything indicates that we are fastly stepping towards a critical
point of moral, social and political decay.

What shall we do in the face of such titanic problems?

The answer to this question cannot be simplistic.  In the moral area, evidently
it is not a matter of correcting deviations by promulgating a set of moral
virtues, an effort that would prove totally ineffective.  In the political
arena, it is not about finding out an enlightened leader, endowed with imperial
powers.

Striving to reach a precise diagnosis of the world's situation is a key
strategic issue.  If nothing else, a correct diagnosis will deliver us from
perplexity and paralysis as we face the thunderous events that will seize the
world scene until human affairs have a clearer direction.

I believe that the accuracy of a diagnosis of the present world situation is
also dependent on a correct assessment of what is collapsing in human
institutions.

For centuries humankind lived with the notion that its problems were to be
solved in the scope of its national states.  However, with the progress of
science and technology, nations wound up finding themselves dependent on
decisions lying outside their own domain. More  than attesting to the fragility
of national states in an independent world, this fact reveals the extreme
necessity of searching for new institutional forms fitting this new reality --
a reality in which the flag of world unity, more than a mere appeal for
fraternity, is a vital necessity for putting an end to chaos, establishing new
paradigms and responsibilities.

The quest for this new unity plateau represents a new historical trend,
superior to anything ever built in the past.   It carries with it the most
noble social, political and institutional aims, because it places the entire
humankind under the same political and institutional roof and demands that all
members of the human race, regardless of their origin, enjoy security and peace
and have access, in a just measure, to the wealth produced in the world.

Every effort aimed at building world institutions contributes, thus, to the
acceleration of the delivery process that is afflicting the end of this
century. From the standpoint of practical action, one must identify, amidst the
disorder, those elements expressing historical trends, refine them with ethical
content, and then adopt them as strategic axes.

Regarding this issue, I'd like to offer some remarks on an activity that I
have been developing with the precious collaboration of my Bahá'í friends in
Brazil.

The friends are aware that Bahá'u'lláh, in one of His tablets, mentioned the
role of the Americas in the world's destiny.  These words have encouraged me to
devise a political project for Latin America.

A couple of years ago it was established the site of the Latin American
Parliament, in my country, an incipient institution which has the potential to
perform a very important role in the future.

I intend to convince the board of directors of this institution to convene a
Latin-American meeting of NGOs and government officials. This meeting would
address two issues: the first concerns the implementation of practical measures
addressing the major problems afflicting our continent.  The second regards the
possibility of holding a world conference, so that we could discuss in depth
the problems facing humankind.  I believe that Latin America, because of the
symbolism associated with it, would be the most appropriate site for such a
conference since most of the major world problems are to be found in the
Northern Hemisphere.

These are just some ideas, but I would like to share with you my gratitude to
the Members of the NSA of Brazil for interacting with me on such ideas.  I am
sure that this is a challenge, and as such, it calls for persistent firmness. I
am deeply convinced that, in a direct and just proportion to my personal
efforts, the mysterious forces of Bahá'u'lláh will be marching with me.

A lot has been said about the globalization of the economy.  It is the time now
for globalizing political institutions as well, and searching for the values
and instruments which can give birth to a new citizenship, a world
citizenship.

My dear friends,

I would like to apologize for dwelling too much on the world crisis and other
related issues, when my topic should be confined to morals and ethics.
Nevertheless, I think that the issue of morals can be approached in various
ways.  We could, for instance, discuss how parents should raise their children,
or what a school curriculum emphasizing character formation in children should
look like.

But I wish instead to draw your attention to the following fact:  In a
globalized world, the feelings of affection towards different peoples,
different religions, different races is a fundamental prerequisite for a new
mores and ethic that will cement political, social, and religious relations.
Without this broader affection men will remain the prisoners of past and will
continue to engage in lacking relationships.

When a society is educated so as to show love and respect only to limited
sections of the community, whatever falls outside this little social universe
can easily become the object of hostile feelings and prejudice.  That is the
case, for example, with religious and nationalist feelings.  I can be loving
with the members of my religion or nation, and at the same time be hateful and
disrespectful to those who are not part of them. The tragedy in Bosnia
illustrates this fact in both dimensions.

This feeling of a broadened affection or the universalization of love in the
present scene implies, in reality, recognizing that the dramas and tragedies of
other peoples are our own tragedies.

And this is not a challenge at the level of one's awareness or reason alone. It
is about something deeper, the roots of which must sprout in people's very
hearts.  Achieving this calls for an educational endeavor in an infinitely
higher scale than that of traditional education.  Conquering this challenge
will depend on a concerted effort by formal structures, such as schools,
government agencies, families, religions, etc., and informal structures such as
the media.  It will depend especially on the conduct of leaders who by their
example disseminate trust and promote the assimilation of these new values.

World citizenship holds, in my estimation, the basis for new mores and a new
ethic.

I have said that achieving it will depend on vigorous educational action. In
this regard, religion deserves a keener examination.  For in the past, the
progress of civilization has always found in the great religions the foundation
for a moral ordering of the peoples. There has never been a more vitalizing
force than the Founders of the great religions.  However, in the contemporary
world, religious institutions have exhausted their energies, have fallen
captive to rituals and outworn traditions, and have succumbed to fundamentalist
wings fermenting within them. Religious fanaticism, with its violence
engendering power, is today the ultimate evidence of the deep inversion of
values in which the world is immersed.

The central issue, therefore, is to know whether humanity will have a
substitute for the role historically performed by religion.

Beginning in the 18th century, the Western world spawned a great intellectual
movement that attempted to build the foundations of morals solely on reason,
with total contempt to revealed religion. Voltaire the most severe critic of
religion, Isaac Newton, Kant, Hegel, Karl Marx -- these are some of the names
who considered it indispensable to disdain spiritual revelations in order to
lay down the foundation modern knowledge.  They considered human progress to be
impossible unless and until dogmas, rituals, religious social precepts and the
influence of the ecclesiastical hierarchy were definitely eradicated from
society.

This harsh criticism was not without justification, since the religious
experience carried in the conscience of that period was rooted in a vast
historical period in which the temporal power of the church reigned absolute
and was even able to impose its dogma through terror.  The inquisition provides
the record of the atrocities ever committed in the history of religious
movements. And all of this in the name of God.

Thus, it was only natural for the philosophers of that time to shatter those
bonds that hindered the advancement of scientific knowledge.  One could say
that a process of moral secularization was started then, is that their
criticism pretended to be an absolute truth general and timeless.  From this
viewpoint all religions suffer from the congenital defect of irrationalism,
dogmatism, authoritarianism, and unsolvable contradiction with science.  This
view has been prevalent throughout the centuries and has been strongly
influenced an important stratum of society: philosophers and scientists.  These
are not necessarily disbelievers in God, they are disbelievers in religions as
being the sole mediators between the being and its deity. That is they do not
understand the existence of Prophets or Manifestations of God, and consequently
do not apprehend the meaning of the reality of spiritual laws or the principle
of progressivity in religious truth.

This is perhaps the tragedy of human condition at the dusk of this century. On
one side, disbelief, on the other side, fanatical extremisms and in the middle
a great spiritual void.  In parallel, science and technology have reached their
pinnacle, but their uncontrolled use begins to frighten man himself.  Man has
become his own hostage.  To put in a few words the vital need in this troubled
world, I would say the human being needs to become a homo spiritual, a man with
a new moral foundation.

I believe that the Bahá'ís do have a proposal that can address this need.
Spread it all over.  The world is receptive.

Thank you very much.
-- Challenges of the Construction of a New Morality (Used by permission of the curator)