Chapter 3 - The Rise of a New Global Consciousness

Summary

The decisive factor that reveals the rise of a new civilization is, surely, the new level of consciousness that is increasingly taking root in society – this is the global consciousness. Teilhard de Chardin had already maintained in 1933 that: “The age of Nation states is gone. If we do not want to perish it is time for us to leave our prejudices behind us and shape the Earth. Earth will only become conscious of itself through the predicament of changes and transformations.”

This predicament has deeply established itself in people's minds: we are co-responsible for our common destiny (both human and Earth's destiny) since we constitute a cohesive unity of multiplicities.

On April 12, 1961 Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth for the first time. Since that day a new perspective has entered human consciousness: we started to see the Earth from outside. The image of Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landing on the surface of the moon with Apollo 11 on July 21, 1969 had an even bigger impact.

The simple words of John W. Young, one of the American astronauts who participated in the fifth trip to the moon on April 16, 1972, revealed this new consciousness: “Down there is the Earth, this white and blue planet, extremely beautiful, awesome, our human fatherland. From the Moon I am able to hold it in my hand. And from this perspective there are no white or black, nor East and West, nor Communists and Capitalists, nor North and South.