Human beings, after thousand years of evolution, have reached to today’s so called civilized world wherein they have achieved considerable development and progress. From the tiniest particles to the most gigantic mountains and widest oceans, they have expanded their limitations and as a result have come across myriads of discoveries and inventions. They have, in the process, developed science and gained limitless knowledge. There are many items, processes and facts that we come across everyday and if we see them closely we come to know that they are a part of our lives because of human endeavors to discover and invent.
In short human understandings and findings have been very lengthy, yet there are serious concerns about the way they live. With all the blessings and gifts of human intellect, there seems to be a dominant misunderstanding about life, as there are many miseries and concerns that are influencing human beings to a large extent and give an impression that they do not deserve to be considered as ‘supreme creature’.
Commenting on the incapacity of human beings to make life better for themselves even after so much progress in sciences and arts, Jean Paul Sartre has said, “Everything has been figured out except how to live”. Jean Paul Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. His work has also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre has also been noted for his relationship with the prominent feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir.
His statement mentioned above basically talks of the inconsideration on the part of human beings to take care of their fellow beings and even themselves and their dignity. They have lost the very purpose of life and have become too much involved in unnecessary activities and ideologies. Though they have shrunk the distances between earth and other particles in the universe, they have not been able to shrink the distances among human beings and therefore they are distant from one another and they let hatred and disgust nourish in their hearts.
To support the statement it would not be inappropriate to say that throughout the development of human intellect to design better world for human beings, human beings have, undoubtedly, produced some remarkable thoughts and practices and the mentioned realities have utmost importance in the evolutionary process and they have been the incidents which have shaped today's world, which may be considered as the height of human wisdom, but what about well-being? Have human beings abolished 'misery'? Let's have a look at the world. Let's see Africa – hunger, thirst and helplessness are making mockery of human civilization. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are ravaged by the extensive use of modern and deadly weaponry. Let's not forget Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and many other parts of the world.
Human misery seems overwhelmingly dominating the socio-political scenario and the key reason being human thinking to sacrifice human life for ideologies and isms. The political and social structures designed by human wisdoms have been regarded so sacred that human life has become meaningless. Human wisdom has fallen prey to its own cunning arrangements. The structures which have been designed for well-being are the reason of jeopardizing the human existence.
The current world order that has been designed after years of endeavors is not very different from the earlier world orders that were marked with clashes and wars, as well. The only difference is its orientation, otherwise the clashes remain intact. These clashes have only changed forms. If earlier the clashes were because of the tribes, nations and political philosophies, today they are because of civilizations. The post cold-war world order, as Samuel P. Huntington suggested in his, "The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order" has been marked with clash among the different civilizations.
Though, the theory presented by the Samuel P. Huntington cannot be considered to be entirely applicable to current world order, it does depict that there are certain clashes among the few of the civilizations if not all that were presented by Huntington.
One of the dominant clashes can be found between the Muslim world the Non-Muslim world, mostly the Western civilization. After the incident of 9/11, Muslim world has been labeled as extremist and terrorist and has been considered in great opposition to modernism prevailing in Western civilization and even Christianity. In addition the war against terrorism has played a major role in intensifying this clash. Moreover, there are many countries that are suffering from the international wave of terrorism that has been a hallmark of the new world order.
In addition, the war that was launched by the US in Afghanistan also remains controversial as far as its repercussions and its outcome in proportion to the resources spent there are concerned. In short, many of the political, religious and ideological endeavors that are designed by so called 'human intellect', and which humans call civilization, have only given birth to the systems and orders that have not ordered the lives of human beings and have further brought them to threshold of clashes and wars.
The basic reason behind the shortcomings of all these endeavors have been that human beings and human values are not valued as much as the isms, ideologies and inventions; human beings are sacrificed to their so-called sanctity though it should be difficult to consider any ideology or ism sacred if it sacrifices the most sacred thing on the planet earth – Yes, the human life. In the amalgam of the teachings and propaganda of all these ideologies and isms, human beings must not forget the dignity of human life.
No wisdom can be considered wise unless it values life more than thoughts. Human beings have to change the way they behave in this world and interact with their fellow beings but above all they have to keep in mind that they have to value human life above all ideologies and structures if they really want prosperity and well-being and a world order and want to put an end to misery.