Sacrifice: as organized by "generals"?

Local Reality of Overcrowding -- Global Unreality of Overpopulation (Part #4)

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Calls to sacrifice? Can the question of engagement be provocatively focused through a sense of the willingness for personal "sacrifice" in defence of a local community, in defence of a nation, in defence of a region, or in defence of the globe? Ironically the term engagement is central to the military understanding of the encounter with an enemy -- as governed by "rules of engagement". These define the circumstances, conditions, degree, and manner in which the use of force, or actions which might be construed as provocative, may be applied.

Eliciting willingness for personal sacrifice has of course been a continuing theme in relation to the defence of the homeland in warfare between nations. The manner in which that willingness has been evoked, most notably with respect to the slaughter of World War I trench warfare, is now seen as manipulative, if necessarily so (Has history misjudged the generals of World War One? BBC; Why were journalists threatened with execution in WW1? BBC).

Intergovernmental approach to world crisis: unchanged since World War I ?

Is there current relevance to the tragically perverse combination above of the mobilization icon of World War I with the traditional laurel wreath favoured by the United Nations and its Agencies (Game-playing, bull-leaping and laurel wreaths, 2014)?

"Generals" of today? Who are the "generals", endowed with a global strategic perspective, now framing the need for such sacrifice by so many -- a century after World War I? The image above featured in an early commentary on the questionable strategic philosophy of the generals at this time (Mobilization for Alienation vs. Catalysis for Participation the critical choice for the United Nations system, International Associations, 25, 1973). Have the generals failed to learn, as separately queried (Transforming the Unsustainable Cost of General Education: strategic insights from Afghanistan, 2009).

Given the World War I injunction (as adapted above), there is a perverse historical irony to the more recent appointment of a UN Secretary-General Envoy for Youth, Ahmad Alhendawi, with the announcement: Young people! the UN needs you now more than ever! (UN News, 29 April 2013).

Is the framing offered at this time to be understood as comparable to that of the leadership in World War I:

• as by the Group of 7, as previously discussed (Group of 7 Dwarfs: Future-blind and Warning-deaf -- self-righteous immoral imperative enabling future human sacrifice, 2018)?
• as by the Group of 20 (Framing the Global Future by Ignoring Alternatives: unfreezing categories as a vital necessity, 2009; Considering All the Strategic Options -- Whilst ignoring alternatives and disclaiming cognitive protectionism, 2009)?
• as by the World Economic Forum at the time of writing (Jack Rasmus, Global Economy on the Brink as Davos Crowd Parties On, Global Research, 23 January 2019).
• as by the world's wealthiest elites (World's 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%, says Oxfam, The Guardian, 21 January 2019)?
• as by the Club of Rome (Ernst von Weizsaecker and Anders Wijkman, Come On! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet, 2018), as separately reviewed (Exhortation to We the Peoples from the Club of Rome, 2018)?
• as by the Parliament of the World's Religions as the epitome of interfaith reconciliation between religions engendering conflict world wide -- of significance to be variously understood (Wayne Teasdale and George Cairns, Community of Religions: voices and images of the Parliament of the World's Religions, 1996)?
• as by the International Science Council, in creating a "unified, global voice for science", directing "its voice both externally on issues of major public relevance, and internally, on matters that support effective scientific responses, particularly where new knowledge, capacities, resources or ways of working are needed", and in "developing agendas for priority action"?

Given the leadership roles assumed in each case -- faced with the condition of global society, and notably with respect to religion and science -- especially pertinent are the questions avoided by their respective framings (Metascience Enabling Upgrades to the Scientific Process, 2014; Learnings for the Future of Inter-Faith Dialogue, 1993; Knowledge Processes Neglected by Science: insights from the crisis of science and belief, 2012).

The leadership implied in each case could be said to be remarkably lacking in self-reflexive capacity, highlighted in another instance by James Hillman and Michael Ventura (We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy - And the World's Getting Worse, 1993). From this perspective, is it probable that leadership might now fail an analogue of the mirror self-recognition test as implied by the argument of John Ralston Saul (The Unconscious Civilization, 1995)?

How indeed should people be expected to sacrifice themselves for a global cause, as is now promoted as a necessity in response to forthcoming disaster (We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN, The Guardian, 8 October 2018; Habitat loss threatens all our futures, world leaders warned, The Guardian, 17 November 2018)?

Should such a question be explored otherwise?

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