There is ground to believe that it is through the international community that impersonal group leadership may emerge.
The current world situation helps consider how the relationship between leadership and group is evolving, and whether leadership is still a prerogative of individuals.
The form of such relationship currently most applied throughout the world is democracy with its multifaceted manifestations, sometime even in blatant contradiction.
There are many evident limitations to this model, and it is impossible not to recognize that it is characterized by a form of use of force by the majority against the minority: the enforcement of the will of the majority on the will of the minority. This certainly creates an interesting creative dynamism, in some places similar to a cyclic pendulum, but at the same time it also does create scars and resentment which manifest, in best case scenarios, through reversal of policies, and in worse through discrimination, exclusion, arbitrary detentions, etc, i.e. violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Human rights are certainly a manifestation of the law of right human relations, an incredible achievement that is best exemplified by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948.
The ongoing debates concerning the enjoyment of rights and freedoms in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic have forcefully brought to the fore the dynamic between the individual and the group, the individual’s and the group’s choices and how these are taken. But COVID-19 is not the only one. The climate emergency is another one, much more problematic, and is destroying planetary lives. Its anthropogenetic drivers are the ones we must take responsibility for and a handle on. Indeed, this is a field of necessary group leadership, the group being humanity.
We, humans, seem to have the tendency to look for a single leader. We like to be seen as leaders, may complain about the burden leadership brings, and are certainly upset when leaders don’t do comply with our aspirations, desires, and expectations. We still struggle to recognize group leadership for fear of losing our identity and role in the broader whole.
Yet, the group is certainly a multiplier of energy and force, and is taking ground. In the world there is an incredible emergence of groups taking the lead on an infinite set of issues. Two simple examples over the past century: the exponential growth in number of civil society organizations, and the doubling of countries. In this context, the emergence of the experiment of the League of Nations / United Nations and of international civil service are not a mere coincidence. Interestingly, the international community, intended as a group composed of various elements such as institutions, companies, civil society organizations, etc., does not have a leader despite some attempting to impose themselves; the United Nations and international civil service, similarly, are not intended to, and do not, govern the international community; rather they attempts, by trials and many errors, to mobilize and exercise by consensus collective goodwill to perceive and realize the different aspects of the common good. There is ground to believe that it is through the international community that impersonal group leadership may emerge.
We, individuals, are the resource of, and yet the evident obstacle to, group leadership. Even in aspirant groups like the CEV there is a need for deep and humble consideration on how functions are played, the sense of entitlement they generate, whether they become de facto the exercise of will of one on others in the name of preserving unity, and how indeed this may preempt a growing emergence of group leadership. Our reflections could be a contribution to the whole. Therefore, sursum corda and ad maiora!
Marco Toscano
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