TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/101592/10159926.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 7.1 KB | 220 lines

                                                                                SPECIAL ISSUE: MILLENNIUM -- BEYOND THE YEAR 2000 

THE CENTURY AHEAD, Page 74

Great Goals


What should humankind aim to accomplish in the coming decades?


    Barbara Jordan, Luke Perry, Camille Paglia, Sharon Stone,
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Updike, Akio Morita, August
Wilson, Francis Fukuyama, Bill Cosby, Martin Marty, Pat
Robertson, Patricia Schroeder, Lady Antonia Fraser, Sinead
O'Connor, Mike Myers

    LAWYER, EDUCATOR

    We need to restore a sense of the common good in America.
Tolerance must become an idea that is honored and respected,
particularly toward nations that are different from us. But
hunger should not be tolerated. It's a moral principle that
people should be able to eat a meal when they want to. The
sight of hunger any place on the globe should be banished.

    LUKE PERRY: ACTOR

    If we're going to continue -- not just in America but on
this planet -- to engage in armed conflicts and send men off to
war, we've got to be prepared to deal with the problems these
veterans have when they come back. I don't think realistically
we've ever done that with any of the conflicts this country has
been in.

    CAMILLE PAGLIA: CULTURAL CRITIC

    We should smash the current educational curriculum. I see
the multiculturalism being peddled now as a fraud. History is
being distorted. It is regarded as nothing but a record of
pain, oppression, disaster and atrocities. My master plan for
world understanding is a new kind of education based on
comparative religion and archaeology, on an arts-centered
curriculum. I am also calling for a Reform feminism instead of
the hatred of men now being peddled. Feminism must turn back
toward men.

    SHARON STONE: ACTRESS

    Peace of mind, peace of heart and generosity of spirit.

    GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ: AUTHOR

    The only new idea that could save humanity in the 21st
century is for women to take over the management of the world. I
believe that male hegemony has squandered an opportunity of
10,000 years. We men have belittled and ridiculed feminine
intuition, and on the other hand, we have historically
sanctified our ideologies, almost all of them absurd or
abominable. The masculine power structure has proved that it
cannot impede the destruction of the environment, because it is
incapable of overcoming its own interests. For women, on the
other hand, preservation of the environment is a genetic
vocation. The reversal of powers is a matter of life or death.

    JOHN UPDIKE: AUTHOR

    The agenda for the next millennium should be to bring
earth's population growth to a standstill and to reduce the gap
between rich and poor. The rich may have to get poorer. If
humanity accomplishes its own survival, along with that of a
few other big animals and the life in the sea, it will do well.
As to entertainment and sports, I would be content with less of
both.

    AKIO MORITA: SONY CHAIRMAN

    The most important thing for man's survival is technology.
And the most important issue facing mankind is related to the
decline of the educated population. To allow humankind to
coexist happily, we have to provide more opportunities for
education. Currently television is misused, utilized mostly for
entertainment. But I think TV entertainment can be a means for
education, as Sesame Street has been. There should be a global
project to launch a satellite for this purpose. And perhaps we
could operate TVs with solar energy.

    AUGUST WILSON: PLAYWRIGHT

    We should make greed the sin of all sins, so that greedy
people all over the planet are shunned. It is greed that leads
to thievery, lying, cheating and stealing, which leads to wars,
which leads to murders, which leads to all sorts of other
things. Unless we succeed, I don't know that we are going to
see a 22nd century.

    FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: POLITICAL SCIENTIST

    The central project of humanity has got to be something
like restoration of a sense of community. The problem is the
inherent tension between democracy and community. Giving up
some individual rights to communities may be a necessary price.
You cannot have the kind of culture that absolutizes human
rights at the same time you strive for community. One has to
come at the expense of the other.

    BILL COSBY: COMEDIAN, PRODUCER

    The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world
is addicted to it. It happens, it becomes war, and then we spend
human bodies, money and intellect to stop it.

    MARTIN MARTY: THEOLOGIAN

    We have to save the environment. We aren't going to be
reached by other planets, and we aren't going to reach other
planets, so this has to work out. It's within the coming
century that it will be decided whether it lasts or not. Someone
once said, "If we don't survive, we don't do anything else
either."

    PAT ROBERTSON: EVANGELIST

    We must earnestly seek moral and spiritual revival so that
mankind will live in peace in accord with God's law. The
world's ethical standards must keep pace with its technological
advances. We should also try to establish a Society of
Democratic Nations to guarantee the rule of law and order, free
trade, proper stewardship of the environment and the sanctity of
human rights.

    PATRICIA SCHROEDER: U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN

    The most important goal for the 21st century is family
planning for everyone. That is the environmental issue. You can
plant a billion trees and clean up every stream, but it wonUt
make a difference if we double the population in the next 20
years. Now scientists are trying to enable women to have babies
when they're 80. Please don't make me more fertile.

    LADY ANTONIA FRASER: HISTORIAN, AUTHOR

    The extraordinary disparities between rich and poor are
becoming more visible because of technological advances.
Perhaps because I am a Catholic, I think the worldwide knowledge
of these disparities through our TV screens, cables, faxes and
telephones makes us more culpable for them than before. I would
like to see these advances used not only to spread information
about famine, for example, but to distribute foodstuffs to the
hungry. If stock exchanges buy and sell all around the world,
surely the same technology can be used to shift food around as
needed.

    SINEAD O'CONNOR: SINGER

    We need to realize that all things that are making our
lives hell now -- alcoholism or drug addiction, rape or murder,
hatred or greed, power or war -- have all been caused by child
abuse, which has been caused by the desire for material
success. The child is traumatized, though he can't remember
what happened to him. Evil is the root of child abuse and, if
we stamp out child abuse, we'll be bringing God back, and that
will cure everything.

    MIKE MYERS: COMEDIAN (Wayne's World)

    Be nice. Tend to have fun rather than not to have fun. Have
gainful employment, a really cool girl friend, great tunes and
a good pick-up game of hockey twice a week.