{{Short description|Political or humanitarian term}} {{Distinguish|International community}} {{More footnotes|date=August 2017}} [[File:The World Culture Festival 2016.jpg|thumb|2016 photograph of the World Culture Festival, a celebration of global cultural diversity]] The term '''world community''' is used primarily in political and humanitarian contexts to describe an international aggregate of nation states of widely varying types. In most connotations, the term is used to convey meanings attached to consensus or inclusion of all people in all lands and their governments.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Meister|first=Charles W.|date=1964|title=The Concept of World Community|journal=The Educational Forum|language=en|volume=28|issue=3|pages=291–296|doi=10.1080/00131726409340084|issn=0013-1725}}</ref>
==Politics== World community often is a semi-personal rhetorical connotation that represents Humanity in a singular context as in "…for the sake of the World Community" or "…with the approval of the World Community".
The term sometimes is used to reference the United Nations or its affiliated agencies as bodies of governance. Other times it is a generic term with no explicit ties to states or governments but retaining a political connotation.
==Humanitarianism== In terms of human needs, humanitarian aid, human rights, and other discourse in the humanities, the world community is akin to the conceptual Global village aimed at the inclusion of non-aligned countries, aboriginal peoples, the Third World into the ''connected'' world via the communications infrastructure or at least representative ties to it.
==Economics== In terms of the World economy, the ''world community'' is seen by some economists as an inter-dependent system of goods and services with semi-permeable boundaries and flexible sets of import/export rules. Proponents of Globalization may tend to establish or impose more rigidity to this framework. Controversy has arisen as to whether this paradigm will strengthen or weaken the world as a community. See World Trade Organization
==Ecology== When considering Sustainable development and Ecology, the inter-dependence angle generally expands quickly to a Global context. In this paradigm, the planet as a whole represents a single Biome and the World's population represents the Ecological succession in a singular eco-system. This also can be recognized as the World Community.
==Religion== Many religions have taken on the challenge of establishing a world community through the propagation of their doctrine, faith and practice.
In the Baháʼí Faith, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, successor and son of Baháʼu'lláh, produced a series of documents called the Tablets of the Divine Plan. Now in a book form, after their publication in 1917 and their 'unveiling' in New York in 1919, these tablets contained an outline and a plan for the expansion of the Baháʼí community into Asia, Asia minor, Europe and the Americas, indeed, throughout the planet.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bahai-library.com/abdulbaha_tablets_instructions_explanation|title=Tablets, Instructions and Words of Explanation|website=bahai-library.com|language=en-US|access-date=2018-10-31 |via=Bahá'í Library Online}}</ref>
The formal implementation of this plan, known as 'Abdu'l-Baha's Divine Plan, began in 1937 in the first of a series of sub-plans, the Seven Year Plan of 1937 to 1944.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/bahaireligiousco0000mcmu|url-access=registration|title=The Baháʼí: The Religious Construction of a Global Identity|last=McMullen|first=Michael|date=2000|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=9780813528366|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bahaireligiousco0000mcmu/page/206 206]|language=en}}</ref> Shoghi Effendi, the leader of the Baháʼí community until 1957 and then the Universal House of Justice from 1963, were instrumental in the organization and design of future sub-plans. This led to the creation and establishment of a world community, with members of the faith estimated to have reached 5 to 6 million in the early 21st century, while also being the second most geographically widespread religion in the world (missing only North Korea and the Vatican City State).<ref name="ARDA-10">{{cite web |title=QuickLists: Most Baha'i Nations (2010) |work=Association of Religion Data Archives |year=2010 |url=https://www.thearda.com/QL2010/QuickList_40.asp |access-date=2020-10-15 |archive-date=2021-03-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210302132059/https://www.thearda.com/QL2010/QuickList_40.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-largest-baha-i-populations.html |title=Countries With The Largest Bahá'i Populations |first=Joyce |last=Chepkemoi |work=WorldAtlas |publisher=Reunion Technology Inc. |date=2018-03-23 |access-date=2018-10-31 |quote=the second most geographically widespread religion in the world after Christianity. The countries which did not have followers of this religion by the year 2008 were only North Korea and the Vatican City.}}</ref>
In Buddhism "the conventional Sangha of monks has been entrusted by the Buddha with the task of leading all people in creating the ideal world community of noble disciples or truly civilized people."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha062.htm|title=Sangha: The Ideal World Community|website=www.budsas.org|access-date=2018-10-31}}</ref>
A Benedictine monk, Friar John Main, inspired the World Community for Christian meditation through the practice of meditation centered around the Maranatha mantra, meaning "Come Lord."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wccm.org/content/john-main|title=John Main {{!}} WCCM|website=www.wccm.org|language=en|access-date=2018-10-31}}</ref>
The Lutheran Church in America had issued a social statement - ''World Community: Ethical Imperatives in an Age of Interdependence'' Adopted by the Fifth Biennial Convention, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 25-July 2, 1970. Since then The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has formed and retained the statement as a 'historical document'.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/restructuringofa0000wuth_t6v8|url-access=registration|title=The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II|last=Wuthnow|first=Robert|date=1988|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0691020570|pages=[https://archive.org/details/restructuringofa0000wuth_t6v8/page/251 251]|language=en}}</ref>
==World peace== {{Main|World peace}}
The term world community is often used in the context of establishing and maintaining world peace through a peace process or through a resolvable end to local-regional wars and global-world wars. Many social movements and much political theory deals with issues revolving around the institutionalization of the process of propagating the ideal of a world community. A world community is one which has a global vision, is established throughout the world, that is it has a membership that exists in most of the countries on the planet and that involves the participation of its members in a variety of ways.
==See also== {{Portal|World|Peace }}
* World anthem, a theoretical song that represents Earth
* Community * Global village * International community * Moral syncretism
== References == <references /> * Willard, Charles Arthur. Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy, University of Chicago Press, 1996.
{{DEFAULTSORT:World Community}} Category:Community building Category:Types of communities Category:Humanities