The Sakai

A Better Goal than Peace on Earth  

You may find this hard to believe, but I think that world peace is a lousy goal. It’s an awful and destructive goal. Peace in the world is something to be desired and worked toward, but as a goal, world peace causes problems. What I mean is that saying that “world peace” is your aim is a bad thing to do. “World peace” has big drawbacks. Here are four:

1. It’s too nebulous. What does world peace mean?  The absence of war, any war; or the absence of any conflict at all? 

2. It’s too perfectionist, too absolute. In most people’s minds, when they think of world peace, they think of a perfect state of peace. “Peace on Earth” is sometimes used interchangeably.  Even having one minor war in the world, or even one major tension between two groups of people would mean there was no world peace. 

Because of this, many people can’t take the goal of “world peace” seriously. In their minds, it would require a real miracle for there to be world peace, since they are thinking of total world peace.

And I think that causes many people not to even try for a better world. They don’t want to set themselves up for failure. Or they don’t want to work toward a goal that might be thousands of years in the future. Why start toward a goal if you are pretty sure you will never reach it?

3. In many people’s minds, world peace includes spiritual peace. And in many people’s minds that means that their religion would dominate. So anyone who would offer a plan for world peace would have to do the impossible:  make everyone one religion, or make the religions accept each other totally. So if you say that “world peace” is your goal, you will find that many conversions turn toward religion, spirituality, God and theology. These conversations can go on forever. They usually increase conflict rather than remove it.

4. Anyone who has taken a course on goal-setting knows that a well-formed goal must be specific and have a deadline. By when will we have world peace?   So “world peace” on its own doesn’t tell us enough.

So I thought up a goal  that's better than world peace. I have named the goal “The Sakai.”  I define the goal as achieving a hundredfold decrease in all preventable suffering and premature death by the end of the century. 

Imagine it for a moment: a hundred times less hunger; a hundred times less death from preventable disease; a hundred times less political torture; a hundred times less domestic abuse, and so on.

By the way, “Sakai ” is a Japanese word that means frontier, border, limit. I have a more formal name for the goal:  The Ai Sakai. Ai in Japanese means harmony, so “Ai Sakai” would mean Harmony Frontier. But I will tend to call the goal The Sakai .

Your first reaction might be that the goal is too difficult to take seriously. I’d bet that over half of readers would instantly reject the goal as extremely unlikely, or realistically impossible.  

I would agree that with people’s current skill level and with the current resources available, it would be an impossible goal. Almost as bad a goal as “world peace.”  But the purpose of this book is to change people’s skill level and to phenomenally increase the resources available.

Right now, though, let’s put that aside and look at the strengths and benefits of having the Sakai as a goal instead of world peace. Here are the advantages:

First:  The Sakai is well-formed. The deadline is the end of the century. 

Second:  Instead of causing endless philosophical and religious arguments, The Sakai tends to lead people toward more practical discussions, and questions like “How do we decrease suffering?”

Third:  The Sakai is not utopian and perfectionist. By definition, preventable suffering is preventable. We are not trying to eliminate all suffering and thus create a utopia. At this point in the book, you might consider eliminating 99% of the world’s preventable suffering to be impossible, but at least it’s not 100% which allows no room for error.

Fourth:  The Sakai is a well-rounded goal. “World peace” as a goal can be defined narrowly as eliminating war. For some people, world peace would include environmental stability and economic stability, but for others it just means the absence of conflict. The Sakai would require a broad set of changes—economically, politically, environmentally and even personally. Thus it could be a goal that produces more unity, more team work and coalitions, and more synergy.

For these reasons, the Sakai is a better goal that "world peace."

One of my seven goals is to get you excited about working toward the Sakai. In the 1960s many people got excited about landing men on the Moon. Perhaps twenty years previous to that time, landing on the Moon seemed so unlikely as to be science fiction. And yet the goal soon generated tremendous enthusiasm as soon as a group of people realized that it was possible.

More on the Sakai

Can you imagine anyone not being in favor of the goal of world peace? I am not in favor of it. Here’s a scene from a movie treatment that I wrote that explains why  

The scene has two characters, MISS WORLD PEACE and AI SAKAI.

Please picture Miss World Peace as a Miss-America type blond. In fact, she is wearing a diagonal sash over her white gown that proclaims her as “The Vision of World Peace.”

Please picture Ai Sakai as a pretty but not gorgeous oriental girl with long black hair.  Her breasts aren’t as full as World Peace’s; and her legs aren’t as long. But she has a vitality and optimism that is attractive. She is casually dressed in a royal blue blouse and black skirt. She is interviewing the other woman. (“Sakai ” is pronounced with a short a and a long i, sah-KIY. “Ai” means harmony, and is pronounced like eye, or i-ye.)  

Ai Sakai : Miss World Peace, could you tell us about yourself?

Miss World Peace: I’d love to. I am the vision that most people on Earth have of peace. I am totally perfect and beautiful. Many men and woman make overtures to me, but I reject all their efforts because I am totally perfect, and they are all flawed. In fact, humans repulse me because of their flaws. Yet I like the attention and I like them to think that they can possess me, but they never will. I am like the ultra virgin at your high school, the girl who captivated all the boys, but wouldn’t let any of them get close. I enjoyed causing them to fight over me. I enjoyed diverting their attention from them more attainable pretty girls, girls like you. Wouldn’t you rather be perfect like me? You know, your nose is a little off.

Ai Sakai : I would rather be approachable than be an ice virgin like yourself.

MWP: (laughs cruelly)   You’re just jealous. But you needn’t be. I look beautiful but in fact I cause two forms of ugliness and suffering. First, since I am so unattainable and utopian a goal, many people have given up on me. Since men can’t have me, they have given up on any overall vision for the world. They have no realistic vision to inspire them. When they think of the world’s future, they have no believable vision. I leave them in despair.

Second, I cause conflict because many of the religions define me in religious terms that conflict with each other. Christians picture a Christian world peace; Muslims picture an Islamic world peace, and so on. So they argue about how to reach me, and they argue with the secular people and call them godless just because secular people define world peace in non-religious terms.

Ai Sakai : It’s ironic that religious people are taught not to worship idols, yet many of them worship and idolize you.

MWP: Yes, it’s cruel fun. Holding me up as a vision makes them look down on the world.

Ai Sakai : You’re a total bitch, aren’t you?

MWP:  Actually, I’m a perfect bitch. I even cause misery among the people who cynically don’t believe that I, World Peace, am possible. That’s because I make lesser but attainable goals seem dull and unappealing.

Ai Sakai : Ha! In fact, that is exactly who I am!

MWP: Huh? What are you?

Ai Sakai : I am the goal of a hundredfold reduction in preventable suffering and premature death by the end of this century. People can measure the amount of hunger, death due to disease, death due to war and other forms of preventable suffering and death in the year 2005, and then they can have an approachable, measurable goal for the next 95 years: a hundred times less! They can measure and celebrate progress along the way without putting pressure on themselves to be perfect. They can focus on the preventable suffering and learn to accept the suffering that cannot be prevented, the suffering that’s an inevitable part of life.

MWP: Religious people will reject you because you are an earthly goal.

Ai Sakai : In fact, most won’t. That’s because, just as most religious people go to a doctor for physical ailments, and a minister for spiritual problems, most religious people will realize that the goal of the Sakai is not anti-religious, just as a doctor is not anti-spiritual healing. In fact, doctors unwittingly perform a spiritual good: By preventing death, doctors give people more time on Earth to walk their spiritual paths, and by alleviating physical and mental suffering, doctors give people more ability to concentrate on the spiritual. That’s why my father, the WORLD SURGEON, and his superhero friends are doing real good.

MWP:  You little snot! You think you’re so smart, but you will never be as immaculately lovely as me.

Ai Sakai : And I will never be as fake and unbelievable as you either! I will be like the attractive girls who aren’t perfect, but who are warm and approachable. I will be like the girls who encourage the boys to try for them and who encourage the boys to improve themselves, too. At the same time, the other girls won’t be jealous of me because I will affirm their efforts and needs, too.

Goodbye, Ice Queen! I predict that when people hear of me, they will begin to reject you as the goal. Perhaps you will become popular again in a few centuries, but right now, I think that my approachability and practicality will make me more much more popular than you. You make people feel inferior and hopeless, but I will make people feel good about themselves and give them hope for the future. (Sakai notices Miss World Peace’s disturbed look.)  Don’t worry, you won’t be too lonely. You will always have a few fanatics and extremists who will be devoted only to you. And just like before, you can have your sadistic pleasure by spurning and humiliating every one of them.[1]

In summary, there are big problems with having “Peace on Earth” as the goal: First, it’s too perfect and utopian. It’s too absolute. It’s like having the goal of never getting angry. If that’s your goal, you will have a lot of pressure, and you will be crushed by the first lapse.

Second, people can’t agree philosophically or religiously on what a perfect world would look like. The philosophical arguments have gone on for over 2,500 years, and the religious conflicts have gone on for over 3,500 years. They probably aren’t going to end any time soon. In fact, doctrinally, religions will never agree on what the perfect world will look like. And what are the odds that one religion will peacefully eliminate all the others within a century?—Do you see now why a hundredfold reduction in preventable suffering is a much better goal for this century? Do you see how it even indirectly helps humanity spiritually?

These are the reasons why the Sakai is a major upgrade, and an essential part of my strategy.

Sakai is actually a Japanese word that means border, frontier or boundary. I define The Sakai, using a capital S, to mean the vision of a hundredfold reduction in the preventable suffering and death on Earth, and the stabilization of our life-support systems—including the economy, the environment, politics and our communities.

Perhaps you’re not very impressed with the Sakai . Maybe you are thinking: “Although superprograms are a great idea, I still don’t believe that a hundredfold reduction in suffering is even possible.”

Let me temporarily agree with you. Even if it weren’t possible, it still could be a good idea. In 1961, when President Kennedy announced the goal of landing on the Moon by the end of the decade, he set the goal before anyone knew it was technologically possible. But the goal itself stimulated creativity and zeal. The scientists and engineers working on the space program at that time described the zeal that they passed to each other. They called it “Go Fever.” It described how a scientist or engineer who was at first noncommittal about the goal would suddenly get caught up in the adventure and challenge of going to the Moon.

Let’s harness Go Fever to travel to a different world, a different Earth, one with a hundred times less suffering and death. We don’t have a Saturn V booster to get us there, but we do have superprograms, the Golden Rule 2.0 and all the other upgrades.

From here you can proceed in the following order, or choose the area that most concerns you:

          Upgraded Methods and Concepts
          Incentives to use the methods
          Ways to Remove Doubts and Obstacle
          Advantages of Mighty Plan over Other Approaches