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Dr. Thomas Selover, President, SunHak UP Graduate University, South Korea Dr. Thomas Selover is President of SunHak UP Graduate University outside of Seoul, Korea. He serves as international president of the Professors World Peace Academy and international co-coordinator of IAAP, the International Association of Academicians for Peace. He has a doctorate in comparative religion and East Asian philosophy from Harvard University and has taught for over 25 years at universities and colleges in Canada and the US, as well as in China and Korea. |
Your excellencies, scholars and friends
It is my pleasure to participate in this Europe/Middle East/Africa IAAP webinar session with all of you. I want to thank Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon for the motherly push that has brought us together.
In addition to specifically peace-related studies, all academicians are or can be engaged in peace-building, both within and between the academic fields in which we are working. In whatever academic field we are working, we must strive to be peace-builders who contribute to the recognition of interdependence, mutual prosperity and universal values.
Besides all the other walls between people, groups and nations that need to be broken down, academicians also need to break down the walls that have grown up between fields and disciplines, doing our work in the spirit of interdependence, in Community for Peace.
Although academicians can sometimes be quite critical of one another, as long as the critique is dialogical, seeking truth and understanding, with ultimate inclusiveness, then it can be counted as constructive toward peace-building.
The role of academicians in support of those interdependence, mutual prosperity and universal values is to vigorously conduct our research into all fields of human knowledge, but to do so with the greater, common good in mind and heart.
Many years ago, the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan suggested that “the medium is the message”, and we are seeing the truth of his words today.
Here we are, concerned scholars from many countries and many fields who are interacting together, mutually striving toward world peace, using the medium of internet webinar technology. This is what we have done together today, and this medium is also a key part of our message—that this is indeed what we OUGHT to be doing under the present circumstances of our world.
Here we are, concerned scholars from many countries and many fields who are interacting together, mutually striving toward world peace, using the medium of internet webinar technology. This is what we have done together today, and this medium is also a key part of our message—that this is indeed what we OUGHT to be doing under the present circumstances of our world.
At the heart of the core concepts of “interdependence, mutual prosperity and universal values” is “mutuality” itself, which we are manifesting today. “Mutuality” is that bond of togetherness which links us not only to one another but also to the world of all beings, and to the great Being, our Heavenly Parent.