What’s lacking? What’s wanted? But what, indeed, is needed?
Desire derives from not having as much as it derives from wanting. But what is lacking or wanted that we need? Material goods accumulating to wealth? What of human connections?
Maybe the desideratum that is most important to humanity is that which connects us. Here’s a practical example: In October, 1884, in Washington, D.C., representatives from a number of countries met for an international conference “For the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day.” What’s the big deal? Who cares about “fixing” a Prime Meridian, anyway? What was so important about location and time-reckoning?
After being elected President of the conference, Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers made an opening point and an argument to justify the conference: The point? “Happy shall we be, if, throwing aside national preferences and inclinations, we seek only the common good of mankind, and gain for science and for commerce a prime meridian acceptable to all countries….”*
Now, you might still be wondering about this if you didn’t have a geography class (or ignored the one you took). The Admiral then justified the purpose of the conference, “In my own profession, that of a seaman, the embarrassment arising from the many prime meridians now in use is very conspicuous, and in the valuable interchange of longitudes by passing ships at sea, often difficult and hurried, sometimes only possible by figures written on a black-board, much confusion arises, and at times grave danger [italics mine]. In the use of charts, too, this trouble is also annoying, and to us who live upon the sea a common prime meridian will be a great advantage.”
Captains (and admirals) need to know where they are as they sail, but the indistinguishable swells and whitecaps of an open ocean have no obvious markers. That’s a problem because much of the world’s goods go from port to port, and many ships cross paths.
Today, we all agree that a north-south line running through Greenwich, England, serves as the Prime Meridian, the line that divides the Eastern Hemisphere from the Western Hemisphere. We use it for the basis of east-west designations and, importantly, for calculating hours by 24 fifteen-degree units around the 360-degrees of our spherical planet. So, deciding on a Prime Meridian gives the world a unified scheme for telling time and for pinpointing location on a spherical grid, the graticule (in conjunction with the indisputable Equator that separates the mirrored latitudes of Northern and Southern Hemispheres).
Back to that nineteenth century desideratum. In filling their mutual desire for a common Prime Meridian, the conference members provided a reference all could know and use not only for location, but also for synchronizing the activities of widely separated people. And even though they could not anticipate jets and flight paths in their agreement, they also provided the means for air navigation and departure and arrival times. They established the basis for a standard clock, made GPS workable, and even prevented accidents in vehicles they probably never imagined. In establishing a single Prime Meridian, they filled a gap in human connectivity.
Now what do we desire beyond that connectivity? Or what do we need? We have a common physical reference that unites us in time and space. But what of emotions and ideas?
Could we use an international conference on our other arbitrarily chosen references? Is there some common reference we could use for connecting? Some “prime” reference on which all of humanity could rely—even if arbitrarily chosen—for unity and for ideological and emotional navigation?
Maybe no common desideratum for human connectivity exists. The gaps among humans are unfillable. You have your desires. So-n-So has hers. I have mine. We are admirals navigating by graticules of our own choosing, possibly sharing only some indisputable Equator like DNA and phylum, but never sharing a prime reference for emotion and idea. We still find ourselves in danger of accidents along our crossing life-paths. Should we assume that unlike a worldwide navigational and temporal system based on a Prime Meridian, no analogous ideological or emotional common reference is possible?
During that 1884 conference some attendees disagreed with the consensus. They did so for various reasons. Professor Janssen, France’s delegate, addressed the conference with this: “…it is evident that we must first decide the question of principle which is to govern all our proceedings; that is to say whether it is desirable to fix upon a common zero of longitude for all nations” (p. 26). Not everyone, it seems, was onboard the ship sailing to agreement.
So, you have to ask with Janssen whether or not a conference to establish a common reference for idea and emotion is desirable? If there were countries in the nineteenth century that lacked a desire to find a common reference point on Earth’s surface that would prevent “confusion” and “grave danger” (in the words of Admiral Rodgers), how could we get agreement on other mechanisms for human connectivity?
What do we desire? Obviously, as evidenced by our continued interpersonal and international “confusion” and “grave danger,” we haven’t found some common reference. Is it because we don’t want one?
*International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. Protocols of the Proceedings. Washington, D. C. Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders, 1884. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17759/17759-h/17759-h.htm#Page_1
Desire derives from not having as much as it derives from wanting. But what is lacking or wanted that we need? Material goods accumulating to wealth? What of human connections?
Maybe the desideratum that is most important to humanity is that which connects us. Here’s a practical example: In October, 1884, in Washington, D.C., representatives from a number of countries met for an international conference “For the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day.” What’s the big deal? Who cares about “fixing” a Prime Meridian, anyway? What was so important about location and time-reckoning?
After being elected President of the conference, Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers made an opening point and an argument to justify the conference: The point? “Happy shall we be, if, throwing aside national preferences and inclinations, we seek only the common good of mankind, and gain for science and for commerce a prime meridian acceptable to all countries….”*
Now, you might still be wondering about this if you didn’t have a geography class (or ignored the one you took). The Admiral then justified the purpose of the conference, “In my own profession, that of a seaman, the embarrassment arising from the many prime meridians now in use is very conspicuous, and in the valuable interchange of longitudes by passing ships at sea, often difficult and hurried, sometimes only possible by figures written on a black-board, much confusion arises, and at times grave danger [italics mine]. In the use of charts, too, this trouble is also annoying, and to us who live upon the sea a common prime meridian will be a great advantage.”
Captains (and admirals) need to know where they are as they sail, but the indistinguishable swells and whitecaps of an open ocean have no obvious markers. That’s a problem because much of the world’s goods go from port to port, and many ships cross paths.
Today, we all agree that a north-south line running through Greenwich, England, serves as the Prime Meridian, the line that divides the Eastern Hemisphere from the Western Hemisphere. We use it for the basis of east-west designations and, importantly, for calculating hours by 24 fifteen-degree units around the 360-degrees of our spherical planet. So, deciding on a Prime Meridian gives the world a unified scheme for telling time and for pinpointing location on a spherical grid, the graticule (in conjunction with the indisputable Equator that separates the mirrored latitudes of Northern and Southern Hemispheres).
Back to that nineteenth century desideratum. In filling their mutual desire for a common Prime Meridian, the conference members provided a reference all could know and use not only for location, but also for synchronizing the activities of widely separated people. And even though they could not anticipate jets and flight paths in their agreement, they also provided the means for air navigation and departure and arrival times. They established the basis for a standard clock, made GPS workable, and even prevented accidents in vehicles they probably never imagined. In establishing a single Prime Meridian, they filled a gap in human connectivity.
Now what do we desire beyond that connectivity? Or what do we need? We have a common physical reference that unites us in time and space. But what of emotions and ideas?
Could we use an international conference on our other arbitrarily chosen references? Is there some common reference we could use for connecting? Some “prime” reference on which all of humanity could rely—even if arbitrarily chosen—for unity and for ideological and emotional navigation?
Maybe no common desideratum for human connectivity exists. The gaps among humans are unfillable. You have your desires. So-n-So has hers. I have mine. We are admirals navigating by graticules of our own choosing, possibly sharing only some indisputable Equator like DNA and phylum, but never sharing a prime reference for emotion and idea. We still find ourselves in danger of accidents along our crossing life-paths. Should we assume that unlike a worldwide navigational and temporal system based on a Prime Meridian, no analogous ideological or emotional common reference is possible?
During that 1884 conference some attendees disagreed with the consensus. They did so for various reasons. Professor Janssen, France’s delegate, addressed the conference with this: “…it is evident that we must first decide the question of principle which is to govern all our proceedings; that is to say whether it is desirable to fix upon a common zero of longitude for all nations” (p. 26). Not everyone, it seems, was onboard the ship sailing to agreement.
So, you have to ask with Janssen whether or not a conference to establish a common reference for idea and emotion is desirable? If there were countries in the nineteenth century that lacked a desire to find a common reference point on Earth’s surface that would prevent “confusion” and “grave danger” (in the words of Admiral Rodgers), how could we get agreement on other mechanisms for human connectivity?
What do we desire? Obviously, as evidenced by our continued interpersonal and international “confusion” and “grave danger,” we haven’t found some common reference. Is it because we don’t want one?
*International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. Protocols of the Proceedings. Washington, D. C. Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders, 1884. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17759/17759-h/17759-h.htm#Page_1
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