Globalism is central to Fluxus. It embraces the idea that we live on a
single world, a world in which the boundaries of political states are not
identical with the boundaries of nature or culture. Dick Higgins's list
used the term internationalism. Higgins referred to Fluxus's complete lack
of interest in the national origin of ideas or of people, but
internationalism can also be a form of competition between nations. War is
now unacceptable as a form of national expression. Economic interests on a
global scale erase national boundaries, too. The only areas in which
nations can push themselves forward as national interest groups with
identities defined against the identities of other nations are sports and
culture. The international culture festivals are sometimes like soccer
championships where culture stars and national politicians push against
each other with all the vigor and savagery of simulated warfare. Fluxus
encourages dialogue among like minds, regardless of nation. Fluxus welcomes
the dialogue of unlike minds when social purposes are in tune.

In the 1960s, the concept of internationalism was expressive. The United
Nations was young, the cold war was an active conflict, and mass political
groups operating as national interest groups seemed to offer a way to
establish global dialogue. Today, globalism is a more precise expression.
It's not simply that boundaries don't count, but that in the most important
issues, there are no boundaries.

A democratic approach to culture and to life is a part of the Fluxus view
of globalism. A world inhabited by individuals of equal worth and value
suggests -- or requires -- a method for each individual to fulfill his or
her potential. This, in turn, suggests a democratic context within which
each person can decide how and where to live, what to become, how to do it.
 

The world as it is today has been shaped by history and today's conditions
are determined in great part by social and economic factors. While the
western industrialized nations and some developing nations are essentially
democratic, we do not live in a truly democratic world. Much of the world
is governed by tyrannies, dictatorships or anarchic states. Finding the
path from today's world to a democratic world raises important questions,
complex questions that lie outside the boundaries of this essay.
Nevertheless, democracy seems to most of us an appropriate goal and a valid
aspiration. It is fair to say that many Fluxus artists see their work as a
contribution to that world.

Some of the Fluxus work was intended as a direct contribution to a more
democratic world. Joseph Beuys's projects for direct democracy, Nam June
Paik's experiments with television, Robert Filliou's programs, Dick
Higgins's Something Else Press, Milan Knizak's Aktual projects, George
Maciunas's multiples and my own experiments with communication and
research-based art forms were all direct attempts to bring democratic
expression into art and to use art in the service of democracy. The artists
who created these projects wrote essays and manifestoes that made this goal
clear. The views took different starting points, sometimes political,
sometimes economic, sometimes philosophical, sometimes even mystical or
religious. As a result, this is one aspect of Fluxus that can be examined
and understood in large global terms, and these terms are given voice in
the words of the artists themselves. Other Fluxus projects had similar
goals, though not all have been put forward in explicit terms.

Concurrent with a democratic standpoint is an anti-elitist approach. When
Nam June Paik read the earlier version of the 12 Fluxus Ideas, he pointed
out that the concept of anti-elitism was missing.

I had failed to articulate the linkage between globalism, democracy and
anti-elitism. In fact, one can't achieve a humanistic global community
without democracy or achieve democracy in a world controlled by an elite.
In this context, one must define the term "elitism" to mean a dominant
elite class based on inherited wealth or power or based on the ability of
dominant elites to incorporate new members in such a way that their wealth
and power will be preserved. This is quite contrary to an open or
entrepreneurial society in which the opportunity to advance is based on the
ability to create value in the form of goods or services.

The basic tendency of elitist societies to restrict opportunity is why
elite societies eventually strangle themselves. Human beings are born with
the genetic potential for talent and the potential to create value for
society without regard to gender, race, religion or other factors. While
some social groups intensify or weaken certain genetic possibilities
through preferential selection based on social factors, the general
tendency is that any human being can in theory represent any potential
contribution to the whole.

A society that restricts access to education or to the ability to shape
value makes it impossible for the restricted group to contribute to the
larger society. This means that a restrictive society will finally cripple
itself in comparison to or in competition with a society in which anyone
can provide service to others to the greatest extent possible.

For example, a society which permits all of its members to develop and use
their talents to the fullest extent will always be a richer and more
competitive society than a society which doesn't allow some members to get
an education because of race, religion or social background. Modern
societies produce value through professions based on education. Educated
people create the material wealth that enable all members of a society to
flourish through such disciplines as physics, chemistry or engineering. It
is nearly impossible to become a physicist, a chemist or an engineer
without an education. Those societies that make it impossible for a large
section of the population to be educated for these professions must
statistically reduce their chances of innovative material progress in
comparison with those societies that educate every person with the aptitude
for physics, chemistry or engineering.

In suggestions a world in which there are no restrictions based on elite
social advantage, Fluxus suggests a world in which it is possible to create
the greatest value for the greatest number of people. This finds its
parallel in many of the central tenets of Buddhism. In economic terms, it
leads to what could be called Buddhist capitalism or green capitalism.

In the arts, the result can be confusing. The arts are a breeding ground
and a context for experiment. The world uses art to conduct experiments of
many kinds -- thought experiments and sense experiments. At their best, the
arts are a cultural wetlands, a breeding ground for evolution and for the
transmutation of life forms. In a biologically rich dynamic system, there
are many more opportunities for evolutionary dead ends than for successful
mutation. As a result, there must be and there is greater latitude for
mistakes and transgressions in the world of the arts than in the immediate
and results-oriented
world of business or social policy. This raises the odd possibility that a
healthy art world may be a world in which there is always more bad art than
good. According to some,
the concept of bad art or good is misleading: this was Filliou's assertion,
the point he made with his series of Bien Fait, Mal Fait works.

Ultimately, the development and availability of a multiplicity of works and
views permits choice, progress and development. This is impossible in a
centrally planned, controlled society. The democratic context of competing
visions and open information makes this growth possible. Access to
information is a basis for this development, which means that everyone must
have the opportunity to shape information and to use it. Just as short-term
benefits can accrue in entropic situations, so it is possible for
individuals and nations to benefit from the short-term monopoly of
resources and opportunities. Thus the urge for elitism based on social
class and for advantage based on nationalism. In the long run, this leads
to problems that disadvantage everyone. Fluxism suggests globalism,
democracy and anti-elitism as intelligent premises for art, for culture and
for long-term human survival.

Paik's great 1962 manifesto, Utopian Laser Television, pointed in this
direction. He proposed a new communications medium based on hundreds of
television channels. Each channel would narrowcast its own program to an
audience of those who wanted the program without regard to the size of the
audience. It wouldn't make a difference whether the audience was made of
two viewers or two billion. It wouldn't even matter whether the programs
were intelligent or ridiculous, commonly comprehensible or perfectly
eccentric. The medium would make it possible for all information to be
transmitted and each member of each audience would be free to select or
choose his own programming based on a menu of infinitely large
possibilities.

Even though Paik wrote his manifesto for television rather than
computer-based information, he predicted the world-wide computer network
and its effects. As technology advances to the point were computer power
will make it possible for the computer network to carry and deliver full
audio-visual programming such as movies or videotapes, we will be able to
see Paik's Utopian Laser Television. That is the ultimate point of the
Internet with its promise of an information rich world.

As Buckminster Fuller suggested, it must eventually make sense for all
human beings to have access to the multiplexed distribution of resources in
an environment of shared benefits, common concern and mutual conservation
of resources.