Th e swift course of domestic and world events, part of a hastened process of change, requires an enormous increase of basic understanding by peoples of the multiple factors infl uencing the tempo and direction of national developments. Th e pattern of intercultural penetration and cross-fertilizing exchanges of scientifi c and technological knowledge rests upon a concept of fundamental unity of diverse approaches to the central objective of all human endeavors: the creation of a better world, with general equality of opportunity to all individuals, everywhere.

Within a planet shrunk into community bounds by the progress of communications there are no substantial sectors of mankind still completely isolated from the main currents of 20th-century thought and action. A growing sense of identifi cation among men is fostered by the adoption of certain basic standards of human rights and the slow growth of supranational law rooted in the fundamental principles that are common to all juridical systems.

No period in history has witnessed such accelerated search for adequate answers to the riddles that have so long beset humanity. Metaphysical explanations of the universe and of the individual’s place within it vie with each other in the vast and only superfi cially explored realm of emotions; rationalized conceptions of economic and social philosophies contend in the marketplace of personal loyalties with a violence that frequently threatens to rend asunder the fabric of overall unity; and the march forward of freedoms and improvements in the status of people throughout our earth is largely clouded by the supercharged treatment of political aff airs in the media of mass communication.