4.  Global Harmony Association projects

1.1 Women’s Project

1.2 Social Priority of Children

1.3 Harmonious education and the Age of Harmonious Enlightenment

1.4 Peaceful cooperation between the United States and Russia

1.5 Restructuring the United Nations

1.6 Human/Humanity Right to Life, Global Peace and Social Harmony

1.7 Harmonious Civilization: Spheral futurology

5.Published works

6.Peace from Harmony web site

Youth, education and career

Dr. Leo Semashko was born June 20, 1941, in Grodno, Belarus, a city close to the borders with Poland and Lithuania. Leo’s 22-year-old father was killed in Grodno during the first days of World War II, a fact that shaped the young boy’s destiny and spun his life and work into spiritual and sociological arenas, with the goal of helping nations attain world peace.

Dr. Semashko is a graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy (1965) and alumnus of post-graduate studies (1970) from Moscow State University, Department of History of Foreign Philosophy, with a thesis o­n ancient philosophy. His scientific adviser was Professor Igor S. Narsky; his scientific mentor was Professor Valentin F. Asmus. He has lived and worked in St. Petersburg, Russia, since 1971.

With a PhD in philosophy, Dr. Semashko is Professor RANH (Russian Academy of Natural History). He has been a teacher of philosophy, sociology and political science in a number of universities until 2004; a member of the Leningrad/Petersburg City Parliament of the 21st convocation from the city’s 48th constituency from 1990 to 1993; and has been an Actual State Counselor of St. Petersburg, class III, since 1998.

He was also founder and leader of the Spheral Democracy Deputy’s Faction in the Petersburg Parliament (1992-1993); founder and president of the Children’s Foundation, named by Feodor Dostoevsky, in St. Petersburg (1990-1997); founder and chair of a group of developers for the first project of the Family Code in Russia, with the first chapter dedicated to advancement of children’s rights (1990-1991); creator of the Global Harmony Association (2005); and a participant in other socially oriented endeavors not named here.

Since 1990, he has participated in many international peacemaking and sociological congresses in Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe.

Global Harmony Association

As a philosopher, sociologist and peacemaker, Dr. Semashko has emphasized social and human harmony. In 2005, he founded the Global Harmony Association (GHA), an informal international peacemaking organization that now consists of more than 600 humanitarian scholars and peacemakers from 65 countries as well as many collective members.In 2016, he was elected as GHA’a honorary president.

Since its creation more than 13 years ago, Dr. Semashko and other GHA members have collectively initiated 60 peacemaking projects and created eight books, with more than 400 co-authors from 45 nations, that have been published in several languages. The GHA and its leader were twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (2013 and 2017). Since 2007, 15 outstanding world leaders, peacemakers and scholars of humanities associated with GHA have been honored as “World Harmony Creator” for their unprecedented contribution to global peace from harmony.(http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=513)

Discoveries and achievements

          In 1976, Dr. Semashko authored the fundamental discovery of “spherons” (spheral classes of the population employed in four spheres of social production), which is supported empirically by a number of statistical studies. The concept of spherons is the foundation for Dr. Semashko’s new scientific, holistic disciplines: tetraphilosophy, tetrasociology, spheral statistics and global peace science, as well as new, emerging, interrelated global digital technologies.

          The theory of spherons is the integrating center, the structural core and heart of a single spheral humanitarian science as a whole. This theory unites and reconstructs traditional social sciences, overcoming their eternal fragmentation and providing them with o­ntological unity and epistemological holism.

Tetraphilosophy

          Tetraphilosophy is a four-dimensional pluralistic and holistic philosophy that originated from the o­ntological cosmogonic concepts of the Greek philosopher Empedocles. It continues, synthesizes and develops the four-dimensional spheral ideas of Immanuel Kant and cosmism, especially Russian cosmism in o­ntology, and similar pluralistic ideas of social philosophies by Augusto Comte, young Karl Marx, Maxim Kovalevsky, Max Weber, Robert Park, Karl Jaspers, Pitirim Sorokin, Talcott Parsons, Fernand Braudel, Alvin Toffler, Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Edward Soroko, Bernard Scott, Rudolf Siebert and many others.

          Tetraphilosophy recognizes four equally necessary, sufficient, and inseparable and harmoniously interconnected (mutually including) ontological grounds/elements/beginnings: individual existence, information, organization/order and matter. These elements constitute specific spheres of integral being at all levels: cosmos, society, man (mankind) and “I” (the individual). The interrelation, continuity and mutual multi-dimensional inclusion of spheres of different levels are determined by a single o­ntological regularity of their spheral structural harmony. According to Henri Poincare, this “inner harmony of the world is the o­nly true objective reality.”

          Tetraphilosophy excludes the primacy/primordiality of any specific cosmogenic origin, but it recognizes the variable priority of any of the four elements at different historical spaces and times. Synonyms of tetraphilosophy, which emphasize its different aspects, are tetrism, four-dimensional pluralism and harmonism.

Tetrasociology

Tetrasociology is the social part of tetraphilosophy, the subject of which is social harmony, global peace and harmonious civilization throughout humanity’s entire history. Tetrasociology manifests society as the continuous evolution of the four spheres of social production, which, in the terminology of Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana, constitutes the social form of the biological “autopoiesis” (self-production). The four spheres of social production or social autopoiesis are a form of existence and development of any society in its evolution and history. Spheres produce four societal spheral resources, constituting both the subject and product of these spheres, according to which they are differentiated and structured.

Spheral resources

Spheral resources are the four equally necessary macro resources that must work and mesh together in order for humanity to continue social and individual living: People, Information, Organizations and Things, which are material goods and services (PIOT). The absence of any o­ne of these spheral resources makes human life and continuation of society impossible.

Relatedly, an equal societal value of PIOT resources, regardless of their number, determines the equal societal value of the corresponding spheres and spherons of social production. Together, this harmonious balance among theequal PIOT resources, spheres and spherons expresses society’s genetic noospheral pluralism, its autopoietic unity as well as its plurastic harmonious nature as a whole.

Spherons

Spherons are the four equally necessary societal spheral classes/communities of the population that are employed in four spheres of social production: sociospheron, which is employed in the sociosphere; infospheron, which is employed in the infosphere; orgspheron, which is employed in the orgsphere; and technospheron, which is employed in the technosphere. Spherons differ neither in property, nor in power, nor in other partial qualities but o­nly in the fundamental, vital employment of people in o­ne of the four spheres of social production that produce the four necessary and sufficient spheral resources of PIOT.

During a person’s non-working ages, from birth to adulthood as well as in old age, each individual receives the benefits of social production through the relevant institutions of a caring family, education, health services, social welfare and so o­n; in this capacity, the individual forms the passive part of the sociospheron. In contrast, during working age, the individual actively contributes to society’s spheral structure by being employed in o­ne sphere or another, o­ne of which the individual makes a priority concerning his/her work time. Spherons’ stochastic balance constitutes the societal harmonious structure of every society. Thus, spherons are the fundamental units and actors of this structure, the spontaneous interconnection and mutual limitation of which ensures the structural harmony of all social production.

Tetrapsychology

Tetrapsychology is a psychological, individualistic part of tetraphilosophy. Tetrapsychology studies and reveals the spheral structural harmony at the level of the individual in its four spheres: character, consciousness, will and body, which constitute the spheral psychological genome, “psynome.” Tetrapsychology, along with the spherons, was discovered by Dr. Semashko, but it was scientifically expressed and defined o­nly in 2012 in Dr. Semashko’s and GHA’s book The ABC of Harmony. Tetrasociology and tetrapsychology, as well as society and individuals, are united by the spheral similarity of their structural harmony.

Spheral science

Spheral science is a single, holistic, socio-humanitarian science based o­n the knowledge of the spheres and spherons of social production in their structural harmony. This knowledge inherently integrates all diversity of traditional humanitarian branches and disciplines into the holistic scientific vision of spheral social production in the form of a harmoniously ordered diversity of system aspects and directions within this vision. Spheral science, then, in the broadest sense, is Tetrasociology or Sociocybernetics of spheres and spherons, which constitutes the third order Sociocybernetics.

          The subject of spheral science is the social four-dimensional autopoiesis in the structural harmony of spheral resources, productive spheres and spherons in the continuous stochastic process of their spheral employment.Unfortunately, traditional social science and humanitarian knowledge today are still in an extremely depressed, fragmented and embryonic state, a primitive condition that rejects and impedes fundamental spheral discoveries. Even the most peaceful, dynamic and progressive world leaders, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, are not yet able to understand the acute need, the role and significance of the fundamental Copernican renewal of the social and human sciences(http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=666).

Spheral statistics

Spheral statistics is o­ne of the fundamental parts of the spheral science (tetrasociology, third-order sociocybernetics) that provides this science with quantitative harmonious measurements of spheres, spheral resources and processes, spherons and other spheral attributes of holistic social production at all its levels, from the individual and the family to the country and to all global humanity. Based o­n spheral statistics and its indices, an adequate mathematical description and “digitalization” can be created to measure the harmoniousness of integral social production, the balances and proportions of societal spheres and spherons, and the stability and effectiveness of any given society. Spheral statistics, then, provide an empirical basis for spheral science, which begins with the statistical knowledge of spherons and their interactive dynamics over time at different levels.

The discovery of spheral statistics creates a single, logically ordered, universal and global social space of spheral statistical indices for all countries, industries/branches, corporations, governments and spheres of social production. Spheral statistics aggregatesand integrates indicators of traditional statistics to overcome the fragmentation and limitations of those traditional statistics. Spheral statistics give the indices of spherons as a social genome (socionome) that defines the measurement of the structural harmony of social production of any country in any historical period. Spheral statistics have become a platform for a number of unique digital technologies, such as Spheral Information-Statistical Technology (SIST) as a first step to help foster world peace through the conscious and controlled harmony of a spheral global “digital” economy, excluding crises and unexpected risks of disharmony.

Spheral Information-Statistical Technology (SIST)

The greatest development, justification and application of spheral statistics is Spheral Information-Statistical Technology (SIST), which Dr. Semashko perfected and used in the development of many urban projects when employed at the St. Petersburg City Planning Commission’s statistical institute, System Engineering from 1980 through 1988.

Like atomic energy and some other modern technological discoveries, spheral statistics and SIST have a double/duplex use: they can be constructive, providing global peace and common societal good for the fraternal unity of countries and people in a harmonious multipolar world order. Or, they can be destructive/military, capable of creating economic instability, disharmony and societal collapse nonviolently, as was the case with the “Great Depression” in the United States or the disintegration of the USSR. The destructive option of spheral statistics and SIST may be applied, for example, by world peace organizations, such as a restructured United Nations, to any state-aggressor to nonviolently ensure global security, peace and stability from harmony.

According to Dr. Semashko’s opinion, spheral statistics and its technologies have an unlimited range of effective applications in all spheres of world digital economy. These tools allow to regularize and streamlining the Internet global information space,to turn its chaos into some kind of harmony and to ensure a gradual approximation to it, as well as repeatedly to increase the precision and efficiency of the search in it. o­n their basis, fundamentally new models of global environmental security governance are built for the UN and other international organizations. In addition, on their basis, self-government models of personal growth can design for each individual. Their use can ensure the peoples of all countries with millions of new innovative intellectual jobs and unlimited investments in the 21st century.

Spheral Democracy

Spherons and spheral science are able to provide an evolutionary, nonviolent transformation of traditional democracy as plutocracy—with its congenital defects of militarism, inequality, corruption and nationalism—to a full, 100 percent spheral democracy that encompasses and serves the interests of the entire population, including women and children.

Spheral democracy is based o­n scientific knowledge of each spheron’s objective equality within a harmoniously structured society. The spherons objective equality demands to recognize the equally necessary role that each spheron plays in social production. This knowledge requires and allows a highly functional society to divide all forms of political power at all levels of government, entitling each of the four spherons with an equal (25 percent) quota of representation in the legislative, judicial and executive governmental decision-making bodies.

A similar division of power between fundamental spherons (between spheral classes/communities of the population) is necessary today. In order to be truly harmonious, society must create a decision-making structure in which there is an equal quota representation in all democratic institutions, regardless of the number of people and property value (wealth) of any particular individuals within any of the spherons. This equanimity creates a condition in which society is at the service of all its people and not at the service of the small percentage of the population (the wealthy elite); thus, it ensures a full and balanced, harmonious nature of spheral democracy that can overcome all the innate defects of traditional democracy that is evident in many countries today.

Global Peace Science

All categories and discoveries of the spheral science are organically integrated by Dr. Semashko in the special Global Peace Science (GPS), which is still not universally developed and, thus, is absent in most countries. GPS is an alternative to “military science,” which has flourished for more than two centuries in all countries, resulting in an endless number of military academies and colleges as well as prioritization of extremely expansive military endeavors, armament build-ups and colossal military budgets.

Global Peace Science reveals the objective laws and fundamental actors of global peace from the societal structural harmony of the spherons. Thus GPS can be used by nations and governments to overcome all disharmonies and imbalances of social production that generate violence, wars and armed conflicts. GPS allows societies to build a long-term global strategy for achieving universal peace and disarmament within the next 50 years, based o­n the mechanisms of spheral democracy at all levels of government, including the United Nations.

Tetranet Thinking Paradigm (TTP)

Based o­n spheral categories and spheral indices, Dr. Semashko created a fundamentally new paradigm of spheral, global, harmonious, holistic and networked thinking that he called the Tetranet Thinking Paradigm (TTP). Tetranet thinking is four-dimensional thinking by spheres and spherons at all levels of social autopoietic cosmos within the framework of the philosophical thinking of the four o­ntological spheres of being. Thus, TTP integrates all the achievements of traditional, branch or partial thinking in order to overcome the fragmentation and limitation of that 20th century mindset. TTP also allows people and governments of the world to find nonviolent, harmonious solutions to all historical and current global challenges andrisks.

TTP offers a constructive intellectual tool for the embodiment of the 20th century’s brilliant covenants and the solution of global challenges expressed by their visionaries, among them: Henri Poincare, who said, “The inner harmony of the world is the o­nly true objective reality.” Albert Einstein, who said, “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.” Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “We should shift the arms race to a peace race.” To which John F. Kennedy, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, added, “Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” Therefore, using the expression of the Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, o­ne can say that TTP is scientific thinking that constitutes “the greatest shift of human thought, which takes place o­nly o­nce in the millennia.”

TTP also builds o­n the wisdom and soft harmonious force of women. It was the Russian theosophist, writer, and public figure Elena Roerich who said, “In the hands of a woman, now is the salvation of humankind and the planet. The Age of Woman has come, and the woman must raise the thinking of humanity to the next step.” TTP brings forth the necessity of true gender equality that is humorously expressed in the American aphorism: “If Mama isn’t happy, nobody’s happy.”

Global Harmony Association projects

Women’s Project

Dr. Semashko and the Global Harmony Association applied spheral analysis with an evaluation of feminist achievements of the last 100 years to create a foundation for continuation of the new feminist movement in the 21st century. This endeavor began with a reconstruction of the feminist heritage of Helena Roerich, who, in the early 1900s, rode side by side with her husband, Nicholas Roerich, as they, together, explored the great remote expanses of southern Russia, China and Himalayan India. From that, came a deeper definition of Elena Roerich’s philosophy of “harmonious feminism” or “fourth wave feminism.”

GHA developed Helena Roerich’s theoretical conclusions and integrated them with spheral intellectual tools to form the conceptual basis of the GHA project called New Women. This project connects the idea of true equality of women, primarily in the economic and political spheres, with women’s harmonious and leading societal role. This project shows that women can bring about world peace because of their inherent motherly capability to master spheral holism through the paradigm of tetranet thinking and by establishing a spheral democracy that provides women with an equal quota of seats in all government bodies at all levels.

Social Priority of Children

The traditional capitalist way of prioritizing and maximizing profit, as history has shown, is destructive for humanity in all senses and spheres: military-political, economic, humanitarian and spiritual. Through his research, Dr. Semashko proved that humanity’s survival requires that society shift from its destructive prioritization of capitalistic profit to the constructive priority of children’s growth and creative development.

Children constitute the primordial human value for all people throughout all time. The quality of life for children determines the quality of all spherons and society as a whole, in all its parts and functions.

In the early 2000s, Dr. Semashko proposed a legal mechanism for ensuring the priority of children in a legislative bill, submitted to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), called the Children Suffrage Executed by Parents and referenced as an “institution for harmony.” While this idea did not originate with Dr. Semashko, he enhanced the concept with a fundamental spheral substantiation of a philosophical, sociological, political and legal nature.

The social prioritization of children ensures the recovery of social goal-setting, society’s liberation from militarism and direction toward global peace for children. Making children a priority is also an indispensable tool for the establishment of spheral democracy because: it ensures genuine gender equality; it harmoniously regulates the demographic process of population growth; it prevents terrorism through the formation of children’s antiterrorist immunity; it develops decisive human capital; and it qualitatively increases the sociosphere role of its institutions of family, education, health care, sports and similar functions, especially those that are beneficial to children.

The Global Harmony Association has devoted many books, articles and projects to making children a social priority, which is connected to the third, harmonious path of human development as an alternative to capitalism and communism.