The search for World Order starts close to home by Cynthil D. Stowell It is a gloomy picture of the world that Jack Yost ('71 MA) paints. "We have a chaotic world system in which nations threaten and bully each other, the poor countries are getting poorer, people's rights are being trampled, and the tropical rain forests are disappearing at an -incredible rate. It's out of control, and it's all going downhill." But Yost lives for another view of the world - the view that astronauts had on their way to the moon. "I\'s one fragile little globe, a precious thing. That image is invading our collective conSCiousness.., It is on behatf of this "little globe" that churches, scientists and people like himself are joining to find solutions. "The strands of the world are coming together.. .8 tremendous amount of networking is going on internationally," says Yost with all the optimism and Idealism one person can muster. So too are the pieces of Yost's "drifting" life settling into place as he devotes himself to the quest for world order. "All the strands of my past are coming together," he says. "This is it. This is what I want to do with the rest of my life." Yost, 38, is the founder and director of Global Forum, housed at the Campus Ministry on the PSU Campus. Since Hs birth last fall, Global Forum has collaborated with other groups in bringing speakers from all over the world to campus for lectures and forums on global cooperation . For as long as Yost can remember, he has been an idealist and romantic, fascinated by social change. He originally studiad to be a Catholic prlost, bIlt left his Belgian seminary feeling "very alienatad from the Catholic Church and Institutionalized religion," fed up with "people killing each other in the name of God." Writing has always been another love of Yost's, and retuming to his native Oregon with an unpublished novel under his arm, he enrolled In a maste"s program in English at PSU. When he received his MA in 1971, he taught for a coople of years in the University Scholars' Program under Jim Hart, then took a fellowship at Boston University, bailing out when he realized he was weary of scholarly writing. Back in Portland, Yost "chauffeured for an old lady in West Hills" and wrote another novel, entitled "Why I Am Not My Mother," an exploration of the fantasy world he fell he'd always inhabited. After two more years teaching f1ction~writing in the Scholars Program, Yost became editor of Vanguard. "That was a tremendous experience for me," said Yost, who gathered an entirely new staft around him. "We watched each other bloom under the creative atmosphere." By the end of his editorship. Yost was convinced he wanted to start a peace organIzation, but an interview with former PSU professor Penny Allen, producer/director of the film Property, took him on a three~year detour. Allen needed more capital to start shooting Paydirt, and Yost became $Uch a believer in the film that he was soon out in the business community (as associate producer) looking for Investors. He raised $175,000 and the film was completed, but it 4"ell through the cracks of audience appeal" and Yost failed to make the money he needed to get his dream off the ground. Wrestling with "confusion and despair" and a grOwing problem with alcohol, Yost wondered when the drifting would stop. Then he remembered Buckminster Fuller'S advice: "Figure out what you want to do, do it, then get somebody to pay for it" All at once, Yost's background in fundraising. writing, media and the church came to the fore, and Global Forum was bom, with Campus Ministry as a kind of midwife. He wanted his organization to be different from others. "Peace organizations and the nuclear freeze movement aren't addressing the issue of security, which is a legitimate concem of a nation. Unless we address this, we can't convince nations to give up their weapons." looking farther ahead to world order is the answer. says Yost, who advocates increased Intemationallaw and cooperation. "law allows us to be freer and more secure," he believes. The sea treaty negotiated for the last eight years by 150 countries, and ultimately rejected by Pres. Reagan. is an example of the intemational law Yost would like to see. War, whicll Yost calls "institutional anarchy," can be outlawed, he feels. "If war were human nature, then Oregon would be at war with Washington." But because it is against the law for states to engage in war, conflicts must be resolved in other ways. Many people and nations fear that world order implies the sacrifice of autonomy and invites totalitarianism. Not so, says Yost. "World order is not some huge thing that's going to descend out of the sky. All problems transcend national borders, and we need global solutions, but irs a matter of finding the appropriate level of government to solve certain problems. The right kind of world order would foster decentralization, provide more security and allow for autonomy." "It's not 'what will we give up' but 'what are we giving up now.' We're totally vulnerable to nuclear war. It you don'1 have this global plan, then what do you have?" Peace goes far beyond mere disarmament, feels Yost. "You can't address arms without looking at the economy and environment. Global economic management is in everybody's interest, If done in a participatory way. Our survival depends on it." In our economy today, "products 818 first and people second," says Yost, who feels that because "economy is a human thing," it should be serving the needs of humans. Saturday Market in downtown Portland is a refreshing altemative: "You buy a pot and say hello to the guy who made it." "The great scourge of the world is not capitalism or communism, but Impersonalism," offers Yost. World order can only happen on a "person to person basis. We link as friends, then as organizations, then nationally and intemationally." Through Global Forum, Yost has sponsored small group discussions for six weeks each term to establish these links. "As human beings we have a need to make a contribution to society and not just be pawns." explains Yost. "But we have to feel a sense of community, feel a connection." Global Forum's five year plan includes creating an intemational house for isolated foreign students and formulating a "University Program," whk:h would prOvide PSU students with an "informal area of emphasis" on intematlonal issues based on existing courses and faculty. Yost will also be going back into the bIlsiness community to address mutual concerns, thus joining two traditionally polarized interest groups. '" get more and more optimistic, the more I get Involved," says Yost. "When you find other people, you start feeling you're not alone and powerless. " For Yost, the most important step has been the personal one. "I feel there Is a purpose to my life and purpose to the planet. To fulfill my own nature is to be part of the overall harmony of the universe." 3
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