I've figured out why the world is the way it is.

You can stop wondering. I’ve figured out why the world is the way it is: The people who make decisions about policy and world order never left high school. I know this because of what happened today.

The elective course I’m currently in combines students from three programs – European Studies, Global Studies, and my program, International Administration and Global Governance (IAGG for short). Today our professor asked us to divide ourselves into study groups during the break. So that’s what we did – “we” being me and my fellow IAGGers. We’re the kind of people who like to leave the classroom and hang out in the hallway during our breaks, and while we were out there getting the job done, the GS and ES students stayed in the classroom and thought up another plan. 

Their idea was to have mixed groups of ES, GS and IAGG students so that we could all “benefit from each other’s various backgrounds,” and "couldn’t the 30 or so of us reach an agreement together?" Now, this was a perfectly swell suggestion, but for the IAGGers who had already formed two groups to the satisfaction of all involved, the new plan wasn’t so appealing. This resulted in our staying after class for 20 minutes arguing back and forth as to how to divvy up the groups. Some didn’t see why we should rearrange the groups that were already formed; others grew frustrated at the apparent unwillingness of IAGGers to work with people outside their program; some tried to corral the group toward a consensus, only to be undermined by others who weren’t having it; and on and on it went. I, being the good Swede, remained neutral throughout the negotiations, all the while feeling distinctly uncomfortable about how complicated and awkward we were making it. I could tell certain ones in the class were getting offended, and it wasn't the IAGGers.

In short, we ended up agreeing on a day and time for everyone to show up, but did we reach a decision regarding who would be in what group? Of course we didn’t. Because we’re all still in high school. In reality, what took place today was just a dress rehearsal for future summits on international policy and law that no one will agree upon. The one thing that will be agreed upon is the time and place of the next summit in which negotiations will continue and no agreements will be reached. 

Now, if one were to take a step back to surmise the situation, one could make an interesting observation: We see that Global Studies students – the future activists and NGO workers of the world – just wanted everyone to come together to share experiences and lend one another their different perspectives on the issues we are studying. Lyrics like “Come on people now/smile on your brother/everybody get together/let’s try to love one another right now” come to mind. We also see that the IAGG students – the pragmatists and future governing elite – felt perfectly satisfied to work with the people they already know and trust. They did what the professor had asked the class to do, they just did it out in the hall rather than in the classroom. Which, let’s face it, is how important political decisions are made – within closed groups in the corridors, not in the general assembly in great conference halls. 

So. Be at peace and anxious for nothing. The future activists and governing elites of the world do have plans for leading the masses into a prosperous 21^st century. The plans just happen to differ and the two groups just happen to not get along. There is absolutely nothing to worry about.