Manifesto

Or, how to participate in the inevitable global cultural revolution

Watching the decades long, gradual genocide against the Palestinian people accelerate, and witnessing the silence and complicity of governments around the world, it becomes abundantly clear that citizens around the world are prisoners of our political systems rather than owners of it. The values that the masses of ordinary humanists abide by are in direct contradiction to the actions (or inactions) of their governments. We feel disenfranchised and powerless in face of the brutality we are witnessing, and no amount of public protest seems to budge our clearly corrupt ruling class from taking action towards peaceful resolution. What can we do?

The empowerment of the average person comes in the form of creative expression. We will not win with violence against our oppressors — they have bigger guns and they are more willing to use them indiscriminately. If we want to make changes, we must turn to our power to organize, and to disseminate sustainable, humanist culture. When we saturate the world with our humanist values, it penetrates even the secluded enclaves of government, business leadership, and other insular institution where power is concentrated. This is a grassroots approach to shifting our world. However, rather than requiring a large critical mass of followers to begin with to foment change, what is actually required initially is a covenant between radical artists to make great work that intentionally propagates these humanist values, embedding them in Great Art.

We have entered the era of the artist. The advent of the internet has led to the possibility of a rapid spread of ideas, with greater potential velocity than at any other period in human history. Content creators, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers and the like can share their work globally and instantaneously from their own studios and homes.

While art has been largely coopted by capitalist culture as an “industry”, it actually serves many essential, overlooked functions in human society. For those of us who make work to share, it is critically necessary for us to now understand and to operate in honor those functions. One of art’s many functions is that art is the key vehicle for transmission of culture. A culture is defined by its values, both personal and aesthetic, and our sense of what values are considered “normal” are determined by the dominant culture we belong to. For that reason, artists have immense power and responsibility to evolve culture towards normalizing a set of sustainable values.

When we see oppression, dehumanization, violent retaliation, and “might makes right” as values normalized in our society, we must examine whether these values are sustainable for the future of humanity. If our species is to evolve and thrive, we must consider other, more sustainable ways of dealing with conflict.

Among others, here are some of the key values that are critical to popularize if we want to assist in the evolution and survival of our species: maturity (vs immaturity), unity (vs plurality), integrity (vs corruption), collaboration (vs competition), humanization (vs demonization).

Maturity

Valuing being the “bigger person” is how to effectively end the cycles of violence that result in resentment, discrimination, and more violence. When two children fight, we encourage the more mature of the two to put an end to hostility by choosing not to retaliate. An even deeper expression of maturity is to have compassion for your attacker, to try to soothe their rage that causes their violence. Although this seems to be shifting in favor of a more mature approach, it is currently considered normal for a geopolitical entity to respond to violence with more violence as a default. The art of diplomacy seems to be dead, and “might makes right” culture has fully taken its place. Instead of asking “why did they attack us?” and attempting to seek reconciliation and sustainable peace, domination and destruction have become the primary modes of expression for geopolitical entities.

In the days following Sept 11, as the news coverage made it increasingly clear that Muslims were going to be blamed for the attacks, my naive 21 year old self yearned for US leaders to ask “Why were we attacked?” and to try to address the grievances the Muslim world had with US foreign policy. In retrospect I now understand the situation to be vastly different than I did then, and asking that question wouldn’t make sense given that it was probably a false flag operation conducted by Western powers. But we as citizens can demonstrate the maturity that our so-called leaders lack, and in our daily lives we can choose a path of maturity, of compassion, of intentionally responding to affronts with an intention to shut down the perpetuation of hostility and violence.

Unity

We live in the universe, which is singular by definition — there is only one of them, and everything we experience is part of the universe. Consciousness is the thread that is woven through all of creation: according to laws of quantum mechanics, the act of conscious observation is what renders our reality materially. All living things (and perhaps even things we don’t consider to be alive) participate in conscious activity in some form or another, and together, we collaboratively make this world what it is.

This all speaks to the abstract concept of unity. However, the experience of unity is something that cannot be explained in words so easily. The feeling you get in a crowd at a great concert, or floating in the ocean, or playing music in an ensemble, or meditating quietly on your cushion could all be described as a feeling of “oneness”. When we look at a stranger, we see “the other”, someone apparently separate from us, but in another sense, we are able to identify with that stranger on the basis of being human, and so in some sense we share a critical identification with “the other”.

Our culture values separation and individuality. We celebrate the accomplishments of great individuals, and perhaps deservedly so, but the shift that is necessary in order to evolve is to prioritize serving the greater good rather than working separately and seeking accolades independently. We must normalize the culture of unity, and we must learn to actively see past our differences in order to find mutual identification. When we see ourselves in the “other”, we can more easily make efforts to serve the world at large, and not just ourselves and those we naturally identify with.

Experiencing identification with a stranger is a good way to practice unity. In the case of Palestinians and Israelis, whatever prejudices against “the other” must be examined, and a conscious goal of identifying with “the other” is a critical step towards resolution. Some prejudicial beliefs are deep set, embedded in culture that is perhaps hundreds of years old, and has been reinforced as a result of violent conflict. Those of us with the courage and the creative mind to begin to undo these prejudices in our communities are the leaders of this essential movement towards normalizing unity.

Integrity

An entity demonstrates integrity when it performs in accordance with its stated function. In other words, if you say you’re going to do something, and then you do it, you demonstrate integrity. When a bridge is built and is stated to be able to bear a load of 1000 tons of weight, and it manages to successfully bear that weight without breaking, you can say that the bridge demonstrated integrity. When a politician runs a campaign on his claims that he is for the people, and then once in office he helps put laws into place that focus on helping people, he demonstrates integrity.

The opposite of integrity is corruption. We demonstrate corruption when we claim to have a certain value or goal, and then we behave in a way contrary to that stated value or goal. If we say we are upset about plastics polluting our planet, and yet we buy food that is wrapped in excessive plastic when there are alternative options that use less plastic, we demonstrate corruption. When a politician lies and says he wants to help people, but enacts laws that prioritize the success of businesses at the cost of the well being of citizens, that politician demonstrates corruption.

There are degrees of integrity, and thus degrees of corruption. It is practically impossible to demonstrate perfect integrity. Our world requires that we make compromises in order to function. I personally would prefer not to have to rely on a motor vehicle that pollutes the air, but that is the most accessible option to me, and so even though it is contrary to my ideals, I still drive my diesel car. If I had to bike everywhere, I wouldn’t get to where I need to be. Of course, I could engineer an entire life around maximizing my integrity, but I would have to make many sacrifices and compromises, and it might be out of my means to build such a life. An electric car is very expensive (and it still burns fossil fuels in most cases, just not from the engine directly, but rather at the power plant that charges its battery).

Maintaining our integrity is easier when there is support for it in our communities. If I want to stay off of drugs, it’s a lot easier to do when I’m engaged in a community that supports that kind of lifestyle than it would be to try to do it alone. If I live in a village where my community and all of our businesses are local enough that we can walk or use some sort of public transportation to get around, then it would be a lot easier to reduce my carbon footprint. If one of my neighbors was a farmer who sold me produce that didn’t involve even a shred of plastic or rubber, then I could live by my ideal of limited my consumption of disposable plastic. Our integrity is strengthened when we belong to communities where we have normalized integrity as a meaningful value, and where we support each other to make it easier to maintain each others integrity.

Integrity is also the foundation of trust between individuals. If I make a promise and I deliver on that promise, I am demonstrating my trustworthiness by demonstrating my integrity. If I make a habit of breaking promises, then I establish my reputation as a corrupt and untrustworthy person. Communities require integrity to build on and to galvanize the bonds between members.

Our institutions are generally corrupt. Food companies are knowingly poisoning us with additives and making addictive products that prioritize taste and shelf-life over nutrition. Pharmaceutical products are sold as long-term solutions to chronic issues when they know that that is false. Media companies lie and distort the truth to manipulate the public. Government representatives have no interest in actually representing the will of the people, but rather their own goals of stealing power from the people and maintaining it. Our whole world is built on lies, and people are waking up to the fact that corruption is a normal value in our society. In order to build an alternative reality, we must be the leaders by demonstrating integrity in face of a world that constantly tempts us into corruption. If we all were able to transform ourselves overnight to become individuals with impeccable integrity, our institutional systems would fail because we would no longer abide by them or need them — we would be able to build new systems that actually represent our values.

The call, then, is to those of us strong enough and with the means to divest enough from our failing institutions to maintain integrity in face of temptation and corruption. If those of us with that strength and power can then begin supporting others to maintain their integrity, we would quickly see the end of these parasitic and destructive institutions that have gripped our world.

Collaboration

The globally hegemonic Western capitalist culture is biased to normalize competition over collaboration. This value is born of a past world where essential resources like food and fresh water might have been considered scarce, and thus competition for those resources was the primitive and first-order response.

We now live in a different world where our security as humans is substantially more secure, especially in developed nations. In the US it’s more likely that we’ll die of diseases of excess than we will of starvation or dehydration. So, what are we continuing to compete for? Increasingly large slices of the pie that might improve our lives marginally? At what cost?

As a musician and a software developer both, I have experienced the benefits of collaboration. Problem solving often improves when you bring together a few minds to build on each others’ ideas. The notion of emergent qualities comes to mind here, effectively summed up as the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. When you bring people together to solve problems, you discover that no single person would have likely been able to discover solutions of the sophistication and resilience that a group can. Diversity of experience and perspective among collaborators also helps better consider edge cases towards the end of more elegant and sustainable solutions.

The psychology required to put aside your own ego to collaborate successfully with others is unfortunately not widely taught. Our society celebrates the triumphs of the individual, and worships the ego in a self-centered and myopic way. Learning to see yourself another way, as a functional and active part of a greater organism, is a critical development necessary in evolving humanity. Try jamming in a band with the same people regularly, or playing on a football team, and you will inevitably discover that you sound better and play better when you coordinate. A well coached team operates with elegant and intelligent movement, appearing to be a single coherent entity. A band that listens to one another as they improvise, giving each other space to play and to be heard, will sound better than the band who is composed of a lineup of egotistical and oblivious hacks.

A culture of collaboration, if popularized, would really teach people democracy. Democratic states would arise naturally out of a population of people who have lived and tested in their own life and work the principles of democracy. The lip-service that is provided by Western leaders about valuing democracy is blatantly false. A culture biased for competition rather than collaboration keeps people separated and easier to control. Political organizing is a form of collaboration, and one of the reasons it consistently fails to make meaningful change in the Western world is because even well-intentioned, radical people have little to no experience successfully adopting the soft and feminine mindset required to collaborate effectively.

Learning to trust others, to let go a little, and to take joy in the successes of others are all shifts our value systems must make.

Humanization

When we demonize criminals, we act redundantly, and unproductively. They demonize themselves by acting criminally. Our demonization of them only serves to demonstrate a sort of moral superiority, but does little to stop their criminal behavior. Deep down, the self knows when it conducts criminal behavior. People can deny their wrongdoing, and rationalize their behavior using their words and intellect, but the deeper self knows when it transgresses. However, the conscious mind that rationalizes criminal behavior is still the one calling the shots, so we cannot rely on the deeper self to correct criminal behavior.

Humanization of criminals is the necessary foundation for their rehabilitation. If we call then “animals”, and simply evaluate and judge their behavior without understanding the origins of their tendencies, then we have simply behaved as they have. How so? In order for a criminal to engage in felonious behavior, they must dehumanize their victims. A criminal that treats others as if they were beneath him dehumanizes his victims in a similar but opposite way of those who judge the criminal as a demon. If we are to find a sustainable system for dealing with criminal behavior, it is going to first require that leadership doesn’t resort to dehumanization of any kind.

—

True leadership evolves our civilization beyond our current position. The demonstration of evolved principles is the best way to teach them, and that is one of the main functions of a leader: to be a role model. Leadership isn’t an elected position, you instead become a leader by leading. The so-called leaders that the US and other corrupt governments elect are barely leaders. They are doing their best to maintain the status quo of power imbalance, and may even be considered agents of chaos in their attempts to regress human progress.

Those of us who have the courage to express values that are at odds with the current set of normative values because we have the vision of a better and more peaceful future, we are the leaders of this generation. Not everyone has that courage, but if you do, then you are in the right place. We are a coalition of leaders who understand that all human expression is art of some kind, and we can imbue in great art ideas and values that have the power to transform our world upon broad dissemination of our work.

—

Join the CoalitionSee what's been made →