Friends, the world, for most is a hostile, worrisome place. There are wars, occupations and terrorist attacks. There is global warming, people starving, children dying from preventable diseases, cancer rages, infidelity and divorce is rife, democracy is rapidly slipping away, many people are lonely and bitter and filled with hate, etc. I'm sure you can add to the list. What is happening is the result of system failure combined with the erosion of values.
The systems which govern our lives are deeply flawed. Nationalism divides countries, encourages elitism and imperialism. Religion divides people, manipulates them into competing groups. Capitalism pits person against person, encourages greed and the rape of the planet. Politicians, too often, no longer serve their constituents, they rule them, etc. However, all systems are man-made. They can be unmade! We, the people, can have any political, social or economic system we want.
Simultaneously, the erosion of what values we once had is well-advanced. Once we lived in simple rural communities where everyone knew everyone and helped each other. We grew our own crops, wove our own cloth, danced around the maypole, used a barter system. We felt we belonged and we did. Then technology and the Industrial Revolution came along.
Now, in polluted and over-crowded cities, most of us exist in a lonely, dog-eat-dog, 'me-first' world. People are encouraged, using credit, to 'have it all now' and who cares about anyone else. If your marriage has gone a bit stale, divorce and get someone younger. Materialism rages while people live under bridges and others starve. The gap between rich and poor across the world widens daily. Road rage and assaults and rapes are common as is drug use and promiscuity and sexual deviation. But values, like systems, can also be restored. We the people can change everything. How, you ask?
It's simple. Stop being manipulated!
Employ the techniques used by Gandhi, the passive, civil disobedience ones. Stop fighting in armies. Stop being pawns in the capitalist game, the one that makes a few people fabulously rich. Stop buying the junk that everyone says we must have to make us happy. Stop voting for folks whose only interest is self-interest. Stop living in cities which, after all, are only ugly , polluted 'compounds', ones which keep millions held captive so the vested interests can fuel the industrial production lines and fill their gimmicky retail outlets.
Start thinking about being responsible citizens of the world, caring about others and the environment. Begin sharing, being generous. Be aware of the bigger picture, the interrelatedness of all living things, our interdependence on nature and the shortness of our lives.
We can change the world, make it into whatever we want. Join the UTOPIANS now and let's change the world into a place where everyone counts, where everyone is looked after.
1. Most political, economic and social systems prevailing in the world today are deeply flawed or corrupt and must be completely changed or modified before our world is destroyed by a nuclear holocaust or global warming.
2. Fierce competition between individuals, states and nations encourages elitism, imperialism and greed which in turn causes immense damage to the planet as well as the mass killing of civilians. Competition should be immediately replaced by genuine co-operation and sharing.
3. Power corrupts so that all existing concentrations of power: political, militaristic and capital-based must be neutralized then decentralized, re-allocated or destroyed.
4. Living a simple, sustainable, communal, semi-rural lifestyle brings maximum harmony and peace and is kind to the environment.
5. Religious fantasies and superstitions, as promoted by powerful religious institutions, are irrational, divisive and self-serving and should be replaced by humanitarian, evidence-based perceptions and an acceptance of life's reality.
6. Material things do not and never will bring happiness - happiness comes from within but can be enhanced by the feeling of belonging to a supportive, caring community.
7. Sharing and co-operation assisted by an all powerful but just World Government and World Court will mean that all world citizens will be equal and can enjoy a reasonable, equitable lifestyle (not just the few who, because of the current system, live in ultra-luxury).
8. Genuine caring and respect for others will encourage others to care, that hurting others in any way diminishes the person responsible.
9. Change can be brought about non-violently using the passive resistance techniques of Gandhi and Martin Luther King (eg. not voting, not serving in the armed forces, not working for armament industries, not paying taxes, not buying materialistic junk or products that damage the environment, getting off the capitalist treadmill, setting up self-sufficient rural communities, ignoring theological edicts, etc).
10. Once humans begin to enjoy the benefits of simplicity, cooperation and selflessness, that happiness and peace will grow and prevail on this earth for the first time ever.
Utopians, let's get started before it's too late! To join us see the Sidebar.
Photo Image Link.
P.S. The ten point list of Utopian Demands For Children was posted on Sept 5th. Your thoughts on both lists are most welcome!
16 comments:
Hello there,
Unfortunately we never lived in Utopia.
If you want to know what small town life was once like, read a very depressing book called WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP. Small town life was also described most horribly in Ring Lardner's famous and underrated short story HAIRCUT from 1922.
People were no better and no worse years ago than they are today. I would say that we have been seduced by pretty baubles. Few people are willing to delay instant gratification. But if you explained the concept and then offered a technological gadget to a Victorian, or someone living in the 18th century, they would jump at it.
The mercantile classes started rising five hundred years ago, which remarkably coincides with the 'discovery' of the Western hemisphere by the Eastern. Exploitation followed.
Unrecorded centuries would tell the same tale, on a smaller scale.
A Danish friend took me to Roskilde once, to view the marvellously restored Viking ships.
"The Vikings were only tradesmen," she said.
"If so, they certainly invented the hard sell." I said.
Plenty and abundance are more likely to breed sharing communities than scarcity. Once the water and food become scarce, humanity, which refuses to reduce its numbers or plan for the future, will be getting really ugly.
Voltaire said it best. There is no best of all possible worlds--one can only work in one's garden.
Loved your interesting comment, Nancy, but I remember a time in Australia when people were not well off but were less selfish, less greedy, more caring, more community minded. Kids could walk the streets at night without fear of assault or rape and home and school might have been boring but at least they were, in most instances, places of security. Nowhere in the world is secure any more!
Back then wasn't ideal but it was sure as hell better than what's on offer now! Cheers.
I agree on most ideas you've expressed and also remember when as a child you did not have to worry about "others" and walked freely, anywhere for the most part, and new neighbors blocks away, unlike today.
Society has been programmed and manipulated to such an extreme, that these new generations need to wake up, and quite accepting the media spin machine and that of our governments and work with each other, not against.
Sigh.......
But how will we wake them up, Coffee? We have been sold a crock but those of us who are older remember different times. It is our responsibility to expose the cons and lead the world to a better way.
Cheers!
Interesting idea Daniel. The present system needs to be overhauled and the serious inbalance evened out. The focus on military solutions has to be sidelined and the disgraceful way money and capital dictates everything.
A powerful ideology driven by like minded bloggers could just be crazy enough to work in the right format, especially in this current climate of fear and corruption.
I'm assuming from your comment you're in, Lucy. If the idea begins to take off we might get bloggers uniting together for the common good.
Your thoughts on the format are most welcome. I see this as a group effort! Cheers.
Australia was very far away from other nations and marauders, and had a small population. And yes, it probably was a decent society in the old days--for some people anyway-- the early history of the colony was pretty rough. And was there not a "White Australia" immigration policy then?
I love Australia but was surprised to see that its history had so many similarities to my own country's, including a Red Scare, the way the aboriginal population was treated, and even slavery.
I think that the abandonment of the concept of "White Australia" led to a flowering of Australian culture and one of the world's great cuisines, for starters. Increased immigration may have brought more crime; but Australia is still pretty law abiding compared to some other countries. I am shocked but not surprised to see the peaceful marchers at this upcoming Summit described as 'potentially violent'!
I hope the Bums for Bush succeed in mooning the idiot, and get their...pictures...in the papers.
I am sure you were eavesdropping on my daughter's telephone conversation with me this morning.
The problem with feelings so depressingly expressed I really do start to wonder if we can just enjoy the day because there is fresh air and food on the table.
My daughter is already thinking that the world she has brought her children into is so bad she is worrying fruitlessly about their future.
We can't change the world!, we can't fix everything! we do have to retain some sense of balance about how we accept things outside our control.
I didn't vote for Mr Howard, but when I learn he is selling uranium to any other country I cringe about the world's future capacity to survive.
America, China and Russia will decide the World's fate at one level but I believe mother nature will surpass even them with her might. Global warming is just the tip of the iceberg, and with all the chemicals and poisons stored throughout most "enlighted" countries, when mother earth gives up her power with force, nothing will matter to anyone, anywhere!
Hello I am behind your noble idea and I am back to blogging... (putting up a shield against the mass opinion as we speak and preparing anti-depressants :P ). A little humour is always needed to survive!
I agree with you about a kinder, gentler, society but a return to the 50's as I remember them here in the States isn't necessarily Utopia either.
It begins with each individual, no matter where we live.
I made a reference to an earlier time, Nancy, but I did not intend that we return to duplicate that period only to adopt some of its positive aspects. I envisage a whole new approach to human society and the way we live. A radical change is thinking is required!
Mary, the power wielded by these so-called 'leaders' can be undone in a minute if the masses want it and work together to achieve it. Nothing is set in concrete although the manipulators would like us to think so!
Damian, glad to hear you're back into blogging and I'll add you to the WUM list.
Granny, not everything in the past was bad. Let's take what was good and build upon it!
Cheers.
If you think you can or you think you can't, either way you're are right! If you are not satisfied with the way the world is then you have the ability to do something about it. If you have a "yeah but" attitude then frankly you deserve what you get. Nobody has said that we have to go back in time to be happy. What we are saying is there is a better way. We dont have to throw any babies out with the bath water, we just have to make the best of what we have. And at the moment man isn't, by a very long way. However Given the huge advances man has made on many fronts we have a whole lot of positive stuff to work with.
Just want to say well done, Daniel.
I have seen your blog go from strength to strength, from no comments to PLENTY, from your being frustrated and almost giving up to you starting your own movement.
I hope you feel proud and you keep up the great work.... don't forget me ;~)
Love ya always XXX
I can do nothing on my own, Neo. Blogging needs friends and I've got plenty of great ones (and you're one of the very special ones).
I don't know where this movement will go. Doesn't matter. At least we're giving it a go, trying to make things better. There's a hunger out there for change, for peace, I'm sure.
Hugs. XXXXXXXXXXX
You know, I am beginning to be convinced that civil disobedience is what we need to do right now!
Aaah only if the history hadn't taght me that dystopians are the ones who inherit our revolutions ...
Perhaps it's time we changed world history, Naj, went in a new direction!
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