|
..a manifesto The Center for a New Renaissance The plan is to build a Community of individuals dedicated to the concept that the human mind can create a society where equality, fraternity, and liberty are expressed in production, art, education and throughout the entire fabric of human interaction. This is a combined social experiment, a road map to a new way of thinking, a practical living environment, an educational facility, and a method for making an idea accessible to the world. About Time for Something that Works What I want to put before you is a way of thinking which neither falls into the realm of current liberal nor conservative labels, neither Democrat nor Republican, Independent nor Green, Progressive nor any other prominent category of political thought. The history of human society is one in which great ideas have always run ahead of the social movements that could embrace them and drive them to reality. The very nature of the human creative process is that it rises to solve the inconsistencies and inadequacies of the then prevalent concepts, whether in the arena of science, art, or social and political practice. Social revolutions of global significance take place only during periods of the intersection of such new concepts and the social and economic conditions which themselves drive large numbers of a population to awaken from the complacency of life-as-usual. During periods when broad based social consciousness is but a simmering ripple, it is the task of those who foresee a new future to expand on it in ways that make the concepts accessible to others who begin to be open for new conceptions. Why Americans Hate Politics I truly believe that most people today, especially in America, have core beliefs that require them to suppress feelings of nausea when embracing their chosen political label. Liberals who despise the piety of a society which treats women so badly that it looked the other way when coat hanger abortions were the proper solution to desperation, are now put in the position of acting as though terminating the potential life of a child is a simple “right to chose”, as though there were no alternative social possibility where all children would be welcomed into a world that would care for them. Republicans find themselves praising family values that they see corroding around them, while supporting policies that slash service budgets and destroy families to maintain a war machine. It is as if turning one’s children into murderers was a noble legacy. Greens want to protect the environment without a clue as to the crucial role that technology can play, only to find themselves becoming a new incarnation of Ludites. Progressives? Well, today that mostly means someone who supports the Democratic Party while complaining about it like a spoiled child who pouts and rebels while still living at home. It’s as though every political issue, every pressing question of the day, is tightly contained within a fishbowl of allowable solutions. What is Knowledge At specific points in the history of human social development, scientific thought, or philosophical conceptualization, the commonly held beliefs and social systems break down as new discoveries become evident but yet do not cohere with that which represents the current conceptualization. Knowledge, then, is the creation of that new conception which not only subsumes the previously demonstrated truths, but incorporates the new demonstrably validated truths as integral to the one new concept. This is what is meant by “knowledge”. It is the epistemology of science as understood by Einstein in his General Relativity against Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. It is the essence of Plato’s method as opposed to Aristotle’s. And, it is the very nature of how the universe itself has evolved and what occurs in the human creative mental process. This all encompassing drive to conceptualize a unified understanding of the universe was embodied in what we refer to as the “renaissance man”, the individual who combines an understanding of art, science, and technology. It is what is meant by “Truth” in the religious sense as represented by the victory of monotheism in the Judeo, Christian, Islamic tradition over the polytheism of the late Roman Empire’s paganism. “One God” is the reflection of the understanding that truth is the ability to derive a higher encompassing conceptualization. The emotional content of this is the “Eureka”, “I’ve found it!” That sudden experience of “I get it!” It’s the core of what makes humor humorous. The sudden mental grasp of that which resolves an increasing tense inconsistency or incoherence set up prior to the “punch line”. It is the cross-category leaping of boundaries that is found in puns and the reconciliation of disparate images resolved in the final line of a Haiku poem. One of the ramifications of this is in its application to social problem solving. You can guarantee that at any point in a political discussion when there appears to be no solution, then two things dominate. The wrong questions are being asked and the realm of answers considered allowable is far too localized. It’s as though everyone knows the earth is flat, but yet the masts of far off ships appear to rise out of the water as they draw near. Whenever you find yourself in this kind of mental inconsistency with two irreconcilable truths colliding, then you know you are on the cusp of a conceptual leap. In the broad scope of human social progress, these leaps have been identified with the term “renaissance”. A New Renaissance The closest image that one can keep in mind as I discuss this would be that of the Renaissance. The 15th and 16th century in Italy, 16th century in Spain, and the Arabic Renaissance as early as the 11th century. The times in history when humankind has risen above its mediocrity, its localism, its “I’m just trying to survive” persona, and opened its eyes, its mind, and its productive capacity to new levels of artistic, poetic, and scientific creativity. Principles of the Renaissance Underlying all of the outward physical expressions of the Renaissance is that of the individual’s identity as being more than herself. It is that wanting to be universal, above the smallness of location and individual. The artistic expression points toward universal man, the science toward universal principles, truth. It is Man touching the hand of God in kinship. In political and economic terms this has been expressed as government created for the enhancement of the General Welfare of all it citizens. History occurs with its own context, so there is always an overlay of the most noble and the most savage of ideas, sometimes in conflict, sometimes interwoven. Slavery and feudalism existing throughout the Greek Classic period and the Italian Renaissance alongside the birth and development of ideas that make us human. Our task is to identify ourselves with that ever developing higher tendency in social history and ensure its survival in a world under attack by politics of fear and a culture of banality posing as freedom and of psychosis masquerading as creativity. When setting out to build a new world based on concepts not universally understood, one immediately runs into the problem of naming it. Most of the words that could be used are completely distorted in historical context and popular vernacular. “Community” is what real estate developers design for middle income whites where one might have met his next door neighbor once when getting the home owner association paperwork signed for approval of a change in house color. On the other end of the spectrum is the “community” as a perverse aphorism for the urban ghetto or barrio where you “give something back to the community, man!” or you “organize the community around community issues”. The word “Socialism” has been borrowed by everyone from the British liberals to the Nazi Party. Both of whom share similar economic and social policies that turn the concept of socialism on its head. “Communism” runs the gamut from early Christian conclaves to the beleaguered Soviet Union. A name is needed. A point of reference for a concept. Perhaps as we establish our facility, the name of the community itself will become the generic term for this concept. Until then, I will refer to it as “Renaissance Humanism”. Not so much as to identify a period in history, but rather an idea that runs throughout history. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity Despite the crushing of the 1789 revolution by Bonapartism, leading Beethoven to rename his “Eroica” Symphony and scratch Napoleon’s name from the dedication, the slogan of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity carries in it the core of the struggle for humanity to find expression in social forms. Now is the time to raise the banner again, with a broader understanding. Liberty “Oh Freedom…” the song of oppressed peoples fighting for their humanity has also been the slogan of empires usurping new territories for economic power. Those of us in America are so use to the terms Liberty and Democracy being used as synonyms for the country itself, we seldom step back to examine them. All I ask is for you to step outside yourself for a moment, put on your cloak as a Renaissance Woman, or Man, representing universal concepts. Now ask yourself, “What is probably the most significant task any society undertakes on behalf of its citizens?” Perhaps near the top of the list would be that of real production, i.e. the allocation and use of human labor and material resources for the production of necessary goods and services of the society. Now ask yourself, “How did you exercise your democratic vote on the dismantling of the steel industry, the textile industry, and the electronics industry for the outsourcing of major production facilities to countries to produce these under slave wage conditions while major urban centers were left to deteriorate with massive unemployment?” Did you vote “yea” or “nay”? Which box did you check on the special referendum ballot? OK, so we don’t vote on every “little” issue. We elect representatives. So, how did your representative vote? Oh, he didn’t get to vote either, since these little issues are “outside democracy”. They are in the “private realm” of private property. Well then, how about the vote on how we can make the best use of our engineers trained in machine tool design for production of the nation’s transportation needs? How did you cast your vote after the national discussion and public debates on the merits of providing urban centers with interconnected modern high speed rail systems or whether to go for more individual gas guzzling SUV’s and commercial sized raised-axle trucks for suburban families and commuters? Oh, you’re not a major GM stockholder, so you missed that ballot. Or perhaps you do have some GM shares in your mutual fund, but still no vote? How can anyone make a claim for liberty and democracy without the ability of the society itself to make conscious decisions about production? While everyone should support the efforts of the oppressed to fight for the overthrow of the oppressor, nonetheless every historical case when viewed from a broader universal standpoint leads to the realization that even the oppressor is oppressed by the very structure itself. This is the ultimate fallacy of “issues organizing”, “local control”, “constituency politics” and even “class struggle” in its narrow understanding. An equal piece of the pie is still not the ability to run the bakery. The problem is not just in the issue of the people “owning the means of production”. That aspect of capitalism as the political form for implementing the advance of the industrial revolution certainly has provided its inadequacies, criminalities, massive inefficiencies, and just plain stupid decisions. But overlaying capitalist ownership has been an even more insidious virus known as Monetarism. Without going into the historical roots of this disorder, let’s just look at it from the standpoint of the comic-tragedy that we see played out in the U.S. Listen to any news report on the state of the economy. Step back, don your cloak again and listen. “… the economy may be showing signs of rebounding, but economists warn that the market is unstable. It all depends on how the market will go and as we all know the market is unpredictable…” One would almost think that the “market” is some sort of volcano god outside human control, other than perhaps to throw in an occasional virgin to appease its wrath. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” So goes the TV ad that use to urge better funding for black colleges. It’s a slogan that should equally apply to the citizens of a nation who turn over their ability to think, plan, and the making of decisions about how their lives are run to a piece of voodoo called the “market”. Let’s see if I can get this concept straight. If there is an increase in the market value for something (everybody wants or needs it), then the price goes up and its more difficult for people to have it, whereas if the market for something goes down (i.e. nobody wants it or gives a damn) then its priced cheap so everyone can have one. Now that sounds like intelligence in action. One has only to keep in mind that what underlies all economic theories, market fluctuations, trends and cycles is in fact a real economy. There are people who produce goods and services for the general welfare of the population as a whole. The economy, stripped of the overlay of a financial myth, involves production of housing, food, health care, education , music, art, research, recreation, invention and exploration, for a population to not only sustain itself but to grow and develop such that it has a surplus of capacity to rise to the needs and opportunities that its development presents to it. This involves real people making real decisions. That is, unless they decide to abdicate their minds and turn over such decisions to chance, superstition, or “market forces”. The concept of Liberty carries with it the responsibility and the freedom involved in collectively managing production for the good of the General Welfare. Does that make us “Commies”? Who cares? Stalin’s dead, Joe McCarthy’s dead. It’s time to get on with our lives. Equality is an interesting concept. As a virtue it always seems appealing only when countered with its opposite. Everyone already understands inequality when it is used as a tool of oppression, from the blatancy of apartheid to the subtlety of a language’s lack of a gender neutral pronoun that applies to humans. In a sane society, diversity would be treasured for the potential it provides to creative thought, just as genetic variation does to the development of organisms. The sure sign of a pathological society is when individualism turns into self destruction. Body piercing becomes self expression, rage as poetry, destruction as art, distortion as music and psychosis as creativity. The calm expression of the same degree of social psychosis is the turn to conformity born of social fear. Children hiding “duck and cover style” during the Cold War and now today we have the daily dose of post 9/11 alerts that imply no action, other than perhaps to stock up on duct tape. The consummate channel for individual expression becomes “consumerism”. I am what I eat, wear, drive, marry, and live in. You are what you think, produce, conceive and contribute. Immortality is within the grasp of everyone who contributes to the development of humanity as a whole, but the ability of the broad population to do so requires that we provide the very social structure that not only allows it, but promotes it. The ultimate tragedy of so many noble struggles for equality of access is that having won the battle, the oppressed only finds herself to now be sharing the new layer of oppression that once looked like freedom. Women with equal pay find themselves equally discarded in plant closings. Blacks now attend integrated budget-strapped overcrowded schools incapable of producing educated students of any color. All issues of equality of access and opportunity in society are rooted in the larger issue of the society we must build. Anything short of that is susceptible to local issue “constituency group” piece-of-the-pie politics. All one has to do is mention “affirmative action” and left-vs-right think-locally-act-locally mentality boils to the surface. Where are the Renaissance thinkers that step outside the goldfish bowl and speak for a higher level of human society? The answer my friend, .. is the wind itself. Yes, I know, it could have been titled “Sorority”, but bear with me as I proceed; trapped inside a language of exclusiveness and historical assumptions which are both based on and promote oppression. Fraternity, the relation of people to one another, is the very core of society. It is the ether in which life runs its course. Fraternity is an issue on multiple levels from political rights to freedom of association, tolerance, which social relationships are allowed, banned, persecuted, or praised. In addition to its political formulations, fraternity has implications for the more personal forms of friendship. The idea of friendship underlying our view of the general welfare is more than mere tolerance of the rights of others. It involves the promotion of that which allows a life that can include the pleasure of others’ company, the lifting of the veil of fear and inadequacy which come from a lack of the level of self respect and confidence in which friendship is not overlaid with the subtleties of social competition. Take a simple example. Can friends disagree? How many families gather for the holidays with an understanding that political discussion is taboo? Underlying lasting friendship is the commitment of each to a higher common value that supersedes any conflict of currently held ideas. In scientific discovery, it is the commitment to truth; knowledge based on a common understanding of how truth is obtained, verified and expanded. This of course only really occurs to the extent that scientific activity can be divorced from the cancer of the narrowly defined profit orientation of corporate research laboratories, divorced from the competition of career jockeying and the demands of providing an employer-university with aggrandizement for grants and funding. Despite all of these detrimental forces, when scientific inquiry is allowed to occur, then there is nothing more exiting and satisfying than the clash of new ideas, theories, and principles among scientists because they know that this is the path to knowledge and maybe a chance at those fleeting moments of “Eureka” that make life glorious. Political debate need take no different form. Take a simple politically explosive issue in the U.S., that of immigration. Strange how this plays out in a country that owes its existence to immigration. But this is not only an issue limited to the U.S. Currently as I write, African and Arabic immigrant suburbs of Paris are in flames over similar issues. In California, it has taken on an almost surreal form as tempers flair over the issue of whether illegal aliens should be issued driver’s licenses. Now anyone stepping into this from the outside would surely think that they had wandered into some world of Orwellian double-speak. Exactly how does this work… “ok, would all of the people who are illegal and whom the government is spending lots of money trying to catch, please step forward and get your driver’s licenses.” Does this mean that they become documented un-documented workers? This could be funny if the reality was not so tragic for the lives involved. But, the issue I was addressing here is one of how can seemingly unsolvable issues be understood from a level that allows a solution. How can friends and neighbors discuss politics like colleagues searching for a new medical treatment? The main problem arises in that most questions are asked from inside a fish bowl of limited solutions. The immigrants are poor and seek work. The US workers are worried about job loss and union busting. Employers are hiring immigrants at below subsistence wages and working conditions holding the threat of the INS over their heads. The armed union-busting Pinkerton agents of the 1930’s are not even needed to maintain this modern day indentured servitude. But then, the press warns, do you want food prices to be forced up by unionized labor? Do you want taxes to go up to pay for social services for people who are “illegal”? Why are their kids in our public schools and junior colleges anyhow? Maybe this calls for more border vigilantes! The outcry from both sides roars. Whenever a question appears to have no answer outside of might-makes-right, then you can guarantee that either (1) The wrong question is being asked, and/or (2) The scope of the possible answers is too small. Let’s change the question a bit. Are we currently producing everything we need to produce in the U.S. to provide a fulfilling and abundant life for all our citizens? Do we currently house, cloth, feed, educate, and provide health care at an abundant level such that all of this is readily affordable? If not, why not? There has been no massive natural disaster or war that has destroyed our work force or productive capacity. But yet, factories are closing, the economy is in a slump, unemployment is up, and trade unionists are negotiating wage cuts to try to keep their jobs in the bankrupt auto and airline industries. We are certainly not an island of economic independence and we never have been since our initial colonization. Nor could we be as long as we wish to provide a sustainable and growing standard of living. Our increase in well-being depends on a world that is economically prosperous and physically healthy. Do we produce everything that could be needed by the developing nations of the world to make that possible? It doesn’t take a lot of research to suddenly realize that there is more real productive work needing to be done that there are workers in the U.S. to do it. So, why isn’t the immigration question, “How are we going to attract new waves of immigrants to our country to join us in what needs to be done?” Engineers, doctors, nurses, teachers, skilled construction workers need to be trained, employed, integrated into the fabric of what is good about our country, re-deployed to other countries where large scale infrastructure projects are needed in the area of water sources, energy, communications systems, and preventative health measures. This is needed for the good of the developing nations and needed for the health of the world’s population. Even the most narrowly focused my-country-first jingoist is not immune from the pandemic of disease which can spawn and spread from areas savaged by famine and polluted water supplies like those currently occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. So now the question of immigration has shifted focus from one posed as competition between peoples fighting for what is seen as diminishing opportunity, to that of “What the heck is standing in the way of getting enough people employed to do the work we all see that needs to be done?” The world could benefit from people dedicated to asking and answering such questions. The Center for a New Renaissance Our plan is to build a physical community of just such people; joined together in creating a Renaissance Humanist facility where we work, play, write, discuss, do research, proselytize, teach, learn, publish, produce art and music, provide for the presentation of seminars, workshops, and concerts of musical performances that raise the level of our humanity and celebrate the enjoyment of that feeling of living a meaningful life. Imagine the intersection of Plato’s Academy with the Highlander Folk School experience during the beginning of the 50’s civil rights movement. A “retirement commune” of folks who have retired nothing but the burden of a socially constrained way of thinking. What is the Purpose of this Commune and what does it look like? Let’s say we get our various startup industries in operation, acoustic guitars with intricate inlays or PC’s for the visually impaired. How does producing these with the 4-hour day prove anything when they depend on lasers produced in a different economy or PC sub-components produced by $5/day slave labor overseas? Whatever our communal industries produce, it will not be independent of a global bill-of-materials. But then we wouldn’t be proving anything by limiting ourselves to Amish-like hand to mouth commune-only production. That would be the antithesis of our commitment to technology and development and invention and global solutions. No, this community will not be the global solution we are proposing. But it will be a certain kind of prototype. After all, a prototype of a new car is first a wood or plaster model. So, we produce an “idea made more accessible” for those that don’t get the concept from reading books. They come and see and “oh gee, I don’t think I’d need a car here at all”. In light of this concept of a prototype, I think we could also be a center for hosting intelligent thought and discussion. A place where seminars and retreats are held for groups to discuss issues. Sort of like the Highlander Folk School was for labor organizing in the 30’s and then for the upcoming civil rights movement in the 50’s to 60’s. A place where “commie sympathizers” like Pete Seeger, Rosa Parks, and Dr. King could be found during summer sessions. Labor Distribution There is no a’ priori connection between work and access to goods and services or general benefits of the society, so why arbitrarily build one in? The 4-hour day is the average – sometimes it’s 5 hours of fun and other times it’s 3 hours of tough work, depending on the jobs you choose. Goods, Services, and Distribution Food, Housing, Health Care, Education, Arts, Leisure, Security, Freedom of Thought and Discussion, and the Opportunity to Participate in bettering the lives of humanity as a whole. If distribution of goods and services is not tied to one’s individual labor hours or type of job performed, then what meaning does the question of distribution have? In impoverished economies and highly productive economies this question has less significance since either nobody has anything and it’s obvious to all that some sort of rational distribution can benefit social survival, or the abundance of production reduces the distribution issue to a rather trivial level. The place where distribution plays a politically charged role is during degeneration of production from previous standards and then “how to divide the dwindling pie” becomes the dominant thought pattern. Of course this is exacerbated when the production of the economy is tied to there being an ever increasing “need” for “markets” even when independent of the social value of what is produced. Our intent is to provide an abundance of all of the above listed “self evident” items, freely available to all within a 4-hour day labor requirement and implemented based on creative discourse of the population, and planned execution along lines of scientific methodology. Testing, review, revision… Our intent is to accomplish this in spirit, not as a pure working model, which we will not have the global economic context to implement, but as an “idea made more accessible”, and of course to accomplish it in a manner sufficient to provide our membership with a truly enjoyable “retirement” community. The extent to which we can hope to provide this depends largely on the size of the community. Although our implementation might be staged like (1) Land and an idea but nobody there yet (2) a few founding families or singles, 10 people would be enough to create a small critical mass (3) Recruit a few and start building (4)Large enough so anyone visiting can get the idea (5) Reasonably productive endeavor providing a satisfying “retirement” community environment. What does stages 4 to 5 look like? We could figure this out based on what size can produce the following: (a) Food – All meals are available to anyone wishing to use the community restaurant/cafeteria, or take food to their own house/apartment/co-op/efficiency or whatever it is. This requires either enough members to support the labor of those operating this facility or the facility is itself an income producing center as it would be in a bed-and-breakfast or perhaps better, as the food services component of a conference center. (b) Housing – Provide housing to support individual privacy for couples or singles and some food prep capability. Individual dwelling are not looked on as a social evil, but it could well prove out that there are other designs that can provide all that one would want in private space without the massive waste of duplication and personal maintenance required. Provide community “club house”, rooms for meeting, reading, chatting; theater, library, stage facility. Buildings for construction, industry, farming and grounds maintenance can provide additional space for personal activity and projects as well. E.g. you don’t need a basement to tinker around in when you have access to a fully equipped wood and metal shop and space for personal activity. You don’t need a ½ acre lot when you live in a park-like green belt. (c) Health Care – Community to have a combination of some national group health coverage supplemented by it’s own self insured health fund (i.e. an account held by the commune to insure it’s own members), supplemented by a clinic on site, supplemented by knowing that you have 100% disability coverage because if you can’t work, you still have the same standard of living you always did. (d) Education – Leaving out the question of when the community can support kids, then the issue of adult education takes the form of providing tools for self education, library, community-wide wireless Internet access, courses both credited and volunteer provide by members, and invited speakers programs. (e) Arts – Here is where we get to discuss “freedom of expression”, “tyranny of an imposed cultural revolution”, “1984”, etc. First, lets say that we are not afraid of art or trash, music or noise, performance or perversion in cultural dissertation just as we are not afraid of brilliant thought or self-indulgent mediocrity in production planning. We also believe that it is important that society supports what it believes to be the best and also allows experimentation to flourish as well. We believe that the current dismal condition of American culture is NOT a function of free social discourse on art, music, and theater, but rather the lack thereof. Most Americans are herded into limited, dumbed-down presentation mostly tuned to fit with the needs of an advertising industry and the commercial interests paying the bill. So, amid much discussion and fanfare, we will credit and promote the production of the arts in forms that fit our basic tenant of helping raise humanity in being more human. The community would be the patron of the arts, our “de Medici family” of Renaissance Humanism. I would imagine that someone in the community could present a performance in which he changes his name to Dog123, plays a repetitive thumping beat for the soundtrack, and proceeds to talk/shout about the pleasures of mistreating women. I would also expect it to draw an audience about equivalent to that which would show up to watch him pick his nose in public. So, for the Arts, we make lots available, but socially fund and produce based on decisions like we do for other social production. This might easily include crediting presentations of historic or geographically diverse (ethnic) art and music. We would also provide lots of opportunity for access to instruments, teachers, sources of art and music, etc. (f) Leisure – 20 hours a day. We should sponsor community trips. If there is an issue of distributing limited numbers or variety of leisure time facilities or services, maybe we could issue Leisure Credits. Like Labor Credits only everyone gets 100 a month and uses them for whatever communal leisure activities are being offered. Again it can be based on desirability of the item. Maybe the “2 week tour of Italy with emphasis on classical musical instrument making” might use up 250 Leisure Credits while “2 week tour of the caverns of the Smoky Mountains” might use up only 150 Leisure Credits. Like Labor Credits, they would be non-transferable and everyone gets the same amount. You can save them or use them. Unlike money, having them gives you no more power in public policy and no ability to acquire and control production or the labor of others. To Be Continued… When writing about something as serious as creating the new world, one should remember not to take oneself too seriously.
|
Your comments are welcomed. Visit the Discussion Board and select Topic 'Community Organization'. |