Liberal Guardian Culture Book 1:
From Love Rules to Clean Living
By TaraElla
Copyright 2010 TaraElla.
Smashwords Edition
About the Liberal Guardian Culture
We are part of the effort to promote a liberal pop-culture scene, just like there are numerous places promoting the conservative 'conservative Christian scene'.
The liberal culture is a direct reaction to the conservative culture. We both liked its family values and hated its bigotry, a natural reaction of true liberals. It was created with the same basic family values in mind, but expressed in a liberal way, which we believe are far more suitable to families' welfare than conservatism.
The Liberal Culture is NOT libertine culture. It is however tolerant.
The Liberal Guardian Culture is more than that, however. It is a culture to build a strong community that can guard the liberal principles. Hence it is a combination of clean living, family values, being politically active and strong liberal ideology, plus or minus liberal religious faith.
This book is the first of a series about my views on the Liberal Guardian Culture and the values Liberal Guardians should live by.
Part 1:
Building the Love Rules Way World
Chapter 1
What is the Love Rules Way and Why
What is the Love Rules Way, and Why
The Love Rules way is simply to let the spirit of love and compassion rule the decisions you make in your life, and the views you take on things in life. It is as simple as that.
If you have love and compassion for everybody, on world issues you will stand on the side that gives everybody a fair and as happy as possible outcome. When you look at situations, you will be understanding of the circumstances. You will hope that everyone is able to do their best in life. You will hope that the world will give everyone more chances to do what they can in life and be happy that way.
Looking closer to yourself, in your everyday life, you will forgive rather than take revenge. You will have sympathy for the disadvantaged and make friends with them. You will listen to the whole story before blaming or critisizing.
The Love Rules way allows us all to have a good life, I believe. It may not be the quickest way to earn cash or the quickest solutions to some tough problems, but in the long run, if everybody lives by this spirit, we will all feel loved and therefore feel warm, safe and secure. Isn't that a better way to live?
In my writings I will use everyday examples to talk about the Love Rules way and how it may apply to everyday life.
Love and the Individual
Our society likes to celebrate 'individual responsibility'. We reward the successful with popularity and money, and many other benefits. However, is it just as easy for everybody? I guess you already know the answer.
I believe that, in terms of talent, we each have our own lot. As to if that talent gets put to use, a lot of factors dictate it. However, the love you received when you were young could have a great deal to do with your success. For example, parents who would help you do whatever you wished to excel in are probably important for success at an early age. This is just a plain hard fact, something that potential parents can learn.
But what about the rest of us? It is never too late to try and level the playing field. We should start by recognising what we are lacking. For example, did you parents stop you from pursuing a certain passion that was otherwise destined to be your success? Did a lack of love lead to a loss of self confidence? When we realise what stands between us and the success that we would have had, it is a painful feeling. But let that pain drive your new ambition - an ambition to right that wrong, an ambition to treat yourself well before it is too late. You will then work very hard to try and achieve your dream.
The other side of the story is, of course, very disadvantaged individuals who have never had enough love to even have a chance at the playing field. Don't let the rhetoric of self responsibility fool you - these individuals do exist. We must, everyone of us, take it up as our responsibility to help these individuals improve their lot in life, by giving them the love that they need. When you love the disadvantaged too, you will learn to stand on the compassionate side on the important issues in our world.
Love and World Issues
Most world issues can be solved with love, I believe. It is with love that we can end wars. And I do believe that, one day, all wars will come to an end, because people will realise the importance to love each other.
But even on more mundane issues, the spirit of love can give us a lot of guidance. For example, somebody who lives by the Love Rules way will support egalitarian measures when it comes to the economy. When you love the people around you enough, you will not just sit there and let them suffer from poverty = you will do what you can, even if it is just voting, to change things politically.
Policies that help disadvantaged minority groups are another place where love can guide us. For each group, just imagine you are instead one of them, with no way out, and how different would your life be. Suddenly, everything from affirmative action to anti discrimination makes sense, doesn't it?
Chapter 2
Why we are Missing some Love and What we can Do About It
The Perfect Growing Up
I want to talk about growing up in the Love Rules way. First of all, I must say that I didn't have such a growing up myself either, so this is a bit theoretical. But it is backed by evidence too - individuals who grew up with a lot of love perform the best in life.
If you grew up knowing that there will always be people who love you and care for you, you will always feel a certain sense of security and therefore you will feel more at ease in life. You will also be in a better position to take up the hard challenges of life, because you know that, no matter what happens, there will be somebody who will look out for you. If you always had someone who was non judgmental and helpful to talk to when you were growing up, you would always feel that love was available.
Sounds like a comment on parenting? It probably is. But more importantly, knowing these facts is the first step to healing people like you and me, who haven't had the adequate upbringing. For it is never too late to find a family of friends who will complete the love-based family for you. Alternatively, many adult individuals who have not had that perfect growing up when they were young found that their siblings or parents became better listeners with time.
What is important to do, I believe, is to recognise your needs in this area, and to recreate these conditions for yourself right now. Even if you cannot find a loving family of friends to do it with each other, you should do it with yourself. Care for youself well and allow yourself to go through the motions of healing when you are hurt. You should also allow yourself to heal from wounds from the past that haven't been adequately healed yet.
If You Didn't Grow Up with the Love Rules Way
Don't feel bad, because most of us didn't. There was just too much pressure on our parents to 'teach us right' (the traditional tough way) for most of us to have a 100% Love based upbringing. Most of our parents were too afraid of making us willful by fulfilling our wishes and making us reliant by giving us too much of a safety net. Now I say that all this is nonsense, but unfortunately much of the world, especially in days gone by, generally do not think this way.
But do beware that what your parents feared yesterday may have just got passed onto you. Now that you are grown up, you may be afraid of granting yourself your own dreams, or letting yourself treat yourself too well. Which sounds like a load of nonsense, but it's true! We ourselves are often the very people who punish ourselves the most. It is a bad habit that we need to be mindful of, and kick away as soon as we recognise it trying to raise its ugly head.
You can Make it Better for Yourself and the World too
If your parents really were too afraid of making you willful by fulfilling your wishes and making you reliant by giving you too much of a safety net, it is now up to you to change things for both yourself and the world actually.
You are now the one who can decide if you are going to entertain your own dreams or not. In my opinion, if you love yourself, and your dreams are good natured and compatible with the betterment of the world, then you should entertain them. Why let yourself be unfulfilled now and regretful later?
But it is more than yourself that you can change. The world is being poisoned by the aforementioned ideology and millions of people are mistreating themselves and their kids just because of it. If you are strong enough to stand up to the pressure to conform to this toxic culture, then you would have made an example of yourself, one more example for the world to see, one more small step to changing this toxic culture. Moreover, if you boot the 'toughen them up' mentality from your mind, then you would be helping to create less of that culture in the world, somewhat like if you stick to environmental friendly machines you would help reduce emissions.
Chapter 3
Describing My Idea of a Love Rules World
We need to go back to the Love Rules Way in the way we deal with matters around us. Only in a love-driven world can better outcomes happen for everyone, because we help each other and look after each others' needs. All roads that do not involve decency lead down to either facism or decadence.
No More Revenge Based Laws: Back to Decent and Effective Law Enforcement
'Law and order' is always a major election issue. But too often, the populist viewpoint taken up by both sides of politics is that there should be harsher penalties for crimes, as if all crimes were murder. But does it really help to lock people up 10 years for petty crime?
If it does, certainly countries like the USA would be crime-free, especially the 'executions rule' South. But they don't appear to be any more crime-free than more 'lenient' places like Europe.
And why does crime happen in the first place - why don't you and I go and deal drugs and rob banks, but why do some people do so? It doesn't take an academic to answer this - people who are locked out of life too much commit crime, because have no other tool than this to get things for themselves, and because they often don't understand why it is important to not commit crime. If these people had better access to an equal life, had a better chance to work for their dreams, I certainly believe they would choose the latter. That's why I would rather see shorter sentences in which these people are rehabilitated and also convictions being spent with the possibility for records expunged via a formal Pardons system within 5 years for all crimes except rape, murder, major fraud and terrorism. Getting these people back onto their destiny ASAP is the only way to stop them from re-offending.
And it is immoral to torture people like this too - petty criminals are people too. They are in the same boat as us, perhaps a more disadvantaged area. But it is the same boat, and on this boat we dream of sailing toward 'the light' which is a good community for all, and in this boat we treat each other like brothers and sisters. Revenge is stupid when crimes often happen because of ignorance and delusion, most of us know, but how many of us actually practice it?
A New Approach to Anti-Discrimination
Anti-discrimination law (ADLs) can be a hassle, as seen in recent US House and Congress troubles over a bill that would protect people from employment discrimination. A lot of people don't like the fact that we are protecting some special groups of people not everyone likes. Truth is that, these people have always existed, but without modern visibility they are safer from hassle from people who don't like them. Now society has forever changed and brought us this new problem, and I think the best bet will be to bring the old coolness back. We definitely need some ADLs in this society, but I think a 'general ADL' would put out arguments about specific interest groups and stop shedding unwanted spotlight upon them.
Here is one general principle to anti-discrimination I am proposing:
"People cannot be discriminated for things that are unrelated to the relevant activity. For example, if the person can get the job done and is not being lazy or offensive, their race, gender, age, how they look, how they dress, AND ALL OTHER IRRELEVANT THINGS should not matter."
This can be enshrined in law if needed, but even better, it should be enshrined as a social value. It doesn't matter if I don't like what someone does, mutual respect is the basis for an equal society.
As We Evolve... (My Hopeful Story of the Human Race)
In the beginning we were primitive creatures, fighting for food and shelter.
Then we still had these struggles, but in a more civil way. It was at that time that religion and spirituality got introduced too.
Later on, we were awakened to better possibilities than to keep fighting each other - we began to be able to provide for ourselves, and began to be able to see that the fighting was damaging us and at times unnecessary.
Soon we began to think more and more about our condition. People from around the world came together, and although there were some clashes, they got resolved now that we see clear that we are in the same boat.
Finally, the fighting ceased, and we began to support each other through life's journey, and thus we now had proper attention focused on the important things, like our spirituality.
End of War #1 - Why we can be so Near Now
Tribal societies have survived by fighting each other and gaining food over other tribes and other animals. That was probably how war began. In time, people began identifying in terms of new tribes - the nation state, religion and so forth. In the past 50 years, however, the tide has turned against war being a constant. We started to recognise that in modern civil society war is no longer a necessity, an unnecessary evil that killed too many young people.
Today people are even more global. It is already hard to pitch a nation against another, and it is becoming harder and harder to pitch religions against each other. Some fringe elements are still fighting on these things, but the concept of global humanity is looming large and becoming more mainstream than these fighting elements in many places. What is left is the final struggle - between the idea of a world accepting to all, where friendships last across diversity and decency and compassion are the first principles as we work towards a better future for all, versus those who want to maintain the old tribal way. Once Global Humanity and Decency prevail, war will come to an end and love and compassion will rule the world. Now that so many of us have seen the light, the day shall not be far. So work for it, by endorsing peace everywhere as much as possible, and by carrying this hope and fighting for decency and the right of everyone to enjoy a good life in all events. It will be more than worth the determination.
End of War #2 - A Way to Understanding
Wars happen because of conflict. A way to end conflict is by increasing understanding between people.
I think a good place to start is always to look at the common goals, before looking at why the differences exist. After all, all people want a good life, love, family and all religions and good philosophy want to free us from the illusions that is this world and achieve better things spiritually, something which I personally think is very important. Those people who favour new social models/institutions are usually not opposed to traditional social structures, they just want to expand them so their spirit can be brought to more people or brought more in line with modern living experiences. Minor (or even major from some perspectives) disagreements on language should be, and can be, solved, and this should be a way of moving forward.
Conflict also happens because there is not enough space for everyone to live well. It could be the scarcity of resources, especially in primitive societies, but it is often about cultural institutions not able to tolerate each other, and this is often the cause in advanced societies where resources are not that scarce. If we had more institutions that suited different kinds of people, institutions that celebrated diversity but are nonetheless roughly equal in standing, then we don't have to fight for control of the same institutions. Instead, we can have a lot of institutions for different people, which bridge with each other in a smooth and mutually understanding way.
What can you do to help in this? You could help to create institutions that benefit your own associated communities in the first place, you are in a good position because you know them best. The second, ethical thing to do is to help create good bridges between your community and the rest of the world, to communicate what your people are about so people can understand you better, and to strive for an equal standing for your people and institutions in the big place that is this world (without disrespecting others to have their own culture and institutions), so most people can understand your people, and fights between your people and others can be prevented.
End of War #3 - Looking at the Lifestyle Wars
The 'lifestyle wars' are some of the best gasoline that has been poured into the fire of war to keep it burning through history - to end the lifestyle wars would thus be important in bringing war to an end. Fortunately in the modern world most people are live-and-let-live when they are not themselves threatened, which means that lifestyle wars are often fringe. That said, they still have a great impact. For example, much of fundamentalist Islam's hate for the West is based on lifestyle - to some extent 'they hate our freedoms' is right indeed. From this, we can also see how evil and vitreous lifestyle wars can be.
So if most people today don't participate in lifestyle wars, who starts them? From my observations, it is usually those who are themselves the prejudice, hating type. The tatic often used is to justify their hatred by some logic, often elevated to holy levels through unusual, often blatantly incorrect interpretations of religious texts, e.g. racism is justified because God wants the races to be separate, Gays are unnatural because they can't reproduce, etc. etc. Most of us know that this is all quite rubbish, because we know we can live a happy, moral and spiritual life without acknowledging any of this. (In fact I think taking up racism and homophobia and hurting minorities in a way that flies in the face of any standard of decency will certainly prevent a moral life!) What we need to do, however, is to firmly stand by the fact that we know this is rubbish, and secure the borders of our everyday life and culture against people who wish to promote any of these extremist ways.
Lifestyle wars are not started by us, the sane majority. They are imported from the land of extremists and can spread like a virus causing people to be hurt and the morality of compassion to be seriously compromised. We must be strong in our defense of our culture and everyday life against such plagues.
Why I am for Decriminalisation (of a lot of things)
I don't believe it is morally okay to do everything, really. And some things are better done less too, for the good of all of us. However, I don't believe in being judgmental, for two reasons. One is that everyone of us will make mistakes in our lives and will need to be left alone to deal with them under a forgiving society, but the more important one is that - who are we to judge other people? Are we morally perfect individuals who know everything there has to be known? If we say it is okay to be judgmental on affairs of a personal nature, then we are granting society to right to be guardian of morality for all, which it is really incompetent in doing.
Punishing people is also not the best way to stop undesirable behaviour, and sometimes it is completely ineffective. Undesirable actions are often a result of a wider syndrome in society that needs to be tackled, and punishment will just drive it underground.
Chapter 4.
Finding that Love World
What we can Do for Love - Stand Up, Despite Cultural Pressures
Cultural pressures serve to preserve the status quo, no matter if it's good or bad. So if you bow to cultural pressures a lot of the time, then even the bad status quo will be preserved. Clearly that means wars and hurt will go on and on.
However, going against cultural pressures is not that easy, even in today's relatively liberal world. Even though out there you are supposed to be able to act in almost any way you wish, not conforming to cultural expectations can still see you get in strife with family/loved ones, or lose face in the culture(s) that you grew up in and have learnt to love so much. But don't cave in because of this - you are not doing anyone good by caving in, even if it seems so. More people that you will get hurt if you cave in. And that applies not just to things like supporting an anti-war movement, things like failing to arguing for a more compassionate culture and even just a fair deal for yourself can have far-reaching implications. So if you think something is not right, speak up.
I have found that by thinking about this it makes things a little easier: we are living in only a very small portion of history. It just happens that now, a chunk of your cultural group (or family) are stuck in the wrong place. Do you want to 1) give up on them, 2) join them on the wrong road, or 3) be patient but firm with your stance, knowing that the current 'strife' is only very temporary in history? The choice is yours.
Don't Teach Your Child Evil
Much of what children know about evil is taught to them by adults. And it's easier than you think.
When you tell a child that the wars out there are 'reality we must face' rather than 'something we must change', when you expose your child to more bombings than dreams in the name of teaching them about the world, and when you slap them hard in the name of education thus teaching them that it is sometimes 'right' to deliberately hurt another, you are telling the child that it is okay to be evil at times. Even more than this, the modern pressures of childhood competition, without moderation by parents, can teach children the wrong lesson of acting evil to survive.
What we need is an antidote: to teach your child unconditional love from the word 'go', this is more important than any form of disciplining. Give all of your love and none of your venom to the child, unconditionally. Let your child dream, and inspire them to dream. Then when they are exposed (naturally) to the world's brutality, teach them that this is something we must try to change and although one or two individuals can't change much, together we can, and together we will. This way they will develop the inner moral compass of compassion that will make them good citizens, who definitely won't go to do mass murder or terrorism.
As adults we have every responsibility to make sure our children don't learn evil before they learn good. The stake is our society's future!
Village in the Modern World
What I mean by village is a group of people who care about the wellbeing of each other. It is a spirit that should exist in the family, in the community and among the whole world. It takes a village to raise a child, so goes the saying, and it also takes a village to do a lot of other things to support a whole person to lead a fulfilling, useful life too. There are periods in history that this has worked (e.g. the community cohesion in middle of the 20th century in the west, leading to a period during the 60s-70s when reforms for a better world went ahead not blocked by cynicism like many projects today), and periods where this hasn't worked (e.g. when generation after generation grow up in war), and the results speak for themselves. In fact, the breakdown of this 'village' in the west since the 1980s is what I believe to be causing a generally high level of cynicism and anxiety out there.
Since the 1980s there were many alternatives to the universally loving and caring village, as the result of earlier revelation that the mid 20th century community, while fitting the majority of people, failed many outsiders. This revelation led to developments which have destroyed the village, unfortunately. Some have adopted the outsiders' lifestyles and given up on what they have seen as an old and patriachal institution that offered no flexibility, only to find themselves still sad, and gradually these people have turned cynical. Others have maintained that the 1950s version was the only 'successful' village and sought to maintain the whole model, alienating those it marginalised, only that this time they have been empowered and instead of silent submission there is open conflict, resulting in 'cultural wars' that have destroyed this village.
What we need to do now is to rebuild this village, and with the realisation of where it has failed minorities before or was limiting to personal development before, and address these to build an even better village. This will show both the cynics and the arch-conservatives they are wrong by finding the life that I believe they want to find too but were led on the wrong path to. Everything from how we live our everyday lives (in how we associate with others - with open arms not cynicism) to the policies we support out there should be affected by this thought.
There are some little things in life that we can start right now and think of or practice every day to keep our minds on our ideals, as we work towards the great life for both ourselves and the world at large.
Rediscovering that Lost Village
The continue decline of family and village spirit has been damaging to our society, a lot of us would concede. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child, and the harmful effects of this decline are already being seen. And despite a knowledge of that, it seems not much would work. Why?
Here's one theory I can propose: That families and communities have been torn apart by difference of opinion. In days when the world was much simpler, these places were built on compassion, caring for each other. But now that the world is a place full of ideas from everywhere, those different ideas cause tension, dislike of certain ideas or ways of living have led to dislike of certain family members or community neighbours, and when this phenomenon becomes common, the whole institution falls apart.
So where did it go wrong, why can't we just talk about things with each other and accommodate each others' needs, understand each others' ideas and enrich each other, like we have always had? My guess is that it started with dividers and haters - those who didn't like certain new ideas or ways of living and decided to declare war on them as if they were rouge regimes rather than simple measures designed to root out disadvantage, including but not limited to gender equality, anti-racism and anti-homophobia. They have always been around but since the great progress of the 1960s-70s they have especially been present, to the amount that is enough to bring down communities. They think in a way that, if you belong to one of the groups they do not like, you are doing evil just by that. If you were 'infected' by this kind of thought, then it is not hard to imagine your 'opponent' as evil. And you wouldn't be able to live with that - thus the arguments and hurt.
So how can this be fixed? Haters demand that their 'opponent thought or lifestyle' be shut down so that peace can be restored. But isn't that just like fascists demanding that we all convert to their choice of fundamentalism before terrorism will stop? The fact is that, your loved family is just driven into misunderstanding each other, once this misunderstanding subsides you will find that you are still each other, that you still love each other. Just like if we defeat terrorism both by security and aiding love-based ideology, the world will become safe again, we don't need to mass convert to anything to be safe, we don't need to give up on societal progress for the loving family to prevail again, for that, just like yielding to terrorists, would defeat our purpose in protecting what we have already.
Take the first step by shutting out 'the arguments out there' and focusing for caring for each other - for politics is meaningless without loving communities, and politics without love is only that close to Fascism anyway. Immerse yourself in your loving relationships and try to listen to each other compassionately, as if there were no movements out there, as if there is only you and your sometimes troubled family members, and their solutions to life. The family will return soon. And back 'home' you are now, you will also find that reactionaries don't really represent their religion they are talking about, possibly don't even know what they are talking about, and are just acting on old prejudices.
Chapter 5
My Vision on How to Get There
The Culture that we need to Build
A Love Based Values based Culture is one that we need to have. We need to come together based on shared values, not shared agenda. We need to live together and fight together based on a vision of the world, not just for the small items that we believe in individually.
In some periods in history, people fought for their self interests, and there were thousands of individual causes with no link between them. Each cause, while dedicated to the bettering of humanity, ended up battling each other over trivial issues of self interest. In the end, most causes failed.
In other periods in history, people fought together based on common dreams and values. Peace and the end of all wars is a dream that every person, no matter what their race, gender, creed or religion is can share. Oppressed minorities including women, traditionally oppressed ethnic groups and people of queer sexuality can all band up to fight for more chances in life for all people, and with such a base there can be really effective action, but only if the radical feminists do not end up man-bashing and the conservative elements of the ethnic minorities put down their traditional sexism and homophobia.
Our culture needs to be friendly and inviting to all. Our message needs to be easy to understand. While we need all that intellectual stuff to support us, they shouldn't be what the novice has to face. Just by declaring 'I am for a love-based world unconditionally, and I don't cling to old dogma at the expense of love' should be enough for entry into our club. Lots of people with great hearts are not intellectuals, and sadly, from my experience, a lot of intellectuals do not have hearts and passion as great as some of these less well-informed people.
Although a movement towards a better world must necessarily be based on good information about the misjustices everyone is suffering from, it cannot be based on being well-informed about issues or being able to see the world in its entirety. Such a movement must be based on the sharing of loving values and the hope that they be applied to the whole world we are living in. Stemming from this, we should be creating our movement not around books like this one, but around popular culture, ideas people can grasp easily, and let theory books like this one inspire it from afar instead. We should do the actions for our movement where most people actually live and breathe - in the popular culture rather than the academia, for example. We also need to use simple, touching language, and cut out the jargon and the political correctness while we strive to maintain our politeness.
The culture of love should be a loving thing, not just a theoretical thing. Once people are in a club or institution run under this culture, they should feel the culture of love all around them, rather than just hear empty words repeated over and over again all around them. The culture of love should affect our groups and the atmosphere in them, not just the work they do.
Are you Sure that you're not just Preaching to the Converted?
No, we are not preaching to the converted. There is a time and place for doubting everything, but there should also be a time and place to reaffirm our most basic values that make us dreamers for a better world, and places where this love can be felt and these values are applied to everything in life consistently. This book is about that. It also contains ideas as to how we can do this more often in our lives.
The role of dissent in such a culture is also important. We need to show disapproval of people who dissent against universal love, just like you would show disapproval to somebody who is against freedom and democracy in a democratic society. But we do welcome dissent on how we should do things to make this world a better place. We learn from these intelligent arguments, and we also make sure that such arguments do not destroy our common bond.
Having said all that, the dangers of becoming insular need to be realized and prevented. I come from a conservative backgroud and I am very aware of the dangers of insularism. Believe it or not, I was taught quite large amounts of racism, sexism and homophobia and used to take it as normal as a child - and have come to reject all of that rubbish as I grew up and got exposed to the rest of the world.
Groups that focus on small things tend to become insular, as well as those which focus solely on one culture or one vision of an idealised past. Unfortunately that accounts for too many groups in today's society. I think the best way to prevent insularism for any group or individual is to continuously study the world, the good bits and the bad bits, and make sure we continue to do our important work to improve living conditions for more people. To do this consistently we need to work on basic values - in fact to make it an exercise to think about what you can do better with your love-based values in every disappointing situation in the world you come across, rather than just sit there and get angry about it. Also, remember that working from highly specified dogma can only bring hate.
Where are the good people?
Love requires people with great hearts, not cynical people. People whose sole life goal is to find the next quick buck will not get our love culture movement anywhere.
But where are all these great people, if they exist? Certainly, my friends are all quite cynical people, so are my neighbours, relatives, co-workers and so on. However, this is all due to the current fragmentation of the dream I mentioned earlier, plus the fact that we actually do face a lot of economic stress every day (most of us anyway). Once we get the unity back and the universal love brand back together, I believe this will change, and the world will change from there.
The other important thing to do is to reach out to people and win over hearts and minds. As touched on before, there have been periods where people have been persuaded to think outside of their self interests and think of how we can come together to make this world a better place. It all starts with a conversation, one that starts in popular culture rather than the high towers of academia or the head offices of political parties. One important thing is to get the language and the attitude right. We can't get to people's hearts by asking them to memorise the Gay Allies' Dictionary or the Refugee Rights dictionary, learning every single bit of history and jargon that is in there, but we can do that with our brand of universal love, much like the fundies do with their 'basic beliefs'.
We already have an advantage here however - simply because of the progress of the last few decades, it is not very easy to tell people to give up all their current beliefs and embrace intolerance, but it is much easier to tell people to embrace a vision for a world of love. But we have not been using it - we have been preaching too much about petty facts that not everyone has to know and too little about the concept of love which unites all our actions.
We Need Everybody
There are different roles in a culture, and for the sake of richness we should embrace them all. No particular cultural stereotype or aesthetic should dominate the culture of love - every stereotype and aesthetic should be represented, save the hate-based ones e.g. Nazi armbands and uniforms.
Many cultures and movements have been about including or excluding people based on the aesthetic or lifestyle choices they have made. Most mainstream pop cultures from rock to trance to hip-hop are like this, and so are our opponents the haters, who exclude people who wear unconventional clothing, who are homosexual or are allies, who have certain spitirual activities and so on. It really looks like this is indeed one aspect of creating a cultural movement.
However, it does not work well for a movement that claims universal love and friendship and the end of wars as its goals. You see, what a culture includes or excludes is ultimately reflective of its ideals. A world where hip-hop rules (which I am scared of) will not have any pop music in it, and therefore the hip-hop aesthetic is exclusive of the bubble-gum pop style. Our opponents exclude racial minorities and queer people from their activities because they have a sick vision of a world where they and the people who live, think and look like them are the only ones who should matter. For us, the only people who should be excluded are the haters. What everyone else has to bring to the table should be cherished, because that's how a love-based world should be. The unity lies in the fact that we all shave one basic dream, remember.
We also need people of all temperaments to be involved in our culture because we want it to be a broad family. Different kinds of people speak to and listen to different parts of society, and all can enrich our movement. Intellectual to larrikin, sober to party animal, we need everyone. Therefore, our movement should be made receptive to everyone.
Having more types of people in a movement also means that there are more talents, and a higher chance of success. One point that many liberal-minded people seem to have missed looking at the modern world is that the 'squeaky cleanness' of religious fundamentalists have led them to an advantage of having more thinkers and achievers per capita, and hence more formal influence (e.g. over governments, something that is often to the detriment of many of the minorities we are championing for). We definitely need squeaky clean people of our own, just not judgmental ones. I am quite in this category myself to some extent. On the other hand their lack of party animals have meant that they are seen as boring nerds and are not welcome by large sections of the fun loving mainstream. Due to this they have very little influence in the mainstream popular culture, and therefore in the end they aren't the ones dictating the direction of society after all (sigh of relief). This highlights the importance of our movement to have its share of party animals, because that's where we will reach out to most people, face it.
The anticonformists are often not popular with either formal institutions or the mainstream crowd, but they are just as important, as they are the engine that give us our ideas. The brand of the dream of universal love must therefore be palatable to anticonformists to take on board, it must not be beholden to certain cliches, or worse, dogma. Conversely, while these anticonformists may not like people who stick to a ready-made brand of culture. it is those who like to find a brand they like and stick to it who will most likely carry our brand forward. Therefore, the brand of the dream of universal love should be one that is grounded in the experiences of everyday life and usable in everyday life with real actions and beliefs, not just some intangible concept that is completely freestyled and alienating of less philosophical people.
Let There be Smiles, and Whinges too
Many people who want this world to be a loving place for all have a lot of grudges against the current state (including me). Who can blame us, after all, for sometimes hating a world that is full of war, persecution, inequality, hate, terrorism and so on?
The enormity of the grudges have often made our people look like one big grudging group, alienating all the happy-go-lucky people that just want to have a bit of fun in this world. In fact, some years ago when I was one of these people, I used to almost dislike those 'annoying activists'.
The point is that, make sure that we are more optimistic than annoying. Make sure that happy-go-lucky ones hear that we are not serious freaks out to bother about nothing, rather people who want to extend the fun to more people who should deserve it. Therefore, the main messages of our movement should be on the 'dream of the better day' side rather than the 'beware of doomsday looming' side. After all, the latter has always been the natural domain of progressives, the latter, the conservatives. Since when have we stolen that unpalatable ground that now even the conservatives have given up?
Our shared aesthetics, music and the like should reflect this goal too. I am sorry that I am about to offend some music snobs right now, but this is an important point I must put across. While once again I welcome every kind of aesthetics to be represented in this movement (and indeed wish for that) I do believe that we should make sure there is a fair share of happiness involved in the culture we consume and produce. The music that is supposed to come out of the progressive movement, for example, is usually too bleak for me. Give me something with a beautiful sound and hopeful messages, that will keep me going through the rough times and make me work harder for a better world.
However, this doesn't mean that we should banish all whinging from our movement - only that it should not be the dominant thing. Whinging is not only part of a healthy life, it has its important function too. Only through letting people be heard over their oppression and disadvantage, and by hearing the message in all its pain, can we be inspired to change things.
Letting people whinge here or there, or even if they whinge a lot, does not necessary change the fact that overall our message is positive. Just think about someone who likes to whinge, but then when their blues for the day are over the switch over into happy mode for the rest of the day. They are still a happy person because this is their overall mood in life. They are just someone whose happiness is aided by a daily release of bad emotion, something we are bound to need living in such a stressful society. This is where our culture should be. Compare this to the person who whinges all day long, then gets three bottles down and goes to bed. This is where our culture should definitely not be, I believe.
If you take only one message home, it should be this...
Be creative and do what is right. It is creativity that leads entire societies and peoples forward.
Okay, one more message - read opinions, think about them, respect them even if they are not your own. I know a lot of people in movements that are set to improve the world do not necessarily agree with what I have said. I know I don't speak for you, and I do respect you. Let me do my thing, and I will let you do yours, and this will leave us with a richer culture. This is the best way, isn't it?
Part 2:
The New Clean Cut
Chapter 1
What is the New Clean Cut?
The New Clean Cut is trying to be clean cut in a new way. A way that makes the whole exercise better for humankind.
Being clean cut means saying no to mind intoxication, saying no to a casual sex lifestyle, and etc. But how meaningful is that when you couple it with judgmentalism, snobbery, homophobia and the like?
The New Clean Cut emphasizes loving and caring for those around you, understanding and empathy, as much as the clean cut lifestyle itself. It stresses the need to understand and sympathise with the disadvantaged communities of the world. It stresses the need to listen to people's real stories rather than passing judgment. Also, there are no stereotypes re. dress and self expression - what does limiting one's self aesthetic have to do with being clean cut? (Of course, we don't wear swear word shirts, however).
We bring people into this lifestyle by getting people to find it meaningful, not be demeaning other lifestyles. We believe that with the clear mind that being clean cut gives us, we can better work to improve the world around us. And that's the real meaning of being clean cut, we believe.
Chapter 2
Clean Living Requires Freedom, and thankfully we have more freedom
Some people seem to think that being permissive and encouraging clean living are two very different things. I, however, think that they share some common purpose.
Most of societies 'vices' (I'm not being judgmental, but just using the term my opponents on this matter are most likely to argue with) have something to do with a sense of life being not fulfilled. For example, people get drunk and use drugs to 'escape reality'. Which means that, the worse 'reality' is for people, the more likely they are to get drunk and use drugs. Many psychologists also believe that sexual excesses are also somewhat related to oppression. Some evidence for this is in how the queer community is now becoming more about family and less about sex.
Having a conformist, judgmental, controlling agenda that eliminates 'lifestyle choices' may lead to a higher percentage of people choosing a 'clean cut life' by statistics. That probably accounts for the fact that life was more clean-cut in the 1950s compared to now. However, if we look closer, there is a more complex story. Mainstream people, those who are straight, those who are okay with society's assigned gender role for them, whose temperament suit their assigned 'place in life', those who are not discriminated against by the conformist agenda, can afford to conform easily, and are going to choose to be clean-cut when society does so. Because these people are in the majority, statistics are going to be dominated by them. However, bringing about majority clean-living through a demand of conformity comes at a great costs to the discriminated minorities. People whose temperament do not mix well with society's prescribed role for them will feel excluded. They will be unfairly burdened. Because of this tension, they will rebel against society in time, and through the rebellion they will be labeled as even worse by society. They will never be able to live a clean life thus, and may even come to hate the very idea of 'clean living' in time because of the frustration. Because they are in the minority, the statistics don't tell their story. However, the continuing existence of this underbelly means that a society based on conformity will never be able to be a fully clean living society, not to mention that it is intrinsically immoral to base the achievement of the majority on the excruciating pain of the minority. Thus, we don't hear about the 1950s being crime free or problem free. Rather, the 1950s, for all its racism, sexism and homophobia, were somewhat more immoral than today, to say the truth.
A permissive, empowering culture reduces the feeling of unfulfillment in life and reduces the amount of tension one faces in life. In turn, this reduces the need to access those 'vices'. The trend toward being pro-family in queer communities in recent years is a very encouraging example of this. However, more mainstream communities will benefit from it too (typical people often find the need to drink away the day's problems too, unfortunately).
The onset of permissiveness often results first in an increased amount of 'vices', as seen in the 1960s-now. This is partially because people who have always had that lifestyle are more free to admit to it. It is also due to the fact that before freedom and empowerment are totally achieved (which will take time, you can't deny that racism and homophobia still exists 40 years on), people will still turn to 'vices' for their unspoken sorrows, and taking advantage of the increased permissiveness to indulge in them more. But once we get over this period, things will turn towards the better. To shorten this painful period, we need to reform society towards freedom and empowerment at a quicker pace. Attempts at maintaining lifestyle control over what is acceptable people's private lives can only prolong this painful period. This is why there is actually a great future for clean living, but it is also tied with the future of healthy social freedom for all, and the end of discrimination on race, sex, sexuality, identity, and other matters.
Chapter 3.
It's a Long Group Effort
Clean Living and Me
I can't really say that I am clean living 100% of the time - I am not there yet, definitely. But it is something that I wish to aspire to. Especially in the New Clean Cut way.
We Should All be in this Together
The way we should approach trying to become clean cut is that we should try to do it together. We should encourage each other along the way rather than criticise each other. More importantly, we should have no taboos when we discuss our lives with each other, rather we should try to find a way to make things better for everybody. We should be prepared to work with a diverse array of opinions and lifestyles in our collective journey towards the New Clean Cut Way.
Where the problem with Intoxication really is
Many members of our society have been quite unhappy with the way a lot of young people are binge drinking and doing drugs right now. Certainly it is not an easy issue to tackle either. I, out of all people, have been called 'conservative' for being generally not attracted to that kind of lifestyle. Clearly a lot of those people who live those lifestyles are quite easily offended. I think that can be accounted for the generally uncompassionate stance some members of the society have been to this problem - just blame them for wasting their lives and not look at why this is happening. Even the government is a bit like this sometimes.
I think we should focus on the real problem - why these young people should have no reason for hoping for better. If young people are shut out of participating in many things because they don't have enough money, if they are shut out of opportunities just because they are seen as different, if they are turned off by the rules and structures of 'adult society' - many will lose hope of a better way. Humans inherently try to seek out their dreams, and when things get too hard, escapism becomes the choice for too many.
Of course the amount of 'encouragement' from certain avenues of the media towards this problem does not help. However, those 'bad influences' as some have called them have only grabbed attention because of a lack of other interesting things. You know why everybody focus on celebrity gossip nowadays? Are there any meaningful causes that really make a difference that celebrities promote and young people can actually feel excited about? The odd end-poverty concert may be good but there is no continuous campaign that can really capture people, unlike the ongoing dialogue of celebrity gossip. Other movements are doing even worse - things like climate change and equal rights for all are put out as political issues with press releases rather than under a more important context of fighting for a better world. Towards the individual end of the spectrum, many young people don't feel that they can achieve their dreams either - to get into anything nowadays you have to be perfect (which is why people like William Hung is a good antidote sometimes), to grab hold of anything, even the right to live without discomfort can demand us to work like a slave, and unlike our parents in the 60s and 70s, we don't get to define culture anymore because of the monopoly of commercial media.
What a sad world it can be. Luckily, things are improving. Through the internet and other medium, young people are getting together and exploring better and more important things. Now it's mainstream culture's turn to catch up, to embrace this positive change, to make it even easier for young people to participate in life, and to give more space for young people to develop their own world. 17-year-old entrepreneurs may just be a lucky few, but the rest of us can still do a lot of meaningful things if we have enough space. And on top of that we need a pro-dreams culture, we need to create one that competes with the negativity that has built up until now. Until that can be done, there is no use to blame people for escapism, even unhealthy forms of it.