The Moral Humanity Movement
Scattered pockets of positive change are transforming society into a compassionate community. Seeds are being planted.
The enrichment of cultures creates a moral foundation for systemic improvements in our major social institutions.
These structural improvements nurture personal and spiritual growth rooted in mutual support that helps individuals undo divisive, selfish, competitive, domineering socialization and form partnerships.
Increased ability to cooperate enhances the emergence of a sustained, massive, united, nonviolent, grassroots moral humanity movement
Mutually reinforcing nonviolent efforts are based on Gandhi’s principle: “Be the change you seek.”
Countless individuals and organizations contribute to the moral humanity movement — including those who don’t yet identify as members. The challenge is to deepen, strengthen, expand, connect, and unify these innovations. This manifesto moves in this direction.
Read MoreBy Wade Lee Hudson
NOTE: This manifesto is a work in progress. Please review and use the form below to comment.
Scattered pockets of positive change transform society into a compassionate community. Seeds are planted. Awareness of basic realities increases. Good people relieve others’ suffering — and correct the root causes of preventable suffering. Efforts to improve public policy persist. The moral humanity movement unites these fragments and reverses humanity’s downward spiral.
Enrichment of our shared culture creates a moral foundation for systemic improvements in our major social institutions.
These structural improvements nurture personal and spiritual growth rooted in mutual support that helps individuals undo divisive, selfish, competitive, domineering socialization and form partnerships.
Increased ability to cooperate enhances emergence of a sustained, massive, united, nonviolent, grassroots moral humanity movement that persuades Washington to respect the people's will while respecting minority rights.
Mutually reinforcing nonviolent efforts are based on Gandhi’s principle: “Be the change you seek.” They liberate inherited instincts that modern societies suppress. They strengthen positive capabilities and correct weaknesses. They affirm the equal value of every individual and awaken moral commitment to compassionate action. They set aside self-centered domination and blind submission.
Countless individuals and organizations contribute to the moral humanity movement — including those who don’t yet identify as members. The challenge is to deepen, strengthen, expand, connect, and unify these innovations. This manifesto moves in this direction.
Read MoreBy Michael Johnson
A New Way of Seeing Culture
In his opening to his interview with Eva Jablonka, David Sloan Wilson, a leading figure in evolutionary science, framed the interview in a way that situates the place of cultural evolution in the history of our species:
One of the most mind-expanding books that you’ll ever read is Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb. They remind us that evolution is about variation, selection, and heredity, not genes. Genes provide one mechanism of heredity but there are others, including epigenetic mechanisms, forms of social learning found in many species, and forms of symbolic thought that are distinctively human. They provide a concise history of why evolutionary theory became so gene-centric during the 20th Century and how it needs to be expanded to include the other three dimensions. (Emphasis added.)
“Not genes!” What kind of evolution is that!
Like everything else in human life, evolutionary thinking evolves. A key development since the late 20th century is the deeper understanding that genes is only one mechanism for human evolution. In the quote above “symbolic thought” refers to culture. That is, culture is a form of heredity as is epigenetics, social learning and genes. For many of us this is a paradigm shift. I for one grew up embodying and understanding that evolution is all about passing on and changing genes.
That it’s being far more than that, I have come to realize, is quite liberating and empowering. The meaning of culture becomes far more than something we are stuck with after our first five years. It also becomes far more than art, music, literature, etc. Rather, we become able to see it having a major hand in shaping everything human, as the source of the survival of every single human being as well as their thriving, and as the producer of the most scaled and powerful form of social cooperation and that is still evolving. It is at the core of everything human, the worst and the best of us.
I want the world to change in ways that can enable it to work better in support of life, joy, love, and creativity. At the same time we have taken ourselves to precipice of doing enormous damage to every form of life across our Earth, including ourselves. At no point in our history has it been as necessary as now to learn how to use our cultures so that they serve, more and more, the welfare of life, and damage it less and less. I believe this makes understanding how culture works muy importante. So I am quite grateful to help provide the information about cultural evolution in this section of the Americans for Humanity website.
Read MoreBy Wade Lee Hudson
Exploitative domination and submission produce fear; justified domination produces trust. Whether it’s done directly with interpersonal intervention or indirectly with legislation, domination of those who violate the rights of others is justified. It reduces the fear that poisons relationships and fosters exploitation.
Learning to control or overcome the desire to dominate or submit for personal gain nurtures compassionate action. The more you’re driven by the desire to serve rather than by ego, the more you can support others individually and help establish democratic-equality structures throughout society.
Read MoreBy Hector E. Garcia
All humans see only a small part of reality, which brings about a sense of insecurity (this is one of the assumptions of CC). Our tendency is to subconsciously allay anxiety by acting as if what our group sees in our time is all of the true reality; consequently, all other groups must be totally or partially wrong. Since all groups are doing the same, conflict easily develops and grows. We then try to validate our position, and often our aggression, by showing current and past evidence for that position. This is not difficult for any group to do since the present and the past hold multiple facts and human errors to pick from and take offense. (The time I have spent as a consultant has taught me that you can usually select from an abundance of facts to validate most positions you want to sell). Parties in conflict will continue to assign fault to each other until the more powerful one puts an end to the never-ending argument by exercising its power; as a victor, it will acquire the credibility to gain support for its position.
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By Wang Yi
The Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era laid out in the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is a major theoretical innovation by our Party, and the latest achievement and a significant advancement of adapting Marxism to the Chinese context. It provides a strong theoretical framework and guideline for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.
Read MoreBy Wade Lee Hudson
In “The Shaming-Industrial Complex, Becca Rothfeld describes the problem: Absent structural change, self-improvement will be limited. A large network of supportive small teams whose members are aware of this problem could be one solution. In itself, this network could constitute structural reform, which Rothfeld seeks. It could also nurture a strong sense of community whose members, given their awareness of the Shaming-Industrial Complex, would logically pursue structural reform in other social sectors and, ideally, cultivate holistic and systemic transformation.
Read More“After three decades of dominance, liberalism is losing its hold on Western minds,” Matthew Rose writes in his powerful new book, “A World After Liberalism.”
Rose does not mean liberalism in the way we typically use the word. This is not about supporting universal health care or disagreeing with Justice Samuel Alito. Rose means liberalism as in the shared assumptions of the West: a belief in human dignity, universal rights, individual flourishing and the consent of the governed.
That liberalism has been battered by financial crises, the climate crisis, checkered pandemic responses, right-wing populists and a rising China. It seems exhausted, ground down, defined by the contradictions and broken promises that follow victory rather than the creativity and aspiration that attend struggle.
At least, it did.
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