We know that people want a world that is based on love and justice and yet many people do not believe such a world is possible so they give up their dream and hopes and strive to succeed in our capitalist society. This is because our work and personal lives are intricately connected. The values of the workplace and capitalist marketplace infiltrate beyond the work world into our personal lives and shape our unconscious and conscious beliefs about “human nature.”
While people yearn for a different kind of world—one of kindness and generosity—they suppress those yearnings because they believe that’s just not the way the world works. The capitalist marketplace tries to convince us that the way the world works is a political and economic question. But in reality the question of how the world works is basically a spiritual or theological question. And these issues of workplace values are basically questions of meaning.
We have a 10-point path below, including introductory remarks and background information, that can help transform our world from one based on power and control to one based on love and justice. If you too want this world, please join our movement.
Before reading the 10-point plank below, we urge you to read the following introductory remarks and background information.
How Realistic is Our Path to a World of Love and Justice?
This vision, needless to say, is ‘unrealistic’ in the sense that it does not conform to the assumptions of politicians and pundits in the mainstream mass media. For most politicians, that ends the discussion because they’ve consistently been unwilling to risk any electoral loss for the sake of a longer-term higher good. But that is precisely why so many Americans have come to distrust their representatives—because if they won’t fight hard for their own beliefs, how can they be counted on to fight for the best interests of U.S. society when the going gets rough?
The women’s movement in its early years, the civil rights movement in its early years, and the environmental movement in its early years were all dismissed as ‘unrealistic’ because they too stepped outside the frame of conventional politics as it was understood at the time by the media and the politicians. Only a few years ago the idea that gays and lesbians would be given the right to marry seemed utopian and politically foolish. But you can never be certain of what is possible in the realm of politics and society until you struggle for what is desirable.
As you read this document, you might notice some skepticism and doubt arise in you— a voice telling you ‘this is not possible.’ As you visualize these changes, do not allow in ‘the reality police’—namely, all those voices in your mind or in the minds or voices of others which say that ‘they’ won’t let these changes happen and thus you have to be “more realistic” by scaling down your vision to what the current political circumstances seem to make possible. Rather, allow yourself to imagine these changes being possible and notice how you feel when you envision them happening.
Our hope is that this Path to a World of Love and Justice gives you some sense of what it would be like to approach social transformation with a keen awareness of the spiritual dimension of life and a desire to build a world that reflects that awareness. If you feel inspired or excited, please join us and thousands of others in helping to build this kind of world.
A New Bottom Line
