“I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thesis: A cultural change in some percentage of the human primate population is necessary to reduce risk to the biosphere and its inhabitants including human primates.
Proposed solution: A sufficient portion of the human primate population will work together to build a sufficiently respectful society, the cultural change that will allow the cooperation that is clearly needed to prevent catastrophic damage to the human species and the biosphere from both our weapons and our waste.
Proposed elements of a respectful society:
First, individual and institutional respect for self, others and place to be universally advertised.
Second, those who abuse and oppress others to be respectfully kept from power, and the typical behavior patterns of those who obtain power through fear, abuse, exploitation of prejudice and distortion of principles to be commonly recognized in order to assist with that endeavour.
Third, fair dealing, based on listening dialogue, honest negotiation, and equality to be promoted and cultivated as the mechanism for creating a respectful society in public and private settings including justice for all, representative leadership and governance, economic exchange, the meeting of basic human needs, friendship, family and love.
Fourth, the success of a respectful society to be measured by the decrease of all acts and threats of violence and involuntary detention, including those needed for true self-defense of the individual or society, as well as by the decrease of hunger and homelessness, and in the quality of our air, land and water.
Fifth, the principles of a respectful society to be kept simple and clear, so that respect of self, others and place is not easily be confused with an illusion of “respectability”, or authoritarianism, or made the enemy of liberty.
Love is the soul of respect, and respect is the language of love.
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