Alternative Paradigm

By Matthew P. Holbert
Having spent some time interning at Heathcote, learning the ins and outs of community life, a vital
realization comes to the fore: people in community quickly become like family. But more to the point, our
family does not end at the nuclear, blood ties, but branches outward--beyond the tribes, nations, religions
and whatever boundaries we may create--towards the stars. If we can allow ourselves to go there, a
boundless world exists, in which our unity creates a planet in homeostasis: Gaia, the planetary organism.
Learning about the ways in which we are all diverse but connected, rather than the ways in which we are
all different and separate, could have no other outcome than greater compassion and willingness to
cooperate rather than compete for resources.
Indeed, a living school, a school of living is an appropriate logic towards dispelling the illusory
boundaries that plague our world. We all know the phrase, it takes a village because this communal
extension of family seems vital to the forms of education that are quintessential to what we all know is a
better way of living. Moreover, fundamentally changing the forms of our society requires a radical
reformation in the forms of our education because both are intertwined. The speaker will briefly go over
some of his ideas as to how we can improve education, economy, and assembly in this article; however to
find more, a link will be provided below.
Imagine a world that took education seriously, that put education, and not politics or economics at the top
of its priorities; imagine a world that put ecology before economy, and which took the duty of stewardship
seriously; and finally, imagine a world that took its process of assembly seriously, and which did not have
a media that bombarded its audience with mindless entertainments: beer and circuses, bread and football.
Allow yourself a moment to seriously imagine such a world, what growing up in that world would mean
to you, and how everything would be structured. Now that our minds are a little more open, we can begin
to discuss the speakers vision of what our imagined world would look like.
Very briefly, such a world starts with birth, and with birth starts the process of education. An infant brain
is far more malleable than an adult brain, a phenomena known as neural plasticity (Huttenlocher 2009).
Therefore, it stands to reason that we should start linguistic education at that early stage.
As we all know, infants and young children learn faster and better than their adult counterparts. However,
maybe this is not true, maybe we have just been going about education the wrong way, perhaps our
approach to education is what stifles the majority of us, and perhaps this is the only difference between
geniuses and the rest of us: they just never lose their curiosity through indoctrination. According to new
research in neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, the brain is constantly changing, but especially in bilinguals
(Gaser and Schlaug 2003), and musicians (Mechelli et al., 2004, Wan and Schlaug 2013)
Early Cognitive Developmental Education, an idea developed by the present author, using the stages of
cognitive development (Piaget 1990) to guide the process of education, is an untested, but scientifically
verifiable concept. In a nutshell, the process begins at six months after birth at the latest (PK Kuhl, KA
Williams, F Lacerda, KN Stevens, B Lindblom), with a new language provided by a nanny who speaks
a second language (a service provided free to the public). In the United States, this second language
daycare service would be particularly available, and would grant any society that is culturally diverse an
advantage (Kuhl et al 2003).
Furthermore, those individuals providing that service would be considered members of the education

system, and would be paid well for their service--and what woman would not want to cradle a baby and
speak to it for extended periods of time? Certainly there will be no shortage of applicants to this
occupation.
This kind of occupation serves another purpose, however, and that is to make an otherwise disparaged
demographic of the population (minorities as we call them), and other mothers who can host and help
educate children as an integral aspect of our society, and of civilization, giving them both a reason to be
respected and to have a meaningful purpose in our community (I am thinking of the Spanish speaking
population when I say this, but the opportunity should not be limited to any one language or
demographic). By doing so, and having the Spanish speaking population do the same for their children
with English, we will have a world of multilingual people, and a more tolerant community. Apply this to
our society, and a more intelligent world will be the result.
As a child grows, so too does the intensity of the stimulus that they are to receive, but only according to
what will best encourage flow (Cskszentmihlyi 1996). Accordingly, at infancy the children will be
stimulated by classical, as well as cultural music and eventually, geometric shapes. The means by which
this stimulus is carried out may vary, but for children above the age of three, time tested methods could
include the seven classical liberal arts: grammar, logic, rhetoric, math, geometry, music, and astronomy.
Refining these subjects with the razors edge of what we now know about reality, a new renaissance may
be the result.
Imagine that these rigid lessons are merely a means to instill the knowledge of the world, in a sense to
domesticate the student, but in no way to break or stifle their curiosity; doing so, students will benefit
from essential knowledge early, so that they can learn to forget such knowledge later on. Indeed
depending upon a child's level of development and self-determination, she or he may want to simply be
homeschooled; and public school, fundamentally, must be a choice on the part of the parents and the
students. However, the point of having free education is to ensure universal access to knowledge.
In order to perpetuate the child's innate curiosity, however, unstructured play in nature for forty-five
minutes each day for recess must be a universal characteristic of developmental education. Studies have
shown that doing so is integral towards a child's growth and development of self-efficacy, and the book
Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv makes this point clear. ( Google: An Investigation of
Unstructured Play in Nature and its Effect on Childrens Self-Efficacy (Paul E. Starling)).
Moving on, to merely play in nature each day would only limit the potential of our prospective students.
For that reason, several recesses throughout the dayconsisting of practical but fun activities such as: art,
meditation, martial arts, gardening, unstructured music, yoga, dance, and so forth) ould act to replace
many of the trivial activities that children are put through in their early age: PE, sports activities, and so
on.
One might ask, how will we be able to fit all of these kinds of activities into one day? By having one
primary subject per day, seamlessly broken up by several recesses of this sort, we can do what the speaker
has described. Further, when the students have one subject and one teacher for the entire day, their focus
has not been divided and thrown about like a rag doll as in the current paradigm; and by having several
practical recesses; the childrens jovial love for life can be indulged while instilling discipline and a sense
of purpose and self-confidence. This could also prepare the students for having workdays that are every
other day, as we will discuss later.
Recent studies have shown that continuity is beneficial to early education. According to C. Seefeldt |A.
Galper 2010, Because childrens growth is continuous, their early educational experiences must also be
continuous (Scully, Seefeldt, & Barbour, 2003). One experience builds on another. A thread of meaning

runs through a number of experiences, forming a coherent, whole, continuous learning curriculum for
young children. Therefore, the more methods and techniques for continuity and coherence applied to
education, the better. Without bells or authoritarianism, the old limitations do not apply to the degree they
do today (i.e. class size, time with individual students, concentration on specific concepts, etc.).
According to John Taylor Gatto, in his book Dumbing us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Public School
I've noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my thirty years of teaching: schools and
schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one
believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics
classes or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything
except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane,
caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract
logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers do
care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic -- it has no conscience. It
rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook
and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive
from a common ancestor.
In contrast to the harsh realities described above by Mr. Gatto, as students in our new paradigm progress
through this processeach according to their abilitytheir teachers become more and more like
librarians (i.e. directing them to the sources of information that they seek) and less like a pedagogue,
forcing information upon them. In this way, the impetus to learn comes from the student, rather than the
teacher, or some outside contingent. (Google: Motivation to learn, and learning vs. performance)
Conversely, the recesses at adolescence become more practical and technical, corresponding with the
ability of the adolescent, and can be selected or deselected at any time. As the students progress through
these stages, they may decide to check out of education, and they will be more than welcome to do so, but
they can always choose to jump back in at any time, due to the less structured nature of the program.
By the time the students reach young adulthood, they will be given courses on architecture, hydroponics,
electricity, plumbing, carpentry, and mechanics (really whatever the people decide is practical). The
purpose of these courses, being to instill self-sufficiency and independence, the graduating requirement of
all students will be to pass their drivers course (assuming that people are still driving at this time), which
will act as a certificate of their graduation. However, graduating and getting a drivers license is not the
same as volunteering citizenship to a minarchy.
The purpose of this kind of education has not been to ensure that those coming out of it are functional
workers, but rather as beneficial members of a community and society. An experiment of this kind cannot
come without some degree of controversy. However, given the track record of the current public
education paradigm, we are not going to get any improvements from it any time soon. Let us remember
Einsteins famous quote that, We cant solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when
we created them. Therefore, given the current failure of our education, as a system despite the efforts of

individuals, we must reinvent the wheel of our mind, and think in brand new ways to solve the problems
that our world faces.
Indeed, the next step in changing our way of thinking is with regards to adult education. Once one has
reached adulthood, and volunteered citizenship, they may desire to enter into a free adult education
academy called the Pentivium. The Pentivium, as you may already glean from the name, is composed of
five subjects, which compliment the subjects of the Trivium and Quadrivium of the classical liberal arts.
It will please the reader that all of these subjects are plant and or consciousness oriented; rooted in fractal
equality. a concept coined by the author to describe the balance inherent in natural inequalities, which
give rise to the beauty inherent in all varieties, and separate from college, this program does not include
specific subjects or compartmentalized views; but rather depends upon the community, and would act as a
community-building forum in places like the city and suburb.
The academy facility may be repurposed malls, and would be a perfect fit for green revolutions
everywhere. How poignant, you might be thinking, how ironic, that the infrastructure that once
perpetuated the consumerist, materialist view, should now be the edifice for its ultimate destruction, and
the vector for a new, green paradigm.
The pentivium starts with purification. Through meditation and medicinal therapy and study, the neophyte
explores their own individuated consciousness, and dispels the illusory boundaries within themselves. (By
medicine the author means plants, not synthetic chemicals, though the choice to do even that is the
individuals, and while not entirely necessary, the process of purification can take substantially longer
without the aid of our plant brethren.)
By turning off the television, and putting our hands in the soil, the purification process will also go hand
in hand with the local organic economy, in which the participants have access to locally grown, organic
food. A full spectrum purification can then take place, in which diet and exercise are aiding aspects of the
mental and spiritual purification and healing. Acting synergisticly to magnify the process, a full spectrum
reconditioning can take place, in which the attempts of the world to bog us down with nonsense and false
notions of who we are may be loosenedenough to leave room for a more rational, caring, and selfempowered individual.
As we progress, and as the purification process takes place within the individual, their mind has expanded
to be open to new ideas; without fear, ego, or formal belief systems getting in the way, the individual can
now be introduced to esoteric concepts, which will further help their endless process of purification. We
may call this a consolidation, because it is an act of collecting ones thoughts, and a re-examination of
ones reality according to occultor what were previously hiddentexts, and what could be considered
divine (experiential) study of the sacred.
This could be anything from reading ancient texts, or modern texts devoted to their analysis, meditating
on natural forms, to spending time in an isolation tank, even skydiving, depending upon the persons
temperament and general characterall of these may be applicable, or none of them. Everyone has

different definitions of the profound, but that is exactly what one is seeking in this stage of the pentivium.
The third stage could be considered a form of exertion. Learning the practice of self-healing, a practice of
thought manipulation is the key to what the author calls magik, but really there is nothing magical or
unrealistic about quantum physics. By practicing intent, critical thought control, and using the tools
expressed in the previous stages of the pentivium, the neophyte can begin to change their reality by
changing their thoughts, perspectives and choices. At this stage, each of those involved may begin to have
positive, demonstrable effect on the planetary organism's healing process. One step closer to homeostasis
and conscious evolution, we continue to the next stage.
Through experiencing exertion, at the fourth stage of the pentivium one comes into ones self, and begins
to exhibit a union of their body, mind, and spirit. This union, then coming into balance, represents a state
of mastery. Few who enter the pentivium will reach this stage of mastery, but the benefits of such an
evolution are greater than the bliss of ignorance, and the imbalanced disharmony, confusion, and chaos
that otherwise plague human existence. This mastery will only further aid the neophyte in their
relationship to others, their chosen field of collegiate study (assuming they go to college), and their
overall appreciation of the world at large.
To become a master of ones realm represents a total shift in personal ownership and responsibility by far.
However, as we proceed, the fifth and final stage of the pentivium is simply play. At this stage, ones
development has reached a nexus point, from the domestication of the trivium and quadrivium to a
complete freedom as an experienced adult-- i.e. they are completely capable of virtually anything that
they put themselves to. Purification, consolidation, exertion, union and balance have resulted in the
transformation of the individual from a person with an ego to a character with a connection to the
Kosmos.
Widening the scope of education beyond the boundaries of the schoolhouse, the true schoolhouse must be
the world, our true family the world also; only then can our species evolve past arbitrary limitations, and
come to inherit its divine role as co-creators with the sacred. Indeed, only by having this implied trust can
we evolve past the money paradigm, and act synergistically as a global consciousness to create a
planetary organism. A planetary civilization, and not the United Nations, is the solution to global
warming, the poverty rampant in the disparaged world, and dictatorial governments bent on our
indoctrination.
The way that the author describes may not be for everyone, but that can be said about anything.
Nonetheless, this program, and its potential to create community and enlightenment should be pondered
and consideredbefore our materialistic, bread and circuses, beer and football culture retards and
regresses further, making the vast majority of us entranced, reduced under absolute tyranny, into calamity,
dragging the minority along with them. (Some may think it is already too late, but that is flat wrong given
the revolutionary spirit happening right now.)
To move forward, towards describing an alternative paradigm, we must first get on the same page. Many

visions of an alternative economic structure exist, but few of them are comprehensive, coming with them
an education and assembly schema as we are discussing now. However, these ideas may seem unfamiliar,
idealistic, even nonsensical, but this does not mean that they are worthless. Again, as Einstein wisely
stated, we can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. And though the
alternative economic structure below may seem far-fetched, or impossible to some, the only thing making
it impossible is the thought structure, which believes there are such impossibilities.
The new economic paradigm, which we will be exploring, is something the author calls Reciprocism: a
social and political voluntary action/transaction in which a cooperative interchange of favors, goods,
privileges, or labor can be the medium of exchange, including local currency. Citizenship, a chosen and
then earned title through beneficial activity of any kind, however, represents the primary medium of
exchange.

Requesting and earning citizenship grants an individual the universal basic income of free food,
clothing, shelter, transportation, information, medical care, and whatsoever the people
themselves shall deem deserving of a citizen. ~Merrits of Reciprocism

Beyond this definition, a few qualifying aspects of this alternative economy must be disclosed to the
reader. First, this concept requires economic democracy; second, a participatory economy, and third, this
system requires that individuals choose to be citizens. Further, a redefinition of the profit motive from
expenditures over returns (getting more than you give) to human or ecological benefit (getting in equal
proportion to what you give) would act to transform the entire impetus of human activityincreasing
human productiveness on the whole due to cooperation and competition rather than solely competition.
Those who choose not to participate may become homesteaders, and because this system does not claim
ownership of the earth, anyone can, within reason (as in no toxifying or contaminating the environment),
homestead freely. Similar to the Amish community, they may start agrarian communities, and if they are
productive, they may receive gratis payments of resources from the civilization that they have decided to
divorce themselves from.
In many ways the idea of a reciprocity-based economy is different from a pure economic democracy,
according to the work of J.W. Smith et al: because it does not involve money, it does not require banks;
for that reason reciprocism is more fluid, and more applicable anywhere including the third world;
because this idea truly makes a radical reform towards minarchy and communism (i.e. cashless)
paradigm, but without the central control of previous communistic iterations (e.g. Soviet Russia, Maoist
China, North Korea and so forth), reciprocism is more egalitarian. In this respect, a reciprocal economy is
much closer to a participatory economy. Nonetheless, because it would consist of a commons of
information, land, technology, and so forth, recipricism does resemble economic democracy.
However, in contrast to Michael Alberts vision of a Parecon, the idea of reciprocal economy, or

reciprecon rests on the idea that we get what we give. In essence, generally we are all the same, but
specifically we are all different. For this reason, we may derive equality through a universal basic income
of the necessities--regardless of our effort, hours worked, or the intensity of our occupation--, but where
Albert and I differ is that I believe we should be paid differently for our ability to acquire luxuries when
we include effort and sacrifice etc. That is to say luxuries and necessities are tabulated differently, one
with our specific effort and sacrifice, the other with our general citizenship respectively.
Every other aspect of a participatory economy, including worker councils and consumer councils, even
facilitating agencies, are included in my treatise, The Merits of Reciprocism.
If this concept is still vague to the reader, it may be necessary to ponder the words of Allan Watts on the
matter of money:
Money is a way of measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or
a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft. He needs
real wealth, in the form of a fishing rod, a compass, an outboard motor with gas, and a
female companion. But this ingrained and archaic confusion of money with wealth is now
the main reason we are not going ahead full tilt with the development of our
technological genius for the production of more than adequate food, clothing, housing,
and utilities for every person on earth.

What Allan and many other visionaries, including the current writer are saying, echoing really; is that we
have the potential to move beyond these forms, if only we could see past them into the reality of things.
To do so, we may have to look inward, and recognize that it is not the material world that matters, nor the
conventions of human invention, but the spectrum of life, its various contingencies, and the synergy of
information networks that matter. Communication matters, love matters, community matters, but not
money.
Further, once money, and the entire paradigm of work and labor has been changed, we can also work on
changing our schedules of work as well. For many religious folks, Sunday should always be a day of rest,
and that could still work perfectly within the premise that we are about to explore, but as we shall see,
there is much more to life than work, and with more days of rest, we can begin to focus on the being
experience of thriving rather than the having experience of surviving; perhaps we can even make our
world the temple it deserves to be, and our daily actions the religious practiceI know, what a strange
concept...
Imagine if, instead of repeatedly working five days on, two days off, if you worked every other day. For
one thing, twice as many people could work on the same project, and for another, we could then have
three to four days off if we so chose. The question of, how are we going to pay all of these people? has
become irrelevant, because those people hired will not be paid in profits, but in access. Further, a persons

access to the necessities is not measured by their time at work, but by their contribution whatsoever,
meaning that everyone has equal access to the resources, regardless of their degree of contribution.

[Note that every-other-day work falls in line with the education schedule of one alternating subject per
day.]
Now that we have covered some of the basics of alternatives to the education and economic paradigm,
our final key to creating a brighter future rests in polity: our approach to assembly.
First, lets face it; our federal government is a corrupt gang of oligarchs, ministered by plutocrats, not the
will of the people. The collusion between government and finance is obvious, and while this is not
fascism out right, it is tantamount to it: gross capitalism. However, the blame does not rest entirely upon
the government we call ours, nor upon our elected officials, because We the People have allowed this
corruption to take place, and for so long! But is this because of human nature, or is this more the result of
residual feudalistic practices and power structures, causing the general population to resemble sheep more
than lions? If violence, greed, or just plain evil is the nature of humankind, how have we come to exist for
so many millennia without totally eradicating ourselves? How did humanity make it this far if it is totally
evil?
Assuming humanity is evil, there is no ground to move forward, and the case rests. However, if we can
accept that humanity, like life, is determined by choices and perspectives here and now, the reader and
speaker can move forward; not doing so is like casting seeds upon a desert floor, and saying that they
were not meant to grow. But to say that humanity is not evil, on the contrary, is not to say that we should
simply trust those whom represent us. Indeed, we must always be critical constituents of our government,
scrutinizing it at every opportunity; to trust blindly in government of any sort is to hand over one's better
judgment to the whims of lesser men at best, and tyrants at worst.
Imagine that instead of an executive office, council structures are formed, deriving their members through
lottery, rather than election; those chosen will be given a simple background check, and then interviewed
by a facilitator, elected by the people, on public television. And once in office, are monitored in a similar
fashion as with reality television. In other words: total transparency.
Taking into consideration that everyone chooses to be a citizen, and agrees to the social contract, ones
service in council, like jury duty, must also be voluntary. That being clearly stated removes any
probability that citizens will disagree to the potential inconvenience of required service. However, due to
the relatively easy means of selection, anyone may choose to pass on their opportunity to serve, providing
a reasonable five thousand word explanation.
The same policy of transparency would ensure a limit on the level of corruption that could take place at
all levels. Further, doing so creates a medium through which people can be entertained: monitoring their

public officials. While this may result in something more boring than C-SPAN, the overlying outcome
will be a major check on the ruling powers, and a transformation of the democratic process.
Participatory government with a reciprocal bent resembles anarchy more than it does the traditional
power structures; but, nonetheless, this is exactly the character of the kind of government, or minarchy,
which the writer is proposing. A kind of society that has few boundaries, in which the average citizen,
locally, gets to participate in the process of his or her local decisions, and have an impact depending upon
the degree to which she or he is affected.
The concept of a council-based assembly structure falls perfectly into harmony with a participatory
economy. Those most affected by the problems discussed would be the ones brought together in council,
or at the very least they would have veto power via supermajority against any majority, congress or other
other councils. Far more democratic than a representative republic, due to the direct involvement of the
people, the democratic council structure represents a more egalitarian circle in every way, where the
present order represents a box with a pyramid.
A framework into which all of our legal rights and laws may be contained; the box of our current
governmental structure is the constitution. The pyramid, however, represents the residual feudalistic
practices, which linger on in the form of the Federal Reserve and the corporate dominance of the financial
elite. The pyramid, reinforced by our culture, rests on top of the box, preventing any substantial
reformation or legislation from coming into the box. As sovereigns, we must evolve past the money
masters: it is our right, it is our duty to create a newer, more perfect unity.
Therefore, the community council structure, bestowing power equally to its members, is far more
egalitarian than the feudal pyramid, or the enlightened box alone. And with a constitutional framework
added to that council structure, our new paradigm may be given great integral reinforcement. So long as
councils, acting like a protective bubble, contain that box structure, a pyramid may never be able to work
its way atop the box, perverting the constitution, and usurp the levers of power as we have seen today.
Moreover, creating meritocratic councils could benefit society and culture in many ways. In the context of
this new paradigm, where councils populated by average citizens may lead to greater freedom, it may not
lead to the most efficient, productive, or logical conclusions. For this reason, emergent councils of
scientists, engineers, designers, technicians, and many others could act as mediators, formed for the
purpose of guiding public opinion, and proposing new public projects to be voted upon. Other councils,
formed by the people, could act to organize cultural events for the community. This, of course, and many
other things, could be done without councils.
In such a flexible form of governance, we can see how close to anarchy we can get before absolutely no
governing authority exists, while simultaneously improving the lives of those involved through
organization. Beyond democracy, a people can be informed by its most and best, while having little to no
chance of being guided by its least and worst. If you believed that you had the ability to make a positive
difference, and were selected for office, more than likely you would affect positive change; contrariwise,
if you believed that you had no impact on the system, or that humanity is not worth benefiting, you more

than likely would just pass on your opportunity. Moreover, if you were corrupt, the lack of privacy would
prevent you from perverting from the purpose of serving the public interest.
A world without money, and with a sophisticated education system, combined with a green evolution,
would make this kind of government and this kind of vision a mere choice away. The choice is between
fear, ego, belief--and love. Choose wisely!
P.S. Lets be the divine creators we were born to be!

https://www.scribd.com/collections/6808747/Making-the-Shift
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
In the previous article, the author described an alternative paradigm, which, if followed, may have the
potential to set humanity absolutely, unconditionally free. The Sickness of our society, as Jiddu
Krishnamurti, a modern day sage indicated, must be something we de-adjust ourselves to.
Transcending this disorder of perpetual growth could be the equivalent of going from hunter gatherers to
small scale agrarians. Indeed, modern life resembles more the survival-based wilderness than it does any
civilized form of human activity. Even a cursory understanding of history will show that our current
society is in a dark age; stagnant, disordered, and corrupt. At this point the problem is not merely in the
politicians, but in the culture which spawns them; not the transnational corporations in themselves, but
their influence over the the very character of our laws and government, to the point where the only way to
solve this dilemma is by abolishing the entire system, and starting over.
If we can agree to this principle of fundamental reconstruction, we can start building on our previous
description of an alternative paradigm; we will explore ways in which we can create this brighter future,
as well as the daily lives of the citizens themselves. It is not enough to simply project a model of reality,
nor simply to communicate that idea on social media, or by word of mouth. To transform our world from
a consumerist, materialistic, narcissistic cult, to a holistic, ecological, we cultureplanetary in scope, and
universal in principlea fundamental transformation must take place (of thought and consciousness
within the individuals, populations, and cultures of the planet).
For this to occur, a major shift in the behaviors and activities of common, every-day people must emerge;
their emotions and conscience affected by truth towards a shining light of hope, beyond this Rothschild
death trap, I mean debt trap; indeed, beyond even the glowing box in our living rooms. Dare I say it our
phones and computers too? Turning off the television, picking up a shovel, a book, or a pen and peering
into the hearts and minds of fellow human beings; in that lies the simple answer: non-participation in the
current paradigm, and participation in the new one. This is not impossible, impossible is perpetual
petroleum-based industrial growth. Simple isn't easy, but nothing worth while ever is.

Therefore, let us consider our present situation for a moment: globally, banks have taken over the world,
governments are corrupted by money, and the people (you and I) have no voice beyond local
municipalities if they are lucky. Privilege, when it is not earned, is like theft, and indeed exaltation, and
sovereignty without merit is a kind of enslavement and mastery over a people--all manifested by lies.
Truth, and truth alone will set us free. The truth is that we are all divine, sovereign, and capable of living
without the imposed will of those in power over top of us.
To discover is to know. Therefore, it is not my intention to convince the audience that their government is
corrupt, that is for them to discover on their own; my intent is to describe an alternative paradigm, and
convince the reader that it is worth while, and perhaps even more advantageous than the current
paradigm; but in order to do that one must make clear the reasons for that separation. Our species is
headed, like the Titanic, strait for extinction. But in more ways than a few there needs to be change.
Culturally, Americans live in a vacuum of titillation, conveniences, and consumption.
Breaking people out of the zombie trance of modern culture is like injecting the anti-virus directly into
their brain. Yes they are going to fight you, try to bite you, maybe even spit on you, but when the truth
finally hits their brain, they will come to their senses and start helping. The world is not full of insane
psychopaths, its full of uninformed children. And if we are ever to be adults of this universe, we must
overcome, take the power back from the psychopaths, and inform the children so as to create wise adults
capable and truly worthy of living in this magnificent universe. The solution is education.
Non-violent revolution, being a manifestation of conscience and organization, represents an evolution of
human awareness; and depending upon the depth of those conscious individuals that compose that
evolution, as well as the sophistication and complexity of their organization, a fundamental shift in first
principles may occur, resulting in the kind of alternative paradigm we explored in the first article. To do
so, we may want to examine and retrospectively analyze the work of Gene Sharp; his book: From
Dictatorship to Democracy, lists 198 methods of non-violent action to overthrow a dictatorial
government.
Natural law states that just governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. And it is
when government becomes destructive of human rights, the environmentwhat it should be protecting
that it is the right and duty of every person with the wherewithal to realize it, to throw off such
government, and provide new guards for their future security. To quote the Declaration of Independence:
Prudence indeed, shall dictate, that governments long established should not be changed
for light, or transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design, of invariably the same
object, to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
government, and provide new guards for their future security.
In the spirit of this declaration; in the spirit of natural law, and the legacy of human endeavor, it is our

divine right to alter or to abolishwith something equal to or betterour forms of governance when they
become largess or corruptand it shall always be our right. When government goes malign, belligerent,
shadowed, and insecure, seeking to monitor and control all human activity, its existence, its concept must
be disintegrated! When the prison complex becomes privatized and profit-based, and the populations of
prisons explode, is it any wonder why our entire premise must be reinvented?
Integration, collaboration, communication, evolution... Let us consider these words for a moment: how
we might integrate this knowledge and collaborate through communicationso that we can evolve
together, forming a brighter future.
According to theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, there are three levels of civilization, well really four, but
because level zero still uses bio-fuels and not the ambient energy of the planet or universe, it is not what
we can safely define as civilization according to the professor, so basically we don't count... yet. If we
were to move beyond capitalism towards a system like the author has described, our potential will finally
break open.
Were such a transformation to occur in the united states, based on the model of non-violent revolution by
Gene Sharp and others, a ripple domino effect of evolution revolutions in Europe and the rest of the world
seems likely to occur, given the history of America's role as a trend setter. This time the ultimate shift
from money to implied trust, from corporations to community, from science or spirituality to science and
spirituality; a shift from level zero civilization to a level one has the chance to occur.
All it would require is a shift in technology, a shift only possible when we redefine the profit motive
from expenditures over returns to ecological and human benefit. In this way, designed obsolescence itself
becomes obsolete. The best will be created, with no debt or cost attachedfor the value shall be created
with the use of the item, not merely the manufacturing or purchase of whatsoever.
Due to our antiquated governmental system and economic premise, when people are replaced by
autonomous robots, the world becomes more impoverished subjectively (for those people replaced by
robots), yet more wealthy materiallyas in what the robots produce, and how much better they may
produce it. Because we have gotten into thinking of value and wealth as money, we have prevented
ourselves from seeing past the map to the territory.
Only by replacing money with an implied trust, granted through citizenship, a requested, and earned
status, can we possibly allocate that value creation to the people as a whole, regardless of social status. In
order to survive our own ideas must evolve--adapt our systems to our capabilities and our consciousness;
allow people to be compensated with unlimited access, and improvements-based property rights
according to natural law, and every invention that the mind can conceive will be possible.
Naturally, that is, through natural circumstances, a world government forms before our very eyes already,
but under the supervision of the world banking elite, a world order cannot stand. Today, we are
experiencing the birth pangs throughout the world, of a world government. Our world government, if it is

to be truly ours, if it is to be truly legitimate, must be emergent at the grass roots level. For the ruling elite
of this world to be coersively manufacturing such a revolution represents the most regressive revolution
in modern history: a revolution by the elite for the elite, rather than by the people for the people. It seems
as if the Monarchs of the world have let their powers combine, to create a great dark deity, and we shall
call him Moloch.
Say hello to your new God, good god, good, god, Moloch! And what is his religion all about? Pop Music!
Rock and Roll! Blue Jeans! Going to the Mall! Going to school and getting a house, a T.V., and a X-Box!
The American dream has resigned itself to a weekend stupor, with all the conveniences and distractions
that corporations bring to deliver us from reality.
Indeed we have a new religion in this country: the mall is our church, the television our preacher; the
federal reserve note our cross; taxes are our collecting plate; corporations are our celestial bodies; and
video games represent a vicarious proxy reality; which you play to feel what you do not in real life: alive!
In reality, you are not free, and you have no life, and that is why you play video games, that is why you
seek entertainments: to fill that void of genuine love for life that you have lost through conformity to a
system that is profoundly sick. What you are seeking, in truth, is enlightenment.
This is why play in nature at a young age is so important: to realize the magnificence and complexity of
reality. But beyond even this, populations of critical thinking people, well educated and with abundant
time, is without a doubt preferable to dull witted mobs, poorly educated for a republic, let alone a
democracy. Yet the media, for this reason, is of maximum importance-- really a limb of the organism we
call civilization. What we ingest mentally is what we are.
Our government's hidden hand is propaganda through the media. In the first lines in his book
Propaganda(1928), (nephew of world renown psychologist,Sigmund Freud) Edward Bernays claims,
THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an
important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
Indeed war and propaganda go together like peanut butter and jelly, and there is no shortage of films,
advertisements, and staged events world wide to perpetuate it indefinitely. It is a statist religion, and
cannot be destroyed with more of the same diplomacy within the framework of a boundary-based society:
nations, states, sexes, genders, beliefs, fears, and ego, all is vanity. We are star stuff to quote
Carl Sagan. Consciousness imbued with matter, matter imbued with consciousness. We are beyond these
boundaries. To love, and live beyond the boundaries means being open to adaptation, to change, and
really a kind of death.
Because the new world, which is coming whether we know it or not, or whether we want it or not-- by
conquest or consent--will cause a fundamental shift in human activity, our only recourse is to negotiate
and further enact this alternative paradigm, thus saving humanity from debt enslavement. Because this
alternative paradigm, which we will call World Citizen, can and will reciprocate back to its citizens the

collective value of human production and activity, as well as robotic, it is potentially adequate to usher in
the new age. However, it must be recognized that this idea is against the so called New World Order, neofeudalism cult, created by the world elite; in fact this alternative paradigm has the potential to make those
powers irrelevant.
However, what this switch requires of the reader, is the conceptualization of the daily life of a citizen
within this system. What laws are there? How do you get paid? What to do with the time? We shall
explore all of these questions and more as we move forward in this article. Below, we will come to a
correlation between the above, and our actions here and now; we will discover that only through
cooperation, collaboration, and union with the great teacher we call reality, will we ever hope to transcend
the limitations of our current systems.
Such a shift means a rebuilding, pretty much from scratch, to form locally governed, participatory
democracies, and a redefinition of what it means to be a citizen. Such a shift, however, requires more than
an mere civics lesson. What it takes is us learning how to play the role of participant, rather than spectator
in our government, radically shifting the structure of power. Especially when the government, top to
bottom, becomes corrupt, the only safe and honest depository of power is in the hands of the people.
Therefore, let us imagine that we have non-violently revolted against the corporate state, and
psychologically recovered from the psychopathic culture, inculcated from the top of the pyramid down
from media propaganda; and rather than Neo-Feudalism, with internationalist oligarchs administering
authority down to the peons below, an anarchon (rulerless) democracy would distribute power as equally,
and as fairly as possible through council-based systems of polity.
This is a story of Citizen _. We could put any letter of the alphabet in that space to represent the different
forms of beneficial contributions humans can make: a is for artist, b for business, c for craft, d for design,
e for engineering, all the way up to Citizen X, which is the undefined and unknown possibilities of human
invention and endeavor. Therefore, for now, perhaps we can say that Citizen X represents a kind of
combination of all, hence we shall name the character of our story, describing our alternative paradigm,
Citizen X.
When X wakes up from a night of deep sleep, she does so because her circadian rhythms are in natural
harmony with the sun. This is made possible because of the integration of new technology with cutting
edge design; without the constraints of a profit motive that encourages designed obsolescence, its
incentives reversed to create the best products for the least cost to non-renewable resources; X's home,
whether rural or urban, has a natural flow with natureboth inwardly and outwardly, to reflect the inward
and outward relationship within the human psyche.
Although X has a primarily plant-based diet, she does eat eggs, which are grown locally on community
land, and she goes hunting with her friends every once in a while. Because the food industry was one of
the industries to collapse, and subsequently be dismantled, the necessity to survive became all that
mattered. This, however, was not a tragedy, but a blessing. The resultant world from that sacrifice became

the place of abundance X now takes for granted. For breakfast, X has three eggs, half an onion, two
cloves of garlic, some thyme, half a green pepper, and she eats an apple on the sideall locally grown in
green houses and bio-domes. By the way, X lives in an urban environment.
Walking to work, green can be seen for miles. On Citizen's right, something catches her eye; she looks
through the window, weighing her optionsshe has to be at work soon, but what she sees seems to be
exactly what she needed at workand she decides to go in and have a look. Upon leaving, she decides
that it's a better option just to call a taxi, which is a free service to all citizens. On Citizen's phone, she has
access to the global positioning system, which, in conjunction has been integrated into all cars, something
people then use to taxi other people around, or in more advanced locations the taxis are automated. In this
case, the value of the product, and the wealth generated by the value are one and the same through use of
the product.
Socializing cars, or rather putting them into a commons, rather than individuals privately owning them,
would reduce the number of accidents from drunk drivers, and traffic congestion caused by overconsumption. Too many cars on the road are passenger-less, and are being used for reasons counter to
what they are even designed for. Now, its everyone's right to do whatsoever they want, as long as it is not
interfering with the rights of others, but in the case of transportation being a property right, rather than a
common good, everyone is harmed by impaired drivers, their right to safety threatened; everyone is
effected by emissions from cars, whether they know it or not; therefore, the expansion in one instance and
restriction in another of that right have the potential to make a balance beneficial to everyone.
In the world of the Citizen, or Civilization, the use of transportation is both a socialized good and a
private property. However, the socialized goods constitute the highest standard of technology within that
given areas/regions capabilities; whereas the private goods would consist of the technology of the
previous civilization (i.e. today), or that which one was capable of creating herself or himself.
Life without a car is a struggle in today's world, and it is significant that we have vehicular transportation;
transportation is immensely important to our species, and also to our civilization. Fortunately and
unfortunately, the way it is distributed and used displays both a fundamental pattern of nature, integral to
our dialogue, and a fraudulent source of status, freedom, and satisfaction by way of propaganda and
manipulation of perception through Hollywood. The fundamental force I speak of is fractal geometry
through a kind of macro bio-mimicry: e.g. roads are like vein networks, and cars are like blood cells,
traveling through a planetary body, carrying payloads of people.
The planetary organism is inconceivable to an ego mad human being, incapable of compassion, incapable
of anything but want, calling it need: the over-privileged, the authoritarian next door, every homeless
person who's a billionaire in his dreamsall thinking that self-sacrifice is a sin instead of a righteous and
beautiful thing. Only until we can get past the disorder that is selfishness and ego-centrism can we
possibly enter the promised land: a level one civilization. Some of that may seem like taking a toy away
from a child, but at a certain point we have to grow up from being children of ___, and start being adults
of ___.

To attain a level of civilization greater than the previous form, the people of our citizen X's region
determined that socialization of transportation should be included in the universal basic income of all
citizens. However, when one has attained a level of contribution compatible with acquiring a private
vehicle, that person can indeed own a car, a boat, a jet, etc. privately. For this reason there are far fewer
cars on the road, and less sprawl than in the 20th century. Also, because bikes have been socialized as well,
far fewer people need or want vehicular transportation. For this reason, however, our citizen arrives to
work on time.
Because the impetus of poverty has been reversed, due in part to the altered economic premise described
in the previous article, the desire to live in the city increases with every opportunity to be a benefit to
society. However, those who choose to be of benefit to the environment still do so by being either an
urban farm planner, or a rural farmer. Our citizen has the occupation of being an urban farm planner, and
has chosen to describe her plans for a wheat grass project for the coming animal restoration concept that
she has been working on for years.
Her plan is to allow certain animals to be free to roam in the city, with natural bridges and other methods
to keep them and us from human activities. The idea comes with the advent of a mass outcry for more
natural urban environments. There has also been a suggestion that in times of need, these animals could
become food, and that because they will be normalized around humans, they will be an easy way to
access needed nutrients if something like a blight or a famine were to somehow happen.
Because the economy of this new paradigm has become totally localized, the issue at hand is to be selfsufficient. For this reason, our citizens plan has the potential to improve the self-sufficiency of the city
areas, and to improve the overall aesthetic by allowing animals to have a place in the urban environment
within certain limits of course. Allowing animals to be in cities improves the lives of citizens by having
an available food source, and one which requires no industrial effort to maintain, and no transportation.
For the above reason, the city that our citizen has been traveling through looks more like a garden than a
modern city (commercial prison). The ground is covered in different grasses, herbs, weeds, and
vegetation. Because the flow of traffic has been spaced out between riding bikes, free taxi, and light rail
more area on the pathways of the city have been widened for walking. The lush forest floor of the city
resembles the local ecology of what existed prior to the existence of western influence.
Arriving to work with a small pot of lemon grass, our citizens occupation consists of planning and
creating the new city landscape described above. The pot of lemon grass was purchased to suggest a new
direction for the rooftop gardensusing lemon grass instead of or along side of wheat grass.
The day of work starts with an hour of getting settled, and a group meeting for an hour. Council-based
approaches to decision making, and grouped pay gradation ensures everyone's best interest is being
served by serving excellently. That is, if the business or organization has a grade of B, all of its workers
are graded B as well, meaning that the CEO and the janitor have the same grade of luxury allowance.

Certain occupations, like teaching young children, will grant higher gradation of luxury based on their
effort and objective performance. However, the consumption of an individual can and will be influenced
by the will of the surrounding public, depending upon the degree to which the surrounding lives are
affected by said consumption (for instance buying spotlights for your front lawn, or loud speakers).
Citizen X is off to her group meeting, her pot of lemon grass in hand. At the meeting she suggests the new
grass for next season, suggesting that it might also attract new wild life on the ground level. The group
unanimously approves of the notion, and submits the idea to the public forums (including an engineering
and design forum, which plays a hand in decision making in engineering and design councils, which were
formed by interested citizens of the society in an emergent, self-governing body). If the idea gets
approved by the community, the motion will be passed to the next stage. After its approval, the new seeds
will be purchased by the consumption councils of that area, and dispersed among the participating regions
subdivisions.
On the ground, the people have the freedom to cultivate the city floor however they like within the
context of the neighborhood council structure of decision making, and flexible natural law, natural rights
principles (meaning you can pretty much do whatever you want within reason: you cant burn all the crops
on a city block without consulting the neighborhood council first).
The neighborhood where cultivation takes place has a commons atmosphere, and everyone works
together and individually to create a more livable area. Breaking down the boundaries of the previous age,
the people of this civilization have a cultural condition magnificently different from western paradigms.
Theirs is a more cooperative endeavor, evenly paced with the notion of prioritizing the journey, rather
than the destination, and recognizing that with a worthy goal in mind at heart, that is the destinationour
civilization a success. The use of fluid chaos and rigid order, rather than just rigid order, manifests the
dream of a garden of Eden.
Creating an order that is alive with activity, change, and productivity means the paradigm can finally be
rectified, requiring the the dutiful self-sacrifice that every person on earth dreads... at first. It is only
because of the conveniences which modern culture and consumption capitalism create, that we forget
about self-sacrifice, and the great mystery of existence. Only an alive mind can create an alive world; the
world is merely a reflection of the aggregate human being. Therefore, once a person is done work, if their
life ends there, so too does the whole of humanity; in truth their life does not end, nor their work.
After worka four hour day todayour citizen goes home to her apartment, not far from where she
works. When she get's home, she equips herself for gardening, and joins her local community in tending
to the permacultural landscape. Other citizens are creating art, playing music, and sharing knowledge; all
of the above reciprocated with universal necessities: food, clothing, shelter, transportation, medical care,
information, etc. In this way, everyone can be said to be equal, but their actual level of contribution can be
recorded and reciprocated through a luxury or investment allowance as well. [By investment the author
intends to mean purchase of capital for production, not speculation.]

In order to create her own business, our citizen must request audience with a local council; if her idea gets
approved, she will be allocated the resources, advertisements, and public feedback to help make her idea
the best it can be to serve humanity. Instead of thinking of it as a competition of ideas, think of it as a
cooperative co-creation of the world around you. The world is not determined by politicians on high, but
by the local micro markets, and ultimately the humans within them. Decentralizing and deglobalizing,
with the effect of universalizing the principles of unity through diversity, absolute freedom, and
permaculture, a planetary organism can be born, manifesting the world's first level-one civilization
We are at a cross roads, more than ever in our history; we can go down the path of greed and
disintegration, or we can go down the path of self-sacrifice and creation. We can either put ourselves in
the back seat, watching television off the headrest, or try and make an effort to master our own destiny
and create a paradise on earth. As a species, we are like a spider on a thread of silk, blowing in the wind.
Taking control of our destiny, and indeed taking care of reality may mean letting go of that string.
The thing that binds us all is money. But why? Who controls your life? If it were you, do you really think
you would feel so seriously about money that you would live and die by the amount of it that you had?
Think of it this way, if all money is is a system of trust, creating that trust in a civilization, not any
passable currency, is all that is necessary. Doing so simply requires that all citizens request citizenship,
and subsequently earn it through contributing to societynot any one community project.
Contributing to community projects acts in addition to the reciprocation provided for service in a fixed
occupation. For this early version of the Citizen governmentconcept herein discussed, it suffices to
gradate the income of citizens rather than having a single-citizen policy right off the bat, not because it is
most egalitarian, but because it is most similar to our current paradigm, and requires little psychological
adjustment; however, without the influence of money, or the financial institutions that inevitably corrupt
policy and goal structures, our new paradigm may render the old guard irrelevant, turning it into a garden
instead of an industrial park. The question, once again, is whether or not it is within us to grasp this idea,
and demand its installation. Amendments to local constitutions could act as a catalyzing start.
Nonetheless, the inevitable goal of this system is to eventually resort to a single-citizen policy (i.e.
everyone receiving the same access to all resources) through recognition of a planetary organism.
Using the internet, the greatest gift that humanity has given to itself, we can get this evolution started by
spreading the idea, and promoting its virtuous principles (natural law/rights, cooperation, holism, and
permaculture); with this concept in mind, hope can be sparked in the hearts of men and women, sparks
that have the potential to ignite brush fires in the hearts of citizens all over the globe. Universal
citizenship already exists, civilization already exists, all we have to do is chip away at the excess and
unnecessary pieces; as an avatar of cosmic consciousness, I-I believe in the destiny of humanity: to go
from the darkness to the light; to lower the entropy of reality, and bring beauty to the universe. To do all
of these things requires that we transcend the boundaries within our own world view, and realize that the
only limitations upon us are those that have been self-imposed.
Speaking of self imposed limitations, laws reflect the civilization that contrives them. It has been written

in the esoteric spiritual text, the Tao Te Ching, that the more laws you have, the more criminals you will
have. This is common sense, and yet look at the prison population in America. It's Huge! What are we
going to do about this? I have some ideas, but that is for another article. Suffice to say, federal laws will
be abolished. Federal governments in general will be abolished, but for the emergent council-based
structures, answerable to the public. [Reminder, council members are subject to total transparency, their
lives recorded to ensure the most possible scrutiny]
Having developed an alternative comprehensive enough to get us beyond neo-feudalism, all it takes now
is the actions and vocalized dissent of those who recognize the cultural disorder, and demand for a new
system beyond the mainstream's ability to cover up or deny its legitimacy. Indeed, it has been said that the
cure to 1984 is 1776, and indeed the spirit of revolution, the green revolution must, within our time, come
to fruition! Doing so peacefully, however, lends far more credibility, and ensures that the outcome will be
without secrets, debt, or infrastructural degradation.
The outcome of a peaceful revolution has implications for transparency, as well as the disintegration of
debt via Jubilee, and as we have seen in Iceland and other places, the nullification of banking cartels and
the installation of a more integrated democracy is possible. To not act at this point would seem nothing
more than cultural suicide. The choice is yours, and always it has been; standing by while everything
worth while is being raped and plundered, and not trying to impede the slaughter only makes the problem
that much worse. Remember this if nothing else: heaven and hell exist here and now, depending upon the
choices we make and the perspectives we take. The changes you want to see in the world will always
come from within to without.
The way to start this evolution, other than the obvious activism and vocalized dissent, is to start creating
communities based on the principles expressed above: cashless, reciprocity-based economy, participatory,
council-based systems of economy and polity, natural law, and self-sufficiency. Many of these principles
are already in place in communities under the School of Living umbrella. Indeed, it is the authors intent to
call the School of Living into action, not only as a catalyst for community, but to act as an entity for the
full spectrum of education within or without the communities. It is time for the school of living to enter
into a new century, taking on a new role as the facilitator of the first ever developmental education
process as described in the previous article. This, I believe, would have been approved by Ralph Borsodi,
as his list of universal problems of humanity would suggest.
In conclusion, to summarize the above, our non-violent green revolution has begun with this article and
hundreds if not thousands of others like it. The potential outcome of this shift will be determined by the
actions of you, me, and everyone in cooperation with one another, or in dysfunction. The question that I-I
will leave you with is this, how long will you cooperate with this profoundly sick society before you get
wise and really start doing something about it?