We are thrilled to announce the republishing of J. Peters’ influential work, “New Freedom, the Brave Experiment: A Manifesto.” This new edition marks a significant step forward in our commitment to fostering discussions around mental health and societal transformation.
In ‘New Freedom,’ J. Peters invites us to reimagine the boundaries of what’s possible. Blending personal insights with a broader societal vision, the manifesto calls for a world marked by greater harmony, equity, and global cooperation. It challenges us to rethink our approach to societal structures, advocating for a future that transcends traditional limitations and fosters a more interconnected world.
This republished edition is a manifesto and a call to action, urging us to embrace new paradigms in our journey towards a healthier, more equitable society. Join us in exploring these pivotal ideas and envisioning a future where mental health and societal well-being are intertwined and prioritized.
Preface
I always had a strong affinity and love for language. 2005, I arrived at SUNY Binghamton in New York and began college. My course of study was slightly erratic but ultimately followed a trajectory and path through the Humanities and the study of English, Rhetoric, and Critical theory. In (an)other word(s): language.
By the middle of my first semester, I had already realized that many great authors had written manifestos that predated their later literary work. Among these authors were political leaders, reformers, and the converse—dictators, autocratic and anti-democratic wrongdoers, and people responsible for evil and crimes against humanity.
“New Freedom” was written initially in 2005, in the context of the time in my life that I’ve just described. I shared the manifesto with my friends and closest allies at the time.
After its release, these colleagues hailed its creation as an original moment in literary history. I was confident in the writing mechanics and the technical machinery utilized to deliver my message and was pleased with their responses. Simultaneously, I continued awestruck by the seemingly vast social implications and the work’s impact on my readers.
When speaking of the work’s implications rather than its title, I thought of it as “The Brave Experiment.” One of the reasons that I was told and likewise perceived that “The Brave Experiment”’s (aka “New Freedom”’s) impact was far-reaching was because its language called upon and evoked local artists, engineers, linguists, mathematicians, lawyers, and administrative professionals to disseminate and propagate the manifesto’s message to others.
By 2009, “New Freedom” had lost traction in the academic community. Throughout the early stages of my recovery from schizophrenia, the manifesto remained inaccessible and was unpublished. Until this issue of Wordgathering, “New Freedom” had largely been in hibernation. From “New Freedom,” I selected more than a dozen excerpts, ranging in length from one to two sentences, to begin various chapters of my 2019 memoir, Small Fingernails: Even Less Love. I reiterated the rationale behind the selection process in the memoir’s preface.
I still believe in New Freedom. These are unequivocally the tools to usher in a significant new era of ‘being.’ A more equitable, happier, and fair society. New Freedom is articulating that path and dream.
Introduction
Humanity is scared! People are frightened to interact peacefully with their fellow human beings. People must be more accepting of everyone’s feelings. Only then will safe behaviors manifest.
No nation can carry complete concinnity at the magnitude humanity needs to achieve New Freedom.
In and of itself, the prior statement suggests humanity has reached a critical blazon. Humanity must never cross the point of no return. This point of no return is Old Freedom. Humans must evolve past- post-nationalism and transnationalism.
The manifesto carte blanche aims to deconstruct the current international order. The proliferation of the capitalist agenda continues to wreak chaos at “home” and “abroad.” Before the outbreak of further war and destruction, humanity needs to urgently shift the relationship between “space/territory” and human behavior on the national level. This movement of ideas is the tremendous tectonic shift toward worldwide peace and concinnity in New Freedom.
New Freedom envisions an international order that could make space for greater diversity. The manifesto strikes a balance between the rights of individuals and the rights of a greater collective or Human Union. New Freedom transcends borders and rebalances the long-standing problems that haunt people.
Throughout the manifesto, “society” denotes a planetary society rather than a specific geographic location or nation-state. The arguments about “boundaries” as exclusionary and prohibitive (rather than expansive) refer to nationalistic boundaries and not to the caucusing of cultural contexts. The intention is to reframe and redefine the meaning of “boundaries”—precisely, national boundaries and contested or disputed borders and spaces.
New Freedom
It seems that most people have questions about nearly everything. Some people will question every behavior to the point where people’s heads spin out of control. Politicians pride themselves on their solid principles. Ultimately, opposing political camps are more similar than different.
To date, people have primarily lived in a society that is too accepting of boundaries. Even if no word denoted the idea of boundaries, people behaved in specific ways in which restrictions and impasses affected the freedom of movement of both people and their ideas. The concept of boundaries is provocative in New Freedom, as it seems to imply or might result in a loss of humanity. Discussion continues, below about the negative implications of boundaries as described herein and what may be done to remedy the situation we currently find ourselves in—particularly concerning boundaries and their deleterious effects.
Tangential influences can be thought processes. These tangents live outside the realm of the cause and its ideals. Thoughts may or may not one day be incorporated into greater society.
The Brave Experiment and Worldwide Concinnity
The statement: “I don’t want New Freedom” will only propagate more genocide, holocausts, and wars between nations. Thus, the propagation of the elimination survival method.
The belief children hold that their parents and caregivers are immortal is false. However, parents and caregivers can become immortal when they pass down eternal ideas and thus achieve consciousness. Older and younger generations will one day reach an equilibrium of thought. The old, in turn, learn as much from the young as the young learn from the old.
Tossing away generative ideas destabilizes the equilibrium that makes New Freedom viable. Worldwide Concinnity does not gamble enough competitors in a system that appreciates competitive codependence. Competition still uses the elimination survival method—new Freedom advocates for emergent engagement and cooperation rather than competition.
Anyone wishing to partake in a final resource-denial attack on their people would be successful only to the point that a loose aggressor would be. The relationship between The Brave Experiment and the government will explain this dilemma.
The Totality in Safety Model
The Totality of Safety Model is critically important. Imagine humanity safe from untoward behavior. The model protects people from other people, including from thoughts and behaviors that could jeopardize and undermine or even destroy the Human Union.
Critics of non-believers are Shells. The Shells might say that the Totality in Safety Model is corrupt because it evokes something transcendent and distinguishes between the “protectors” and the “protected.” The critics of New Freedom will perhaps say that interdependent survival does not have any clear “dominator,” as if some form of domination is presumably necessary.
On the contrary, the Totality of the Safety Model is the apparatus agitator. This mechanism is a functional body and transformative arm of New Freedom. It creates a viable environment for the creation of the Human Union. In summary, it makes infrastructure for the propagation of the cause, much as traffic lights help direct traffic.
STAGE ONE: The Human Union
Fundamentally, the Human Union refers to the bonds that form between individuals. Thus, understanding how to create these bonds allows for their propagation. So, the Totality in the Safety Model and worldwide concinnity would create the bonds that form the Human Union in the Brave Experiment.
Practically speaking, people will likely only entertain a concept such as New Freedom if applied to their lives or when it serves as a model for them to measure themselves.
A distinction must be made here. Every individual has a different definition of a perfect society. However, in the Human Union, New Freedom imitates every state of humanity that historically struggles for progress (i.e., mimesis).
The Brave Experiment’s methodology is theoretical and tangible. The framework provides the very reason for people to adopt it.
New Freedom is not establishing a means of world domination or creating a thousand-year Reich. This notion is contrary to the Brave Experiment. Dominance implies, and is, assimilation into a single thought process. Dominance creates an unchanging society that cannot sustain balance and stability.
The Brave Experiment recognizes that societies change because transformation is a part of the human condition. The Human Union will lead to timeless bonding and the transformation from friction to united parts, namely, concinnity.
Government
There are no new governments in New Freedom. The Brave Experiment has no power over yesterday’s original freestanding local governments. Local governments are defined just as they existed in the preexisting society.
Local governments will remain intact during New Freedom and day-to-day operations. Although social trends are sure to influence governments—as they always do—the two institutions are to remain separate to maintain stability.
Transformation and the creative forces alive through the social medium will continue uninterrupted. The Brave Experiment and local governments will be unable to coerce other institutions around the globe structurally or politically. The tectonic shift will rebalance humanity and ignite New Freedom.
Currency
Whether a person lives in a capitalist society or a communist society, there is no free money. The only difference is how people attain money. The concept of free money is the antithesis of the Brave Experiment.
Struggle requires resolve and is a big part of New Freedom. The discussion of money is critical because the financial system defines how most governments operate and their subsequent effect on economics.
The government of New Freedom already exists. The goal is to evolve into a living, breathing, autonomous entity. Ruled by entropy, the universe is set into motion.
Harnessing this motion and determining the positive energy are New Freedom’s tasks ahead.
Ideals can’t feed people. The starving masses can’t fill their stomachs with theories. However, the current society often promotes Social Darwinism. In this formulation, Charles Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” is harmfully decontextualized from its biological meanings and intentions and distorted to explain social status and unequal access.
The Brave Experiment embraces capitalism’s emphasis on excellence and communism’s commitment to cooperation. Political doctrines are not always well-correlated with their applications. Governments must compete. They must also compete within complex interdependencies to ensure humanity’s well-being.
STAGE TWO: Society
New Freedom recognizes the multiple ways people fall between society’s cracks. Working together to achieve a better life as a collective unit, without infringing on those already on the path to freedom, is a great goal and one that should be fostered.
The upper and middle classes get richer because they receive the benefits of the collective unit through exploitation. When an individual feels they have failed, they may spiral downward. A different outcome will occur when people form a collective with mutually accepted principles.
As the Totality in Safety Model and Worldwide Concinnity take shape, the social bonds that will ensue will fill the cracks in ailing capitalist and communist societies by wiping out poverty and taking the strain off governments.
Ideology
When people are united under a common cause—the Human Union—the promise of progress will be strengthened.
New Freedom acts as a catalyst that will speed up the rate of progress. Potentially opposing ideological structures must recognize shared resources. Survival will mean interdependence, necessitating banding together against entities that may be trying to affect non-survival through their destructiveness. In New Freedom, people will stop committing homicide and, therefore, reject murder. Resources will be cherished because they are shared.
People must recognize common challenges to strategize collectively and create social change. Before this transformation can be undertaken, people must work together to understand how the parts relate to the whole, thereby embracing concinnity and interdependence.
War
New Freedom does not wage wars. Local governments may wage wars. However, when ideals supported by the Brave Experiment diffuse into governments, the principles of waging war would become increasingly questioned in the long term. Of course, this change will not occur overnight.
Governments will become increasingly reflective and critical of ongoing wars and seemingly never-ending wars.
Since there are no guarantees in the universe, there could be a last effort by some to wield a final resource-denial attack. Society’s members must work with this contingency in mind.
Metamorphosis
The Brave Experiment outlines the path for change over time. On a day-to-day basis, one way to guarantee survival is by discontinuing defeatist competition and other damaging behaviors. This means that people engaging in harm must stop doing so for the good of all. Breaking free of self-defeating behaviors will allow everyone to have better lives than before New Freedom.
People who accept New Freedom as meaningful but deny its necessity are potentially differently damaging than those who recognize societal ills but do nothing to amend them! Failure to embrace positive change sabotages progress.
STAGE THREE: Freedom Lines
Modifications to daily living will begin with the transportation of all people and their ideas.
In New Freedom, communities can connect through Freedom Lines: the channels that will loosen and eventually dissolve restrictions and inequity. However, caucusing will still be possible and encouraged so that individuals with shared identities have the freedom and opportunity to be in solidarity with one another.
The tasks that lie ahead begin with forming the infrastructure for the Human Union. Institutions that harbor and safe house the dominators of Old Freedom must be stopped! Only then will New Freedom be achievable.
Epilogue: Free Movement
Increasingly, I worry that nothing will ever change.
I know that the way things are now, free movement is not a reality.
The worst possibility I can think of is that we are trapped like this.
And I’ll awaken tomorrow, facing the same dilemmas without any answers.
We began as migratory.
Some of us colonized spaces.
Others separated and settled without exploitation.
Many began a process of exploration.
A few created homes for themselves.
Some people gain advantages by harming others.
Kings and Queens claimed their divine rights.
Humanity witnessed the rise of nation-states.
Why not try J. Peters’s brave experiment?
It might make all of us feel more human.
Author Info:
Max E. Guttman
Author
