Preface
For 60 years, I helped organize egalitarian, supportive communities. Over the years, these efforts tackled many specific problems with considerable success. My main goals have always been to pursue Truth, Justice, and Beauty, integrate the personal and the political, empower everyday people, and control the powerful. Although my methods have changed over time, this central thrust has remained the same.
In recent decades, to explore how we activists might be more effective, I’ve convened strategy workshops, engaged in extensive research, shared drafts of proposals, interviewed individuals, circulated online surveys, published three books, and experimented with specific mutual support methods that can help bring about fundamental and comprehensive reform. Currently, I engage in ongoing dialogues with associates and participate in two horizontal support groups initiated by a fellow resident in my building,
Now, with this site, I sum up what I’ve learned and promote the development of a systemic reform movement that could unite the countless members of the informal compassionate humanity community whose members relieve suffering, promote justice, and spread joy. As envisioned here, members of his movement would set aside their efforts to dominate and submit for personal gain, encourage others to do the same, push humane public policies, establish egalitarian social structures, enable everyone to fulfill their highest potential, and thereby transform our Top-Down System into a Bottom-up System rooted in respect for everyone’s essential equality.
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This website presents a unique holistic worldview, includes extensive resources to document its arguments, suggests concrete methods for engaging in meaningful action, poses burning questions for which I seek greater clarity, and invites readers to share their own questions.
Most people who engage in compassionate action have personal weaknesses that undermine their effectiveness, but few focus on overcoming them. In particular, I know of no organization that sets aside time for its members to support each other with efforts to undo or control the desire to dominate and the willingness to submit for personal gain, which is a major problem.
The site promotes holistic and systemic change. It’s holistic because it involves the whole person and the whole society. It’s systemic because it proposes the development of a new primary purpose for our society and new structures to serve that purpose — while preserving healthy traditions.
My associates and I have experimented with and confirmed methods to cultivate a shift from self-centeredness to other-centeredness. Many of these practical, easy-to-use tools are posted on the site in the Actions sections. These tools could help build a powerful grassroots systemic reform movement that fundamentally improves our society, our culture, and ourselves as individuals.
We can celebrate our unique identities while also seeing ourselves as part of the human family. As global citizens, we can work together for our shared interests, live in harmony with nature, and appreciate the invisible spirit that animates life.
Greater fairness and compassion throughout society are an urgent necessity. Every part of life — social, personal, cultural, economic, environmental, and political — matters. Each is equally important. Improvement in one impacts the others. If these changes move in the same direction, they can reinforce each other in a positive upward spiral.
This constantly updated website is dedicated to this goal. The proposals presented here aren’t a blueprint. The focus is on articulating a general worldview that might serve as a foundation for lasting unity. Specific policy proposals are presented for the sake of discussion to clarify possibilities.
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James Baldwin declared, “I really do believe that we can all become better than we are. I know we can. But the price is enormous, and people are not yet willing to pay it.”
L. M. Sacasas, wrote:
Human beings will naturally seek distractions rather than confront their thoughts in moments of solitude and quiet because those thoughts will eventually lead them to consider unpleasant matters such as their mortality, the vanity of their endeavors, and the general frailty of the human condition.
We are all of us kings now surrounded by devices [that] prevent us from thinking about ourselves.
Nevertheless, I persist, with valuable support from close colleagues. I continue researching questions that puzzle me, discuss my results, and put reports on the website. To see changes to the site, you can visit What’s New.
If you want to join this effort to promote a systemic reform movement, please let me know. Also, consider subscribing to our newsletter, Mutual Empowerment.
Many people have helped with this project, but I assume responsibility for the final edits. I invite you, dear reader, to share your thoughts, experiences, and suggested resources to help us improve this website.
—Wade Lee Hudson
5/18/24