The PIM, the Decade Plan and Election Campaigns
By John Taylor; 2010 July 22, Kalimat 09, 167 BE
One of the most brilliant success stories of the United Nations over the past fifty years is its planning "years" and "decades" for publicizing important global issues, such as the Year for Reduction of Poverty, and the Decade for the availability of clean water. By focussing on themes, policy makers of all kinds can orient their work around important, often overlooked needs on the international level. Unfortunately, like the United Nations in general, these years make no impression on the popular mind. There are many reasons for their lack of impact. The plans tend to be unconnected and incoherent, nor does one build upon one another. They are not written into a world constitution, and they rarely connect with everyday concerns of average people.
This is not the case in a Comenian world order. Institutional leaders have unprecedented influence not only over the press but also the lifestyle of the average citizen. The latter they do by overseeing the standards for life planning software that is often called a personal information manager (PIM). The PIM includes, among other things, a bank account, an investment fund and a web site. Portals connect it to groups and institutions on every level, from the family to the world senate, as well as social networking services.
This PIM is part of the heritage of the world citizen. It is a tool given to each child at birth and becomes increasingly central to organizing their life. They learn throughout their schooling how to use the PIM for stake-holding, for what we shall be calling "lifestyle engineering," and for balancing their activities.
The PIM starts off as software but, as we shall see in the Infrastructure section, the standard covers a standard physical headquarters as well, a residence and workstation where citizens work on their virtual home site.
Instead of holding a planning year on a theme and then forgetting about it, these themes and principles repeat every decade indefinitely. Each individual encounters a given principle several times in the span of their working life. A career of 50 years will work the full cycle five times. This gives individuals an insight into the progress they live through over many decades, both in personal and planetary goals. This broader perspective allows them to compare changes over time and in different places. Older people have a chance to mentor the young by sharing their experiences with plans of the past. Having a consistent, universal time format allows teachers to make lesson plans relevant to world issues without chasing novelty or being faddish.
The combination of the PIM and a repeating decade plan give the three institutions such influence on the grassroots level that they need not issue press releases or stage publicity campaigns on specific problems. Instead, educators can build their entire curriculum around the principles in the decade plan. The press constantly raises consciousness on its general, philosophical themes. Artists can devote their inspiration to the problems posed during each year.
Leaders of thought will of course need to keep everything broad enough so that the PIM and the Decade Plan will be of direct concern to everybody, leaving specifics to experts and specialists. By keeping it simple and universal, the plan can appeal for all ages and encourages all cultures and temperaments to grasp its goals at their own level of understanding. Every culture and ethnicity, every individual can respond to the principles in the decade in a unique way. Most of all, excitement and incentives are built into the activity by combining it with the democratic process.
Temporal Ramifications of the Comenian World Order
Comenian governance offers voters a triple franchise, with each citizen voting in the membership of three institutions. The bailiwicks of these institutions are distinct but inherently harmonious, due to what Comenius called a "parallelism of Philosophy, Politics, and Religion..." (Panorthosia, Ch. 13, para 12, p. 204) The three he called the College of Light, the Dicastery of Peace and the Consistory of Holiness. They exist in some form at every level of governance, including the individual and family. The lines of enquiry they follow go straight and parallel as far as the boundless reaches of human potential. Bound up by straight lines of investigation extending to infinity, people will once and for all be liberated from borders of all kinds.
Each decade includes three global election cycles of three years in length. At this time everyone votes at least once. The extra year in the decade is devoted to reflection, meditation and recreation. This hiatus is the only period in the decade plan devoted entirely to the individual. It might be called the Year for Investigating Reality, or in Kant's phrase, the "Year of Enlightenment." Because the individual is the foundation of every social goal, this year for enlightenment is the most important and inaugurates each decade plan.
This is a direct democracy, with elections entirely open, without nomination or candidature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy), since democracy in a world at peace cannot tolerate the lobbying, expensive advertising, contention and riotous head-butting now considered essential to the electoral process. Instead, the most effective leaders and problem solvers among those working on special, experimental social service projects are chosen by their peers for higher office.
Service Projects Instead of Campaigns
Elections take place as the consummation of service projects devised by the relevant branch of governance, either the College of Light (philosophy, science and education), the Dicastery of Peace (ethics, freedom and equality) or the Consistory of Holiness (love, compassion and inter-faith activity).
Based on the principle of "going to the greatest need," each project encourages volunteers to move temporarily into the worst problem areas in the area of jurisdiction. There an army of volunteers, led by delegates from the whole region, come and try out ideas for reform.
These projects are not just for participants in election campaigns. Anyone interested in addressing the daunting challenge of serving mankind's most urgent need comes to serve here. Some work full time for the full three years, others less. Those who cannot afford to go as volunteers may come as corvee workers, in effect working off taxes, past or future. Those who are stimulated by the project may stay on permanently, but as a rule everyone is encouraged to participate in some capacity as part of a balanced life. Some may seek variety by serving on at least one service project in each of the three main categories, philosophy, politics and religion, over the thirty years that it takes to go through three ten-year cycles. Others may choose a more specialized approach.
Here are some broad principles that each of the three institutions might use as themes for their service projects during their three years of concentration during the decade.
Nine Themes for Nine Planning Years
Year One: Enlightenment (Individual)
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Philosophy (College of Light)
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Year Two: Human Oneness, Unity in diversity
Year Three: Nature, Science and Research
Year Four: Promotion of Education
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Politics (Dicastery of Peace)
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Year Five: Ethics and Universal Peace
Year Six: Elimination of Prejudice
Year Seven: Equality, especially of Race and the Sexes
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Religion (Consistory of Holiness)
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Year Eight: Love, Compassion, Hope, Freedom
Year Nine: Charity and Economic Equity
Year Ten: Reciprocity and Religious Cooperation
In order to implement the ambitious ideals of a united human race, this activity will place tremendous emphasis on wisdom and other virtues. We will discuss wisdom at length next time.
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