Guidelines

Perfect World Primary Guidelines

Introduction
Every ideology needs its rule book: Christianity has its Bible, Judaism follows the Torah and the Moslem faith reads the Qur'an. Well, we have one too.
Perfect World has the Doctrine.
But do we need to read an entire book in order to know how to behave around friends, neighbors and countrymen? We do not. The Bible shortened itself neatly with a brief document called the Ten Commandments.
The Primary Guidelines are the Doctrine's version of the Big Ten, and not so coincidentally there are also ten of them. Also not coincidentally, no Guideline displays paranoid egotism the way the first four Commandments do:

1 I am the Lord your God- You shall have no other Gods before Me.
2 You shall not make for yourself an idol to worship; worship only Me.
3 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of Me, your God.
4 Remember the Sabbath as the day to honor Me and keep it holy.

Also, the Guidelines choose not to command you. Rather, the Guidelines seek to guide you. It's right there in the name.

Read them over and see if they don't make consummate sense to you. If you have any trouble understanding why these particular Guidelines were chosen, continue on down to the explanation part and read some more. There is no shortage of reading on this blog... imagine that!

Perfect World Primary Guidelines

(the ten commandments for the World Family)

• Treat each person as you would like to be treated yourself.

• Believe... in fact.

• Learn throughout life, then teach what you know.

• Strive to be your best and help each person do the same.

• Cooperate; don't compete.

• Treat the planet with respect; minimize pollution.

• Do not exceed one billion souls.

• Express your joy and sorrow.

• Share freely with all.

• Show all children kindness and teach them to spread love.

The Guidelines Explained

There... that wasn't so hard, was it? Ten short sentences... there's more written on the back of a cereal box. And like a cereal box, those sentences are packed fulla vitamins and meanings. Let us kneel, bow our heads and expand our knowledge through the magic grace of reading and comprehension... but without the kneeling or bowing heads part. This ain't church.

Notice if you will the lack of specificity in most of the guidelines. You will find this is unique among Law Lists. Take some of the oft-compared Commandments-- you are not to kill, not to steal and not to covet thy neighbor's wife. Pretty detailed items... which, by the way, are all covered under the Guideline's first rule of behavior. And that's the point. If a list is supposed to cover all our basic behaviors, then being specific is inviting a long, long list:
Do not pick your nose in public.
Do not steal an old lady's bus seat.
Do not tear pages from the magazines in your dentist's waiting room.
Do not blame the dog for that odor.
And so on...
Which is why the Guidelines are generalized.

Okay, not all of them are generalized. Keeping the population down is a pretty damn specific Guideline. It's also very hard for one person to do, unless the interpretation is to keep the population down with a Luger. But that gets back to the first Guideline, in which Do Not Shoot Your Neighbor In the Face would be covered. That's probably why it's on top. Which makes the list hierarchal, similar to the all-important List of The Job:

Rule 1. The Boss is always right.

Rule 2. When the Boss is wrong, see Rule 1.

Hierarchal yes, but not quite so closed a loop. And you can see that the population Guideline is also quite global-- it's something that none of us can accomplish unless all of us work simultaneously. That's why this paragraph comes before the next few (hundred)... to get you primed and ready for the individual explanations listed under each Guideline.
See, most of the others are personal goals, goals you can achieve all by yourself. You can show all children kindness and teach them to spread love. You can express your joy and sorrow. You can even show the planet respect and minimize pollution. And you can do your part to keep the population down by not bringing a litter of children into the world. So I guess that means that all of them can be done individually.
Oops. My bad. Moving on...

Comprehension. the Guidelines were written to be self-explanatory. That makes sense. There's only ten of them, so they should be clearly written. Which is why the Ten Commandments are so odd-- some of them are not clear although it's possible that translation is the issue. 'Do not bear false witness'-- do you mean lie?  How about 'Do not use the name of the lord in vain'? Is there any time you use it when it's not in vain? The last time you hit your thumb with a hammer, did cussing make the pain go away? I'll warrant that it did not. So go ahead and use the name of the lord to stop a chandelier from crashing into the audience. That wouldn't be in vain. Too bad it wouldn't work. Thinking that it might work... now that would be in vain.

Long ago, when the Commandments were first written, the Earth seemed enormous and was all that we knew of the Universe. In modern times we have expanded our knowledge base in every area and know that some of the old Ten are not applicable; maybe it's time they modernized them. Until they do you can consider the Guidelines a stopgap measure; an update to the Commandments.
The crux of the issue is that the Guidelines were written as a guide to strengthen each person's connection to each other and more importantly, to the planet.

The Guidelines In Detail

1• Treat each person as you would like to be treated yourself.
We know this Guideline under its more common name: The Golden Rule. It's a classic because it defines the very isolation of living within ourselves from birth to death. You know that it hurts when you are poked with a pin, but you can only assume that it hurts when you poke someone else with a pin, because you can't feel their pain.
The Golden Rule (and by extension, this Guideline) takes all the guesswork out of dealing with people in the outside world by suggesting that what bothers you, bothers them. It is marvelously simple in its depth. And as mentioned in the previous paragraphs, it is vague specifically for the purpose of being encompassing. By not telling you which items annoy or hurt others it forces you to view all your actions in terms of 'Would I want this done to me or not?'. To ignore this Guideline is to ignore common sense.


2• Believe... in FACT.
Speaking of common sense, right now large numbers of people believe lies. Yes, lies. In other words, they have faith in the unproven-- they believe what someone tells them without considering if there is any evidence:
First Guy: I can balance a skyscraper on my nose.
Second Guy: I believe you.
Third Guy: How can you believe him?
Second Guy: He's my Pastor.
This is a behavior which in itself is not logical. If you cross the street to avoid a black cat  or behave a particular way because you think it will get you into the Kingdom of Heaven, then you are the target of this Guideline.
In order for Perfect World Doctrine to work, it relies on logical thinking and to that end, trains its children to think factually. This means they don't learn about (among other things) Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. It may seem cruel to deprive them of these 'innocent' fantasies, but the fact is learning the truth after believing the lie is not only a terrible disappointment to them, it also makes them wonder what other lies you have told them. They feel deceived by their parents, and you know where that leads:
"Why do I have to tell the truth? You lie to me!"
Yes it's true. We do, we do.
Now let's structure society so we don't lie to our children. It could only help.


3• Learn throughout life, then teach what you know.
If we are to become a truly great civilization, then our knowledge must be passed along from generation to generation. We believe this now and provide for it with an extensive schooling system that's available to all. It may not teach everything, but it's pretty good, right?
Right?
Nope. Our public education system is one of the worst on the planet and is losing more ground with each passing year. On the other hand, private institutes of learning are producing some of the finest minds... for those who can afford them. There's a learning gap which coincides with the income gap quite cleanly.
Strangely, bright minds are created from birth, without regard to income. The net effect is that we hold society back when we withhold quality education from any child.
On the other hand, Perfect World designs learning around the child's abilities. Not everyone has the desire to be a physicist or a botanist or an archaeologist, and their education would reflect individual passions. This technique prevents the educational burnout that comes from being forced to learn a subject that the student has no interest in.
Not only that, individualized education teaches the education system about all the student's abilities, no matter how disparate. This helps society innumerable ways, since most of us living today have only realized a small amount of our potential; our current schooling is too limited by scant funding and antiquated techniques to find all of each student's natural talents.
In a place like the Perfect World, you will be guaranteed 95% of your time is your own. Now that number is more like half. What would you do with all that extra time? Perfect World suggests giving back... teaching what you know. Your passion will not be shared by every student... only by the ones that matter. You add your knowledge to the world database, and you influence the next generation to be even better than you were at your specialties. You will become a mentor, a position of great respect, passing along your own very specialized knowledge.
Even if that knowledge is the proper way to hold a shovel. All knowledge is important.


4• Strive to be your best and help each person do the same.
We're currently living in a knock-down, drag-out existence. Competition kicks our ass, greed makes us suspicious, money makes it every man for himself. It's not a good way to live. Yet somehow, when all the nasty interaction is done, we go home and try to be  better people. We are good to our children. We make friends and spend time with them. We
are
even nice to the obnoxious neighbors.
Why? What would make us continue the dream of a kinder, better world, even as we have to experience the opposite, day in and day out?
It's who we are. Humans are good at the core. We'd love to Live in a Perfect World... we just don't know how to get there from here.
This Guideline is how we get there. It's tough, especially the way we live now. Trust is at an all time low, crime and violence is high. The laws are stifling and the punishments, extreme. To top it off, there's a segment of society who are using their considerable clout trying to make 90% of the people into slaves... or at the very least, serfs.
We have to rise above it all. Be the better people. It's the end goal of Perfect World anyway... enlightenment. But being mature and logical without being a doormat or a patsy is a difficult but necessary task because the world is currently filled with a large number of what can best be described as mean people, and we need to combat that behavior. Other more specific words used to describe them are selfish, greedy, cowardly, egotistical or evil. It's not their fault... they have become these roles to fit better into a society which rewards people who best others, by whatever means necessary. They became these things because they didn't have the backbone to rise above it all.
But not only must you be the cream... you must teach others to be the cream, too. Learning how to be the better person is trumped by showing others how they can do it as well. For you can only affect a small area of the planet. Each person you teach affects a different area, and each one they teach... well, you see how it goes.
Being your best and teaching your best... it spreads the 'best' around.


5• Cooperate; don't compete.
More accurately, don't compete with others. Competing to improve yourself is actually recommended, because making yourself better makes us all better.
We've gone the competition route, and though the manic advancement of our society cannot be denied while under competitive Capitalism, it came at a very dear price: Self respect, and the respect of others.
Think of a time when you gambled and lost it all. Were you proud of the person you were? Were others proud of you? Now remember when you won in a sport against a lesser opponent. Did you feel superior to them? Did you possibly make them feel a little smaller while doing your victory dance? Can you see how these behaviors lessen us as a people?
Whew! Lots of questions. Fortunately the answer is simple-- competition is a mixed bag. Cooperation on the other hand is a win-win. And if there's one sound bite which works for Perfect World, win-win comes to mind.
For those of you who cannot believe what is being said here, remember that you are judging these guidelines from the perspective of a person for whom competition is life itself. It may be necessary to take a close look at yourself as one who has no problem besting others. You may not realize it because that behavior is encouraged under Capitalism, but it is wrong. Just wrong. It makes the world an angrier, more hurtful and more selfish place and it needs to end.
Another fact that competition does not address and Perfect World does, is that there are many, many areas for which humans may attain expertise. And a single person may become an expert in more than one. A great singer and dancer, for example. A fantastic designer and racquetball player. The best brain surgeon and a great chef. So in a competition, remember that you've won against someone who might very well tan your hide in a different event. So what in the world are you victory dancing for?

6• Treat the planet with respect; minimize pollution.
Look at the news around us: Species are dying off, it rains acid and there's a patch of floating plastic bits in the Pacific ocean reputedly as large as the state of Texas. No matter how you slice it, that is OUR effect on the environment.
We're also the most rapidly expanding species on the planet, unless you count the cockroach. Oh well, we're in fine company, right? The bigger we get, the stronger our influence is on the world around us. Without weighing in on the global warming question, none of us can deny that poisoning the home where we live serves only to poison ourselves.
Eliminating competition may help. Example: A corporation no longer works off profit, and instead tries to make the best product they can. With planned obsolescence thrown out of the picture, products last far longer and when it does wear out is recycled, which keeps it out of garbage dumps, making our planet cleaner.
Or this: Factories won't have to belch smoke into the environment; without profit as a goal they can obtain smoke scrubbers and other technology to reclaim airborne toxins. Even better, we can scrutinize all of our industries to find which products are simply too dirty to produce, and stop making them.
It's all about not shitting where we eat. Even instinctual animals know better.


7• Do not exceed one billion souls.
One of the specific guidelines, this one is too important to be vague. The old biblical adage "Be fruitful and multiply" has been misinterpreted by the clergy. As written, it was god speaking to the animals, so that people would have plenty to eat. It was not directed towards us, and the religious leaders who have corrupted the thought so completely have only made things worse.
Now, according to the shepherds, every human life is sacrosanct, even the ones who are at this point only potential life. Even the human biological joy of sex has been corrupted by the religious, who claim that every act of sexual congress should be an effort to produce children. It definitely should NOT be. Sex for the pure enjoyment of sex is our greatest biological pleasure, and in our modern world no couple should ever have more than two children.
The days of big families have ended, and the last holdouts are doing it for religious or political reasons. Sometimes the religious reasons are political in nature, like the Orthodox jews in Jerusalem who are creating huge families to build the population, take over the Knesset and bring Israel into jewish Orthodoxy. Of course, the first order of business would be to eliminate Palestine. There's a good reason to prevent large families right there.
More than that is planning the reduction of people we already have. Nobody is suggesting any kind of extermination or genocide-- there is a much easier approach. It's called attrition. If families all agree to have one child the population will shrink generationally and in a century would be far more manageable. Having two kids per family once we reach that goal will keep the population stable.


8• Express your joy and sorrow.
This guideline seems like kind of a bummer. Express your sorrow? Are we going to live in a world where people shriek and cry whenever something brings them down, and do it in a very public place?
Sort of, yeah.
Perfect World is a transparent society, because there's nothing that you can say or do which will not be understood as being a human action, subject to the main rule of humanity:
Humans are imperfect.
And in being that way, you are subjected to an entirely new type of treatment. Punishment is gone... it serves no purpose. As a matter of fact, it is supplanted by something much more powerful... remorse.
It happens this way. Say you hurt someone, either by accident or on purpose. Your 'punishment' is to be their helper until they are well. This may seem dangerous... after all, why would the person that hurt the other not do it again?
Because of the underlying feelings of guilt and remorse. The instigator felt at the time that hurting the other was the only solution to a problem. Being there for the entire convalescence makes them realize the punishment they gave the other was not worth the crime. Plus, time spent together necessarily breeds familiarity... and regardless of any aphorism to the contrary, familiarity breeds friendship.
Keeping your feelings inside is bad for you, emotionally. It's bad for others, because they can unintentionally depress a trigger that you are holding inside. Being transparent with your feelings helps others understand you as a person... and at the same time it makes them realize you are more alike than you thought.
And knowing your similarities is way, way more constructive than knowing your differences.


9• Share freely with all.
Although selfishness serves living creatures individually as part of their survival instinct, to create the kind of society expressed by World Family, we must abandon self-centered behaviors. This is much easier to accomplish in small groups and we have already succeeded in doing so, in well-adjusted families and in like-minded congregations such as sports teams, group activities and classrooms with a strong mature presence. Once a group meets with another however, a peculiar effect takes over and they become 'rivals', whose main function is to be your opponent... which is a milder way of saying 'enemy'.
Sharing becomes impossible in that case. As a matter of fact, if one member attempts to share with the other group they will be chastised severely and possibly punished. Separation may be an effective technique to besting a foe, but it's a lousy way for a culture to grow.
Whoever decided that an outside group is to be regarded as a potential enemy has done the human race a disservice. While it may have saved lives in our savage past, now it tends to let the savage behaviors linger around and reduces our chance at enlightenment. Keeping new knowledge to one's own group is a good example. Although it may serve to bring advantage to a conflict, the simple act of not sharing may very well be the cause of the conflict to begin with.
In Perfect World there will be groups of like-minded people as anywhere else. First, it's too hard to be a world group all the time... it's too big! You almost never get a chance to speak. Second, people tend to 'flock' together with others of like interests. But even then, they flock locally. Not too far away will be another group of the same interest, with all different members. Here's a great place to show an example of Perfect World thinking:
In our current world, when two groups of a similar type get together, it would likely be as a competition. Imagine if instead, they come together to share what they know. In the first example, after the competition, each group separates and goes over what they learned by watching the other group compete... and add that knowledge to their own. Along with the pain of loss... or the pride of glory. Neither emotion is desirable.
In the second example it becomes more like a scientific forum, where all information is shared in the hope that, as a bigger group with more collective brains, new bright ideas will form. At the end both groups develop a trust for each other, and an admiration for the process.
Bottom line: When we share what we know, our knowledge base grows exponentially. When we share what we have, we develop friendships, people who will share with us. Sharing equals trusting.


10• Show all children kindness and teach them to spread love.
This guideline is especially important for the coming generation of Perfect World people. If you want to know why the world is currently a crappy place, look no further than how we raise our children. Miserable experiences, especially those occurring early in life, form the people we become in a negative way. That's why we're all so fucked up (some more than others): We were once children, and have had many negative experiences visited upon us.
That being said, it makes perfect sense to love your children, always, which of course is something you strive to do at all times anyway, right? Only it's almost impossible to behave like a saint all the time, especially when things get difficult... and things are always getting difficult.
We leave our children alone far too often and for too long. Kids alone with other kids means trouble-- remember Lord of the Flies? Many erroneous beliefs and negative behaviors can become permanent emotional issues if not caught early. As a specific example note the bully who extorts money from a smaller child. His actions cause many unpleasant behaviors to show up in the smaller child later in life. Ameliorating the action is helpful, but it is most helpful to excise it altogether, and maintaining a constant adult presence (parents, teachers, helpers) is an optimal method of intervention.
Economic demands made upon parents can be weighty indeed, making time at home  stressful. Pressure from children's loud, undisciplined behavior and uncaring ways can spawn unanticipated explosions of emotion. Having helpers or other assistance in the home can reduce stress to manageable levels and is standard practice in the Perfect World.
Once you become calm you naturally send those good feelings outward for all to appreciate, including your children. A place like Perfect World is flush with care and kindness and you may find yourself mimicking those behaviors as well. That's perfect. Hugging and kissing is good, and teaches trust and kindness and most of all, love.

CONCLUSION

Ten is the largest number of rules (or guidelines, or commandments) a populace can reasonably be expected to memorize. They have been generalized to cover broad swatches of societal behaviors which, if ignored, could cause a reversal of enlightened behaviors
The Perfect World Doctrine contains many more such guidelines to cover specific situations, for when the Guidelines are simply too vague. The Doctrine is to be periodically reviewed to be certain it remains consistent with advances not foreseen in this first printing.
When a condition comes about which is not clearly resolved in the Guidelines, consult from the Doctrine. Answers will found by interpreting the behaviors of the characters from the Stories, or from the musings of the Founder in his essays. Failing that, at the very least, try to remember that, at the very least, Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Now get to reading!

Copyright 2011 Bruce Ian Friedman