Muse

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. A year ago, back in June, 2025, I was out in LA. I was doing a talk. My wife had a little family reunion, and then we swung out near Malibu to go see Rainn Wilson, Dwight from The Office, many other wonderful shows and movies. Much more philosophical than you might guess, unless you've seen anything from his podcast Soul Boom or read any of his books. And if you haven't read any of his books, well, I'm going to fix that for you today because I'm bringing you a chunk of his book Soul Boom. The subtitle is why we need a spiritual revolution. And this chapter is called the seven pillars of a spiritual revolution. So why do we need a spiritual revolution? What are the pillars of that revolution? And basically, it's tackling this big question, like, how do we build a better world? Because it's not going to be tweaking these little things here that we have to think about the values that our world is built around, right? Ideally, we want to replace competition and greed and cynicism with cooperation and compassion and joy and service, or maybe even some of the Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, rhythm. So in this lovely little excerpt, he's going to be laying out some ideas for what a kind of spiritual revolution could look like. Rain's been on the Daily Stoic Podcast. I think we had a great conversation talking about philosophy and spirituality and Stoicism. That was a two-part episode. I'll link to that. And you can also listen to me on Soul Boom. You can follow him on Instagram at Rainn Wilson. That's two N's in Rainn on Twitter at Rainn Wilson or on Soul Boom. The podcast is great. He's had a lot of awesome guests. I was honored to be one. If you don't know who Rainn Wilson is, man, what are you doing? One of the funniest comedic actors of all time. And as I said, a philosopher as well. Enjoy. Look, you should be able to be comfortable anywhere, but you should also be comfortable inside your own house. Like your space should feel like you should look the way you want it to look. You should have the stuff that you want to have. And that's where today's sponsor Wayfair comes in because a budget doesn't need to get in the way of having all of those things. With plenty of options for every style you can imagine, you will definitely find something you like on Wayfair and at a price you can't beat. Got a new rug for the living room on Wayfair. You know, normally rugs are just like crazy expensive. And then you're like, do I like this rug? Do I not like this rug? But look, we know we got kids, we got a dog. We don't want to spend a ton of money, but we want something that looks good. We want something that lasts. And on Wayfair, we got the

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shift up and out of the transmission while driving, which would create a large hole that you could peer down into and see the pavement whooshing along about a foot and a half underneath the car floor. Occasionally, I would take a girl out on a date and, while driving, pull the shifter lever thingy out and let out a panicked scream as if I had lost control of the car before sticking it back in again. This never went over terribly well, but I continued doing it because it made me laugh, and unfortunately that's just the kind of person I am. Over the course of my year with the Newt, I personally changed the starter and the muffler and the brakes and the calipers and the battery and the tires and routinely changed my own oil and filters. I got to know and annoy the guys at the local auto parts shop as I would pepper them with questions. I would love to say that all this effort and sweat set me up with a valuable set of life skills, but mostly it was just a colossal pain in the ass. I did learn something quite interesting about cars over that long, impoverished year, however. A car, at its simplest, is a metal contraption with an internal combustion engine that transports passengers on four wheels. At its most complex, it's a series of interconnected systems all working together to power a moving vehicle. The number of structures that need to work in harmony are various and many. Besides its body and drivetrain, every car has an electrical system, a transmission, a fuel system, an ignition, and an exhaust system. And when something is not working, you look under the hood or crawl underneath, or if you have a real-life automotive garage, you put it up on the lift, and you take a look in order to try and determine which of these systems is not functioning correctly. We can do the same kind of examination for the web of integrated systems that allow human society to operate. Continuing with this terrible analogy, if we put the car of humanity up on a lift and take a look around at what's not working, what would we diagnose? Instead of transmission and brakes, we examine health care and education. Instead of exhaust and air conditioning, we shine our headlamps onto international trade, human rights, or agriculture. Is it one or two systems that are out of whack, or is something more pervasive going on? As we discussed in the previous chapter, it seems that practically every single societal structure has some serious irregularities and design flaws, and most importantly, the systems don't work together in harmony the way they're supposed to. Before I give my personal soul-boom diagnosis of what's wrong with the car of humanity – ugh, I really, truly hate this analogy – let's take a long look forward to where we want to go. Hey kids, let's build the perfect world. Earlier in the book, we assembled some elements for a new, awesome religion. How about we do the same, John Lennon style, to imagine the perfect world.

See what I did there? Harkening back to the Blue Marble and all those sappy Miss America contestants from the 70s, what would the ingredients be to build this harmonious world? What is the Soul Boom vision for a peaceful, just, and united planet filled with a kind and fulfilled population? Well, guess what? We already know what the answer is going to be. I really don't need to take up a lot of time here to explore it. It's quite basic, really. The vision of what the aforementioned kingdom of God on Earth looks like is Star Trek, but instead of zipping around space, we're dwelling peacefully on our home planet, Earth. everyone gets along as hippy dippy as that may sound it's really that simple in a nutshell there's no more war armaments are just enough to defend a nation from attack when there are disagreements the various countries of the world come together to work out their conflicts with the greater good in mind the differences between our cultures will be celebrated so that unity shines We'll be right back. through a diversity of humanity. There will probably always be some degree of rich and poor, but the extremes will not be so, well, extreme. There will be enough food, enough challenging employment, enough clean water, and enough cheap renewable energy to keep our population both content and motivated. The arts and sciences will thrive and be incorporated into all facets of our various cultures. Education will be eminently available without any ideology or agenda except knowledge and enlightenment, with some tangible job training thrown in. Health care will be accessible and thorough and treat every patient with dignity. Like our indigenous ancestors, we will cherish our planet, honor its resources and beauty, and seek to live sustainably for the generations that follow. Most importantly, in emulation of Jesus Christ, we will all love our neighbors as ourselves. We will live in service to one another, with kindness and care for the downtrodden and a deep respect for one another. You get the idea. Like I said, regardless of political view or religious belief, we can all visualize this utopian future quite easily. But, and this is the trillion-dollar question, how do we get there? Do we achieve this lofty goal by making modest reforms, tweaks, and adjustments to existing organizations and ways of doing things? Well, let's go back to my stupid car analogy. Maybe, before this book ends, I can find a better one. What do I see when I look under the hood of humanity? I see a series of systems, as we've previously explored, that have been faultily, unsustainably engineered. Design tweaks, legislation, and more checks and balances won't repair the essential brokenness. That would be the equivalent of using duct tape, band-aids, and chewing gum to try and jury-rig a solution to a much larger issue. It comes down to this.

The many and various adversarial systems that run our world are driven by and founded on some of the worst qualities of our species. Aggression, self-interest, greed, disunity, hunger for power and self-aggrandizement. Ego, one-upsmanship, business, sports, and government actually all essentially run on this same fuel of combative competition. So, to continue the preposterous automotive metaphor, we're headed for a breakdown. We have a spiritual imbalance, a spiritual disease. and the answer, rather than being political, economic, or legislative, is primarily spiritual as well. A spiritual solution for an essentially spiritual problem. Of course, we need to acknowledge that, in part, we have an innate adversarial nature and that it's an aspect of our species, our history, and our Homo sapiens reality. But we don't need to be victims of those baser impulses. We don't have to build our society on them and their dynamics. We need to transition from basing our systems on the worst qualities of humanity to basing them on the best of humanity. And what is that, exactly? What is this rumored best of humanity? I'll tell you. It's the essential spiritual qualities illumined by the deep reservoir of religious teachings that go back to the dawn of time. Ancient wisdom, combined with divine attributes and positive character traits, selflessness, kindness, compassion, humility, honesty, and generosity, and dozens of other virtues as well. As crazily simplistic as it may sound, it all boils down to working together in cooperation rather than opposing each other in competition and conflict. The essence of this work is summed up by one of my all-time most cherished quotes by everyone's favorite philosopher slash architect slash futurist, Buckminster Fuller. You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. A new model that makes the existing model obsolete? Easier said than done, right? Unfortunately, I, a mere actor, do not have the skill set to present an action plan that is thorough and expansive enough to inspire all of humanity to reorganize itself around spiritual principles. For that, I apologize. I do, however, wish to leave you with a series of key concepts and action items that I believe will be crucial in igniting a transformation. Seven pillars, if you will, on which to potentially build this movement, or at least give us a head start it's an eclectic group of ideas that is like the rest of the book here to shake things

up a little and inspire a deeper conversation they are one create a new mythology two celebrate joy and fight cynicism. Three, destroy adversarial systems. Four, build something new, don't just protest. Five, systematize grassroots movements. Six, invest in virtues education. Seven, harness radical compassion. Let's start with the most important one. Write a new mythology of humanity. Everything begins with a story. A story is the most powerful of art forms because it shapes how we think about the world. Remember, history has the word story embedded right in it. As someone working in film, television, and theater, I've been privileged to be a part of telling dozens and dozens of amazing stories. I've witnessed their power and importance to the human heart. I've seen stories change lives. For over a hundred years, we've heard and retold the legend of the Homo sapiens, how we evolved from living in caves to living in towns and then cities and then nation-states. We hunted, killed, and conquered. We've heard about how our species was propagated by survival of the fittest, and in this dog-eat-dog world, the most aggressive and technologically advanced nations and peoples prospered while others were enslaved, oppressed, and left behind. We're taught over and over again at school that every human undertaking is based on a quest for power It is epic after epic of wars In fact, my son, Walter, took a preposterously stupid AP world history class That was almost entirely made up of memorizing the dates and locations of various wars and who won them Because, as our children are insidiously brainwashed History was written by the victors And to the victors go the spoils Well, that's one way of looking at it. But what if we start telling an altogether different story? What if we rewrote the legend of the Homo sapiens? I once had a discussion in which a fascinating question was posed. What was humankind's biggest idea ever? What's the grandest concept we've ever come up with as a species? One of the propositions that arose was that money and all its powers, complexities, and dynamics was humankind's biggest idea to date. Sadly, I tend to agree. Think about all the various facets of commerce and capitalism and how deep their tendrils have been woven throughout the whole of human society and history over the ages. It affects every single thing we do and has a deep, complicated, and dark history as well. Madman and philosopher Slavo

Zizek has said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism, and I kind of agree with him. You have a thing and I want that thing and I pay you a sand dollar or a shiny rock or a shell or, eventually, a coin for said thing. I stockpile my shells or coins and leave them to my children. The more of this money I accrue, the more social capital, clout, and dominion I and my tribe can amass. Money becomes connected to ownership and empire. We eventually create moneylenders or banks that stockpile stacks of these currencies and lend it with interest, generating even more. Serfs have to pay off debt to landowners. Wealthy merchants fund sailing expeditions across oceans to bring back goods as an investment. Gold equals power. Labor gets compensated by wages in the industrial age. Money buys armies, arms, companies, land, homes, prestige. Then there are stocks and bonds and treasury notes, then credit cards, student loans, budgets and deficits on a household and governmental scale, subprime mortgages and global financial crises, the crypto gold rush. On many levels, the history of humanity can be boiled down to a history of money. In fact, the first known writing was a 4,000-year-old tablet recording of what? A song? A myth? A fable? A funny story? No. Money. A recording, in cuneiform, of the wages of some Mesopotamian workers. I don't mean to indict all of capitalism. Many could cogently argue that all of the progress that humanity has made to this point has been due to the exchange of goods and services, and money has been and still is the most convenient way to oil the wheels of commerce that leads to humanity's social and material evolution. They would posit that the epic list of improvements to quality of life and lifespan over the centuries couldn't have happened without some kind of currency or marketplace. But at times it sure seems like the entire definition of humanity and its journey forward is about the getting and owning of things. Consumerism and materialism. The taking of things away from other people who have to do. have things. We end up with a culture that mirrors the famous quote by John D. Rockefeller, who, when asked by a reporter, how much money is enough, responded, just a little more. How much is enough, and can I make a little bit more? That pretty much sums it up. To quote the esteemed philosopher David Lee Roth, money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a yacht that sails right next to it. Surely at this juncture in human progress, we can find a bigger, grander, more all-encompassing idea than commerce. And maybe our new mythology can also rise above the dark, dystopian visions of the future that our children have been raised on through countless books and movies.

A story about humans overcoming their differences, prejudices, and pettiness to create something global and beautiful, perhaps. Where is our big imagination now at this most crucial of crossroads. Here's an example. I remember in school being shown pictures of tall trees and short trees and how survival of the fittest applied to a forest. The tall trees win, I was told repeatedly. The weak trees lose and die, we were taught. The tall trees get all of that precious sunlight and grow the deepest root systems while weaker plants struggle but eventually don't make it, natural selection in the woods. In her nature masterpiece, Finding the Mother Tree, Suzanne Simard disproves this theory and instead shows a kind of collective altruism from tree to tree. She documents with science, personal history, and exquisite emotional sensitivity how the interconnected ecosystem of trees operates. Before Avatar, she was pioneering research into this interplay and interdependence she calls the wood-wide web. Samard discovered that trees and plants communicate and share information and resources like a vast green brain. Quote, the network in the soil is a neural network and the chemicals that move through it are the same as our neural transmitters, end quote. No longer trees as solitary creations seeking their own self-sufficiency, but repeated examples of mossy, loamy interdependence on a grand scale. Dr. Simard revolutionized how we think about nature itself. In addition to helping inspire the Tree of Souls imagery in James Cameron's Avatar and the central character of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Overstory by Richard Powers, Dr. Simard has single-handedly changed how botanists and ecologists and treeologists theorize about how a forest works. All this by rewriting a story, a story of Darwinian survival of the fittest transformed into a tale of cooperation, connection, and mutual support, with mushrooms and root systems. Can we not apply that same vision to our rich history of human cooperation and interdependence? Can we not look forward while holding that vision as a goal? Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, The atomized, homogenous groups that existed in the past are no longer the truth of our world. We must recognize that we are part of one group, one family, the human family. Our survival as a planet depends on it. We are part of one family, and we are fundamentally good. End quote.

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Humanity is one family and we are inherently good. Now that's a story for us to get behind. This is the first pillar of our spiritual revolution, the creation of a new mythology for humanity during its transformation into a lovingly united global community based on a foundation of spiritual principles instead of adversarial ones. We will not obtain this story from any current world leader, politician, or internet personality, but rather think of it as something we all visualize, create, and hope for collectively. Hope. There's an idea. This new mythology, this new story, this new big idea needs to have something in it that is unabashedly hopeful. I'll give it a stab here. It may not be right, but it's a start. The New Legend of the Homo Sapiens When humans lived in caves and villages, community was everything. We sought safety, warmth, love, and family in the collective. We communed with nature, understood it, feared it, lived in harmony with it. Over the years, we aimed high and dreamed big, invented world-changing ideas and concepts, worked together to eradicate diseases, came together to try and solve problems and fight evil. Sadly, along the way, we also lost sight of our inherently sacred and spiritual selves. We found ourselves at a crossroads. Humankind had a choice. Keep doing what we've always done or hit restart. We took a bold and revolutionary path of hopefulness, relying on the idea that the human spirit is inherently good to build a new world based on heart-centered wisdom. We left behind our selfish, aggressive ways and came together as one family. And the result? Humanity achieved peace and unity and found, dare we say it, joy. What do you think of my new mythic story? Or do you like the old one better? Speaking of joy, this brings me to my next foundation for a spiritual revolution. Foster Joy and Squash Cynicism From a poem by Emily Dickinson Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all I studied acting for a time with the great theater director and philosopher André Gregory. He was the subject of the amazing art film My Dinner with André. He would have tea occasionally with his students, and as I was finishing a cup with him one day and getting ready to leave his beautiful West Village apartment, I turned to him and said something to the effect of, Mr. Gregory, sometimes I just feel so bitter, so hopeless about the future, it's so hard to not be cynical. I'll never forget what happened next.

He grabbed me by the wrist, pulled me closer, looked into my eyes with a ferocious intensity, and said, don't do it. Don't give in to cynicism. If you do, they'll have one. They want you to be cynical because then nothing will ever change. You must keep hope alive. Keep going. Promise me you won't give in. I nodded, a bit overwhelmed, and stepped out onto the cobblestone street, seeing the world in an ever so slightly different way. I'll never forget that interaction for as long as I live. And as I write this, I realize that not only was Andre Gregory spot on, but there was most probably a pandemic I left off my list in chapter two. Cynicism. We're all so cynical, so bitter, so pessimistic these days, myself included. I struggle every day to

quote, not give in. And the more cynical we get, the more nothing gets done because, well, what's the point? This particular pandemic is insidious because we don't realize we're suffering from it, especially the youth. To what extent is this wet blanket of hopelessness contributing to the deadly, overwhelming mental health epidemic they are suffering from? David Brooks in The Second Mountain says brilliantly, our society has become a conspiracy against joy. It has put too much emphasis on the individuating part of our consciousness, individual reason, and too little emphasis on the bonding parts of our consciousness, the heart and soul. I think Mr. Brooks and Mr. Gregory are onto something with this idea of a conspiracy against joy. The forces that control and shape our world, and no, I'm not talking about some conspiracy about a cabal of the super wealthy smoking cigars in boardrooms or in Davos, Switzerland, want things to stay the same so that they can continue to profit from the world staying exactly the way it is. How could we ever, quote, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete, end quote, if we believe in our heart of hearts that things will never change, that they will always stay in the same messed up mode? So what is the remedy? I propose that the opposite of cynicism isn't optimism. The opposite of cynicism is joy. Why? Well, optimism has a kind of inherent, clueless, look-on-the-bright-side sheen to it. And recent research in the field of positive psychology tells us that there is such a thing as toxic positivity, where one can feel externally pressured to be positive at all times in a way that is insensitive to the difficulties that might surround a person. By urging people in a blanket way to always keep a positive mindset, we disregard the complexity and darkness of being human. This generalized positive attitude of optimism, frequently propagated on social media, flattens out any authentic experience and can cause shame in someone who is struggling to process superficial platitudes like, quote, keep your head up and, quote, turn that frown upside down. Joy, however, inherently acknowledges sorrow. It doesn't disregard the hard stuff. Joy knows that negativity is a part of life as well. Joy says that life is hard, but there is a place you can go, a tool you can use. Joy is a force, a choice, something that can be harnessed, a decision to be made. Even if one is not feeling it in one's heart, one can spread joy to others. Abdu'l-Bahá gives us one of my all-time favorite quotes about joy. Joy gives us wings.

In times of joy, our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the world and to find our sphere of usefulness. In other words, joy is a superpower. It gives us strength, clarity, and resilience, and helps us find our path, especially in helping others. I completely identify with what Abdu'l-Bahá is saying. As someone who has struggled with depression and anxiety my entire life, I find truth in his observation. Those occasions when I feel more joyful, I'm more focused, productive, and open to new experiences, and my mind and heart work in far greater harmony. Now, this is not a chapter on how to find joy. There are plenty of those works out there. In fact, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama have an inspiring treatise called The Book of Joy. There are also about three gazillion books on happiness, how to find it, achieve it, and hold on to it. I don't have the space to explore this topic here, I'm afraid. But I will add another tremendous quote attributed to Abdu'l-Bahá. If you are so angry, so depressed, and so sore that your spirit cannot find deliverance and peace even in prayer, then quickly go and give some pleasure to someone lowly or sorrowful or to a guilty or innocent sufferer. Sacrifice yourself, your talent, your time, your rest to another, to one who has to bear a heavier load than you. I just love the message contained in this profoundly spiritual and utterly practical teaching. Essentially, if you're feeling down, give happiness and comfort to someone who has it worse than you do. The spreading of joy, in other words, has a positive impact on one's own emotional state. This is what is referred to as pro-social behavior, and its efficacy has been backed up by innumerable studies in the field of positive psychology. Those who engage in altruistic behaviors have a greater sense of well-being than those who don't. Yet another example of where science and spirituality coalesce. Joy is a depleted resource these days, as is hope, the thing with feathers. In a world with so much discord and disunity, how do we nurture them? The International Governing Council of the Baha'i Faith, the Universal House of Justice, underlined a terrific way for us all to move forward in a letter they wrote in 2020. They challenged Baha'is and others around the world to, quote, discover that precious point of unity where contrasting perspectives overlap and around which contending peoples can coalesce. The idea is both important and inspiring, finding a precious point of unity as a path to finding hope. I remember speaking with the brilliant climate activist Callum Greaves, who works with Greta Thunberg, as well as other youth

activists, and he told me essentially the same thing. He was speaking about his work on climate change and told me of the clean air initiatives he had worked on. He said that people's opinions about climate change may differ in countless ways, depending on their political point of view, but something like clean air is something that folks on all sides of the political spectrum can get behind. It doesn't matter if you think that climate change is some kind of liberal hoax or the greatest possible threat to our future, everyone wants cleaner air for their children and grandchildren. It's the precious point of unity at the center of the climate conversation. And guess what? Cleaner air means less CO2 and other emissions that cause climate change. So, win-win all around. The author Alexandra Rowland made quite a splash a few years ago when she introduced a concept for an entirely new genre of fiction. In response to the unwaveringly dark works of fantasies like Game of Thrones and the hundreds of despairing dystopian novels, films, and TV shows churned out each year, which are sometimes referred to as grimdark, she coined the term for the opposite, hope punk. Works of fiction in which a vulnerable and human protagonist fights against an unjust system and seeks to bring meaning, balance, and yes, hope to the world. She is quoted as saying, Hope Punk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hope Punk isn't ever about submission or acceptance. It's about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It's about standing up for other people. It's about demanding a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can with every drop of power in our little hearts. Although Hope Punk's manifesto was built around the field of imaginary and speculative fiction, I envision the message and moniker spreading to ever-wider pastures as we collectively demand a better, kinder world. As we don't shrug and retreat under the toxic wet blanket of pessimism and hopelessness. sign me up let's weave hope punk into the altogether new myth and story of our species and the better kinder world that she speaks of is only possible if we rethink all those broken systems and start replacing them one by one reinvent adversarial systems over a decade ago when cryptocurrencies bitcoin and several hundred others and blockchain were first launched, there were hundreds of articles and blog posts written about how these new peer-to-peer digital currencies, not dependent on any banks or central governments, would change how money is used and would eventually transform the world for the better. Treatises were written

about how crypto and blockchain would end poverty, revolutionize finance, and democratize banking tools. Although we've only been collectively exploring this crypto world for a little over 10 years, and there may still be some transformative benefit yet to be found, it currently seems to most to not be delivering on its promise. In fact, what started as an encouraging premise for those who work in its sphere has given way to the reality that the world of crypto is just as corrupt as other financial systems, if not more so. Why? Because this brilliant new concept that reinvents financial infrastructure is ultimately driven by the same greed that drives the old-school systems. Instead of a coterie of banking and Wall Street elites raking in money from transactions, it's a somewhat larger and different coterie of, quote, crypto bros profiting at other people's expense. And there is no incentive to stabilize cryptocurrencies because the volatility itself leads to the variety of pump-and-dump, get-rich schemes that flood and define the crypto marketplace. One friend who worked in the field described it as a, quote, junkier stock market where the value of the currencies has zero correlation to performance. The market mania of crypto is driven purely by self-interest and not by any purported altruistic intentions to transform the economic system. The core of this system was built on the same old foundation of competition, self-interest, and greed. It is both a symptom of a deeper spiritual malady as well as something that exacerbates this imbalance. I'll provide an altogether different example that I believe best highlights what the opposite looks like. In her book, High Conflict, Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, New York Times best-selling author and Wall Street Journal and Time journalist Amanda Ripley investigates a seemingly modern but most likely timeless and universal human issue when conflict gradually morphs into something larger and more toxic than the original disagreement itself. Her work tracks people who were able to get out of the loop of blame and outrage and move into healthy conflict, from which they are able to grow and evolve. Partisan politics and the divides it creates is one of her central topics. In her book, she actually uses the Baha'i faith as an example and examines how it organizes and conceptualizes its elections. She says, Baha'i elections are to politics what mediation is to the legal system, a different game altogether, one designed to exploit the human capacity for cooperation rather than competition. In the Baha'i faith, there are no clergy, so the entire administrative system is made up of elected common folk who are in service to a larger idea. On the local level, every year a community,

town, or city will elect nine members to serve on what is called the Local Spiritual Assembly. Every year, Baha'is at the district level elect delegates to vote for a governing body for their respective country called the National Spiritual Assembly. There are currently around 200 of these national governing councils. Every five years, the members of the National Spiritual Assemblies gather in Haifa, Israel, for the election of what is called the Universal House of Justice, a governing body that oversees the guidance of the entire Baha'i world. Ripley describes the process like this. Every spring, everyone in each of the 17,000 Baha'i locations gathers together to elect leaders. It's very close to a pure democracy, operating in 233 countries and territories. Here's the twist. Everything about these elections is designed to reduce the odds of high conflict. People are not allowed to campaign for a position or even discuss who might be the best person to serve. They can only discuss which qualities are most needed. End quote. These elections are undertaken in a completely unique fashion. There's no campaigning or electioneering. There are no nominations for potential positions or any kind of parties or coalitions to be formed either. Baha'is vote by secret ballot and are encouraged to choose those who are of, quote, unquestioned loyalty, of selfless devotion, of a well-trained mind, of recognized ability and mature experience, as Shoghi Effendi once wrote. Not only that, but the voting process is also undertaken in prayerful silence and meditation. According to Shoghi Effendi, When you go to a Baha'i election, it is astonishingly different from any other you've ever witnessed in your life. A room full of silent, prayerful people in deep contemplation about who in their community shows the greatest faithfulness, sincerity, and competence. Voting is done in silent ballot fashion, and the tellers take great care to make sure no one's vote is known by others. No one makes position speeches, there are no fundraising emails, no yard signs, no canvassing or jockeying for position and favor, no debates, promises made, or gifts given to potential voters. In fact, if someone were to behave in a way that sought to draw attention to themselves so that they might seem worthy of a position, this probably would be perceived by the community as conceited and antithetical to the spirit of enlightened service. Ripley says, quote, the Baha'is try to select people who do not crave attention and power. This is the opposite of traditional elections, of course, which self-select for people who yearn for recognition, end quote. She is essentially describing Socrates' proposal

that a society should elect unwilling leaders because anyone who seeks a position of leadership is actually unfit for that position. The best ruler, according to Socrates, has no interest whatsoever in leading, but sees it ultimately as an obligatory

service position. It is important to note that Baha'is who are elected to these various assemblies hold no special station above anyone else in the religion. Their opinions are not held with any greater esteem. They fulfill their duty as representatives only when in consultation with other members of the body to which they were elected and outside of the meeting have no authority or additional status. I've seen incredibly powerful videos capturing the diverse members of various national spiritual assemblies arriving from all over the world to assemble at the Baha'i World Center in Israel, where they prayerfully vote for the Universal House of Justice. The delegates, wearing their native dress, silently but joyfully stride up to the stage in a convention hall as the countries are called on in alphabetical order. The sight gives me the spiritual tingles, humanity at its very best. More than a thousand radiant, and humble servants dropping envelopes into a wooden box in an atmosphere of hushed reverence to elect the body of nine believers who will guide the affairs of the Baha'i world. Ripley sums up her discussion about the Baha'i election process by saying, quote, if social scientists designed a religion, it would look like this. Compare that sublime vision to the reality of contemporary elections throughout the world, especially in the United States. Outraged yelling, bragging, and name-calling. Months of hypocritical, vain posturing while countless millions of dollars are spent only to have nothing change. Let's envision how this process could work in the world at large. Let's imagine the small town of Pancake Flats, Colorado, which has a city council. The council members are getting fed up with divisive politics everywhere, even in their own little town. They decide that for the next election, they will all resign their positions and pass a city code to disallow any campaigning or partisanship. They ask the population to come together to the high school stadium on election night and instruct them that they can vote for any person over 18 years old who lives within the city limits. They then ask community members to contemplatively consider all the people they have ever met and to ask themselves, who are the wise, upstanding human beings I know in pancake flats who passionately care about fairness for everyone. After an allotted time of reflective silence right there at the stadium, all registered voters, silent ballot style, vote for the best group of people they know. Now, many, many people will receive only a handful of votes, but eventually a majority or plurality will emerge. Some of the elected will be totally bummed out because they are busy business people or busy librarians or busy plumbers or what have you, but they realize they have been summoned to this very important role in their cherished community. And because they are the best of citizens, they are willing to sacrifice their

personal business and comfort for the good of the whole and choose to serve the town of pancake flats, Socrates style. This is a small, feeble example of what it would take to enact the same method of electing a democratic leadership as the Baha'is do in the real world. Would this scenario even be possible? Would a number of gradual steps need to be taken before we could hold an election like this? Or would humanity need to be significantly more mature before something like it could ever be undertaken? These are difficult questions to answer, but these examples stand as a total reinvention of a system that is grossly out of balance. If we are to undertake a spiritual revolution, we will need reconceptions of this sort across all manners of previously competitive systems. Making these changes will require incredibly hard work and sacrifices all around. And in order to do it, we will need to shift our efforts away from protesting what is currently broken and toward building new models that make the old ones obsolete.

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