UP-WINGERS

by F. M. ESFANDIARY

  —The Instant Community must accommodate the ceaseless flow of people. Therefore numerous attractive heliports—shuttleports—stolports—hoverports in and around the community. These will have cafés—hotels—TV centers—computer centers ... People fly in from faraway communities and continents to rendezvous then fly out.

  —The Instant Community must also be linked up with global communication.

  —The Instant Community is Universal. The sense of community exists not only within the community but more and more within the whole planet. The individual does not belong to a specific community but is part of many communities—part of the whole planet.

  —The Instant Community enjoys new concepts of art. Not simply new styles of art. But new concepts of art. This means no operas—ballets—theaters—art galleries or paintings. (Those who wish to view this old art can visit the old Museum Cities.) New concepts of art may comprise Sky-illuminations—variations of gigantic colorful designs projected against day or night skies. Graceful movements of people and objects under weightless conditions. Stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain enabling the individual to achieve sublime visions hallucinations ecstasies. Headgears for electronic music from anywhere on the planet or pulsar beats from the galaxies. Multi-dimensional films and holograms. Live video views of our sculpture-spacecrafts gliding across the heavens. Home screens and giant outdoor screens hooked to space-station telescopes providing the most celestial shows of all: kaleidoscopic spectacles of the Universe with its ever-changing galaxies and supernovas—brilliant suns and star clusters—trail-blazing comets and asteroids. Space Age art like Space Age philosophy will continue to grow more and more cosmic and transcendent. The artist is now as obsolete as the priest. The artists of the new age are primarily the scientists and visionaries who strive for transcendence to new dimensions of Time and Space.

  —The Instant Community must include extensive opportunities for fun and play. Bubble-dome playgrounds and swimming ponds. All-weather convertible athletic fields. No violent spectacles such as boxing—wrestling—bull-fighting—American football. These spectacles perpetuate pseudomasculine glorification of brute force. People who enjoy watching such brutalities are as retarded as the gladiators who engage in them. Instant Communities must also disallow competition in sports. No tournaments matches contests. Why do we need to know who the fastest human is? Or who the strongest? Or who the best tennis player? Any jackass can run faster. Any dumb bull is stronger. People who play to win want to exercise their egos—not their bodies. Sports should emphasize fun not rivalry. We need no scores no winners no losers no medals. Only the reward of getting together to play—the joy of play.

  —The Instant Community must not accommodate oldworld institutions which perpetuate violence and harbor death. Prisons must give way to rehabilitation centers. Slaughterhouses must give way to non-violent eating habits—eating meat is an act of violence. Cemeteries must give way to immortality measures which, as I will later explain, perpetuate indefinite lifespans.

  —The Instant Community must be extensively cybernated. Computerized housework and officework. Universal teleducation—telemedicine—telefarming—teleshopping—teletransportation. This means no cumbersome hospitals—schools—shops—department stores—farms. This also means less and less bureaucracy less and less work. The Instant Community must be strongly oriented to leisure mobility fun.

  —The Instant Community must manage its affairs through direct self-government. Not through leaders or representatives. Parliamentary systems—bureaucratic governments—political parties—elections—these are feudal democracies. Modern democracy is through Instant Universal Referendum.

  * * * *

  Today we have the resources and the ability to set up our first Instant Communities. In creating such total environments we will evolve beyond the decaying old cities to Universal Life.

  * * *

  beyond survival economics:

  cybernated world of leisure and abundance

  We are all so thoroughly programmed by millenniums of struggle for survival that though we no longer need to struggle we still go on struggling.

  Our economic systems—work habits—values all arise out of the age-old struggle for survival.

  Capitalism and socialism are survival economics.

  They are still impaled on the hard-work mystique.

  In most countries around the world there is growing unemployment. Every year hundreds of thousands of high school and college graduates join the unemployed. How are capitalist and socialist governments coping with this rising problem? They are struggling to provide jobs. More and more jobs. Capitalism and socialism have a mania for jobs.

  The Soviet Union and the United States have sophisticated automation on the moon on Mars and on space stations performing complex tasks which would take thousands of people to accomplish. Yet here on Earth they still abide by the old economics of finding jobs for people.

  Not only are our economic systems archaic. Our cultural values are Cro-Magnon too. We need not only new economic systems but also new values—new attitudes to work and possessions to leisure and pleasure.

  Socialism and capitalism are hopelessly predicated on puritan values. Work hard—study hard—produce—produce. You must work—work work work. Hardship and hard work are good for you. They will help you grow. They will help your country grow...

  So insidious is this brainwashing that people cannot relax even on their vacations. Are you having fun here on the beach? Not really. I am wasting my vacation. I haven't read a single book. I haven't even done any of the work I brought from the office. I have wasted my whole vacation.

  * * * *

  The new economics is not capitalism or socialism or even the mixture of the two. The new economics is the new teletechnology—abundance—globalism—liberated values.

  For example Cybernation (computerized automation) is an entirely new direction for humankind. The cybernated system combines mental organizational and physical work. It makes decisions and produces. If it breaks down or makes mistakes it corrects itself. It even reprograms itself.

  The Russians had that spunky Lunokhod on the moon: hiking—climbing mountains—going down hills—scooping up rocks—taking pictures—relaying films—measuring distances—recording moonquakes—sleeping during lunar nights—waking up for the lunar days—communicating with earth—occasionally pausing to repair itself and so on. In 1977 the Viking Lander carried out many sophisticated biological tests on far away Mars.

  This very day we could have such telecybernated systems doing much of our work here on earth as well.

  In developing fields such as the space program—world tourism—world transportation—international hotel services—credit card systems—construction—off-track betting fewer and fewer people are handling more and more work through extensive telecomputerization. This technology could be used in many other fields: the development of unlimited solar energy—the production of unlimited foods—global education...

  If we mobilized this new teletechnology we could within ten or fifteen years do away with poverty in the world.

  If we mobilized our new technology we could within five to ten years free millions of people rich and poor alike from the slavery of perpetual work.

  * * * *

  This all sounds too good to be true. Enough to make any Right-winger or Left-winger shudder with guilt pangs. I don't see doctrinaire capitalist or socialist economists bucking the hang-ups of centuries to embark on the new economics of Leisure and Abundance.

  In fact socialism and capitalism, the two major economic systems of our times, do not even have the ideological frameworks to cybernate their entire economies.

  Cybernation is an outgrowth of modern technology. Not of socialism or capitalism. The Soviet—United States and Chinese governments are only now hurriedly embarking on crash programs to make way for computers. None has yet formulated long-range plans for massive telecybernation. Telecybernation is spreading in spite
of socialism and capitalism.

  —Capitalist and socialist governments in advanced-industrial and early-industrial countries must right away set up postindustrial councils. Comprised primarily of computerers—cyberneticists—visionary economists—social scientists to implement the new teletechnologies and values. Such a total shift from the old economics to the new will entail entirely new formulations on employment—productivity—income—budget—work habits—leisure.

  —Early-industrial economies—capitalist and socialist—are focused on industrialization. This is now a long slow route—not a shortcut to the future. These economies can now take giant leaps forward by avoiding industrialism embarking instead on telespheres.

  —Socialism and capitalism are still fixated on eliminating unemployment. No economic measures, no crash programs can any longer reverse the global trend toward unemployment. Nothing can any longer help replace the jobs which automation and cybernation are taking over. It has become imperative to decrease work. This is not only sound economics it is also a liberating move.

  This is a time to free people of work. Rather than rack their brains to create employment, economists should now work out plans to create leisure.

  —Cybernation means not only less and less work but also greater freedom within work. Through the use of telecomputers—satellitephones—telex—telefacsimile—video teleconferences people can now do more and more of their work directly from home or beach. It is not necessary to emphasize rigid work schedules or rigid office attendance. Do not commute to work—telecommunicate with work.

  —The new economics lead to the steady obsolescence of cash/money and the emergence of global telecredit systems. These systems enable individuals and corporations to make transactions anywhere on the planet without cash.

  —The new teletechnology accelerates the rise of transnational corporations—regional blocs—common markets—continentalism—globalism.

  —We are moving toward an abundance based not on exclusive possession but on temporary usage. People need not own but briefly rent houses—gardens—villas—yachts—helicopters—hovercrafts—computers ... When they stay at a mobilia they enjoy all existing commodities (as in resort hotels today) then leave them for others to enjoy.

  —The new abundance will also do away with the need to redistribute wealth. Karl Marx, a visionary in his times, could not have envisioned the monumental breakthroughs of this late twentieth century. His followers today still call for the redistribution of wealth. This is oldworld reasoning. We no longer need to redistribute anything. We need to develop the limitless energy and resources now suddenly opening up to us: solar energy—fusion energy—hydrogen energy—raw materials from the oceans and from infinite Space.

  —You the Up-Winger can do much to help the trend to the new world of Leisure and Abundance —

  —Don't work your life away. Live. If you work more than three or four days a week, four or five hours a day you are dissipating your life. Not playing enough not living enough not growing.

  Leisure is creative. Playing or doing nothing are a part of growth. Laziness can be good for you.

  People who work eight hours a day five days a week year after year decade after decade are automatons. They may advance professionally but hardly evolve as humans. Whole areas of their minds and personalities remain stunted. They are one-dimensional.

  But I enjoy my work, you say. The point is that if all you enjoy is your work yon are limiting your experiences and enjoyments. Your life is still one-dimensional.

  Leisure/work plans to consider —

  Four-day workweek.

  Three-day workweek.

  Seven days on seven days off.

  Month on month off.

  Six months on six months off...

  For centuries the cry has been? We Want Jobs. Liberated generations are now saying: We Want Leisure.

  —Don't submit to the tyranny of rigid work hours. Westerners have made a virtue of punctuality promptness efficiency. These are qualities we should expect of our machines. Not of people. Cultures that emphasize promptness and efficiency are tyrannical. People who are punctual and efficient are Dangerous. They have been reduced to robots.

  Rebel against the tyranny of having to drag your corpse out of bed at an exact hour every morning (at that hour it is a corpse) arriving at work at exactly the same hour leaving at exactly the same hour day after day year after year. Such precision is an assault on your humanhood.

  —Don't hold on to a job. Move. Be fluid. If you have been at the same job more than two or three years, get out. You are not contributing to your firm's development or to your own growth. You are vegetating. Long-term commitment to a job or even to a career is part of the structured feudal/industrial world. In our fluid age it is a sure sign of the static personality.

  —Work at firms of different nationalities preferably in different communities and countries. In becoming involved in the world economy you will help the trend toward universalism and yourself grow universal.

  —It is not enough for governments to work out new economic systems. You yourself must demand more leisure more flexible work schedules more mobility. You yourself must break away from the puritan mystique of hard work.

  —The relaxation of our primitive work habits will not in any way limit our drive to higher standards of living. On the contrary, we can now quantum-leap into a world of Abundance Creativity Leisure by working less and letting our efficient tireless machines do the work.

  Fewer and fewer people working less and less can now produce more and more and more.

  * * *

  beyond nations: the planetary movement

  For the very first time in history we have the beginning of a global movement. This movement is daily gaining momentum. It will continue to spread till it has touched every person.

  It is no accident that last month in your community students asserted their new expectations. Last week it spread to the workers yesterday the women today a minority group tomorrow the prison inmates then the soldiers then the clergy the transsexuals the consumers...

  It is also no accident that last week people asserted their rights in Tokyo yesterday in Ankara today in Mexico City tomorrow in Cairo then in Manila then in Rome then in Jerusalem then in...

  No one can any longer thwart this planetary movement as it spreads from one profession to another from one city and continent to another.

  At one time it took years and decades for a movement to extend from one country to another. Today global communication whips it across the planet in hours days weeks.

  Even more directly the people of the world are now helping one another as never before.

  Swedes and Norwegians helping build villages in the Middle East ... Chinese fighting tropical diseases in Africa ... American youths helping build roads in Brazil and Afghanistan ... Danes and Peruvians teaching school in the United States ... Israeli technicians and agronomists helping out in West Africa ... Egyptians teaching at schools in Libya Sudan and Kuwait ... Russians building dams in Egypt...

  United Nations technicians all over the planet fighting malnutrition and disease—building hospitals and houses—distributing milk and birth-control devices...

  For humanitarian reasons for political and economic reasons for whatever reasons—the people of this planet are cooperating and helping one another as never before.

  * * * *

  The major issues of our times are no longer national—but global. Peace—economic progress—resources—pollution—disease-world tourism—global communication—global transportation—weather modification—space...

  These and other realities have suddenly interconnected humanity. There is no escaping it. These realities involve all humanity and must be tackled by all.

  Our awareness is also growing universal. Today as never before we know of conditions around the planet. We can no longer rationalize poverty or romanticize backwardness. We can no longer look the other way pretending that problems elsewhere do not
exist or are no concern of ours.

  The problems are numerous complex global. But our means for dealing with these problems are also growing more and more numerous effective and global.

  * * * *

  How can you the Up-Winger be an effective participant in this spreading planetary movement?

  —Begin by consciously disavowing your nationality.

  You have outgrown religion. You must now outgrow nationality.

  What is your nationality?

  I am Universal.

  But where are you from?

  I am from Planet Earth. I am Universal.

  In refusing to identify with a country you are taking the first conscious public stand against nationality. You are identifying with all humankind.

  In emphasizing your new global identity you are helping its psychological and intellectual impact to grow on you and on others. You are spreading the new awareness.

  You are also compelling people to relate to you not as a member of a separate artificial bloc—but as a fellow human.

  —Organize a People's Movement and petition the United Nations to initiate a new status—Universal citizenship. This is our planet. It no longer makes sense to draw lines and say this is my territory the other is yours. This is no better than the urine borders charted by dogs.

  From here on we recognize no national borders. All countries now belong to all peoples of this planet. No government has the right to bar anyone from leaving or entering any territory. To place restrictions on our freedom of movement is a violation of our human rights. Passports—visas—exit permits—residency rights—all these formalize restrictions on our freedom of movement across this planet which now belongs to all of us.

  —Reject all claims to “internal affairs.” We must not regard any nation's affairs as exclusively internal or domestic. We want more and more involvement in internal affairs of other nations. This is our planet—anything occurring anywhere is everybody's affair.