What is the Plan for Action?
This series started off with a rant about people running around screaming "Are you scared yet?! Wake Up! Do Something!" I think we're all tired of being scared, and tired of being angry. We want to make something happen. And so I started writing. At first, I wasn't quite sure where to go with it, since "taking action" could be simple, like making your own life better. Or it could go all the way to changing the world, and I've met people who have done both. After writing the first several essays, I've figured out where to go, and how this is all going to be edited into a coherent guide.
The Child Tyrants
There's a particular class of people who I like to refer to as the child tyrants, and the Plan for Action, ultimately, is about restoring the institutions they have destroyed. And, of course, unseating them as we do so.
I use the term child tyrants to describe this class of people because first, they are children in adult bodies. Children do not think of the future, see leadership as a means to their personal ends, and will sell out the future for a quick gain today. These people are also tyrants because first and foremost, they want to do as they please, and have all others fall in line. And for their immediate lieutenants, we might call them the coward enablers. There are true believers, but the coward enabler is the person who has power of their own, but for fear of being shouted at by the child tyrants, they back down and give in. They may agree with you, but when the chips are down, they want to be liked more than they want to be right.
In terms of who and where they are, a child tyrant is first and foremost someone with a particular attitude. It could be the Congressman or EU politician who thinks he has the right to reshape society as he sees fit. It could be the professors wrecking a university with anti-academic drivel. It could also be the local politician who thinks higher taxes or more laws are the solution to every conceivable problem. Finally, it could be that middle manager or content monitor on Facebook and Twitter, who is looking to shut down whatever displeases them.
Defeating any of them is a step forward, but more than defeating them, bringing about the institutional changes that will continue to keep them out of influence for years to come. This requires, first and foremost, a return of adulthood, personal responsibility, and a willingness to intentionally contribute to institutions that compete with, and limit, political power.
Change Yourself, Change Your Family, Change The World
Why no progress?
Now, we could simply identify who the child tyrants are. Much digital ink has already been poured on that - they've already been identified. So why haven't they been stopped if we know who they are? The reason may surprise you:
The child tyrants have not been stopped, because the worst child tyrant of them all looks at you in the mirror.
The thing is, you could have the power, but maybe there's a part of your life in disarray because the tyrant in you is demanding that you waste your time and money. Or maybe, the inner tyrant wants to humiliate people in arguments more than actually make progress. Or perhaps you are the coward enabler in that you run from every potential conflict, except to criticize those who are trying to make real progress.
Ultimately, the Plan for Action starts by dealing with you.
Change in the correct order
"Change yourself, Change your family, Change the world" comes from a Chinese parable about a man who was ambitious and ran out to change the world. For some reason it wasn't working, no one would follow him. So then he tried changing his family and dealing with family issues. But he just couldn't build enough trust. Finally, he tried changing himself, and making himself someone worth following. Then he learned the truth - you must change yourself first, then you can change your family because you have enough integrity to be someone to follow. If you can win your family, you have the ability to win the world. These things done in order will allow you to conquer the world, but if done out of order, you will accomplish nothing.
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And with all this in mind, I've arrived at the direction I'm going to take with The Plan for Action. This series of essays will start with producing the kind of people who have the capacity to defeat the usurpers, the child tyrants who are bringing ruin to our families, our cities, our universities, our nations. Then, we'll get into reaching out and changing the world around us. Some of the existing essays (Steps 1-8) will need editing, as the goal is to make this series into a booklet for distribution.