As every statement of this manifesto illustrates, Civilism is a collectivist, as opposed to individualist, oriented philosophy. Admittedly, individualistic behavior is natural and rational for our species, most if not all organisms share an urge for self-preservation. I do not believe humans have the unique ability to triumph over that bestial instinct however I claim that our complex social structures have created systems in which we can overcome our impulses and do so in a manner that benefits the whole, even at our own expense. This behavior is facilitated in part by the social structures but also by the very instincts we trump by our participation. One of these social structures is the republic. Republican states and cultures force us to recognize, often subconsciously, our fellow human’s self-preserving nature and to limit our own survivalist impulses in order to present a compromise, acceptable to the majority, that preserves ourselves as much as our neighbors. Republics, like everything else, are corruptible and have never been implemented with complete perfection. Though no perfect manifestation exists, the idea of the republic continues to inspire governments in which the people must abandon their immediate bestial nature in an effort to conspire for a better outcome for all. Republics exemplify the capability for humans to abandon individualism, even if only temporarily out of an ultimately individualist urge to survive and compete with peers, and implement collectivist oriented societies.

Our very own republic, speaking as a citizen to my comrades in the United States of America, is no perfect portrait of a state governed by the equally distributed power of its people. Too often I hear individuals condemn the United States as a degrading image of what it was originally intended to be, that not only our republic is becoming less democratic but that so too are other values we once held dear, such as liberty and equality, rotting away. Anyone who has attempted to study our nation’s history objectively would never dare to entertain such an idea. I would argue that today in the United States there is more liberty and equality and democracy than ever before. Our Founding Fathers created a nation in which, in most states, only the property owning white males had any say in who represented the people and where only the property owning white males had any legitimacy as a citizen within the law. To claim that liberty, equality, or democracy has been degraded since then is preposterous unless, of course, you are a proclaiming this from the perspective of a property owning white male who has avoided empathizing with the rest, the majority, of citizens. Thus the history of my country is not a tale of decline but, for the most part, the tale of the rise of a republic from that of a misogynistic oligarchic apartheid. That said, history is not stagnant and progress is not inevitable. If we the people do not continue to refine our republic, inch by inch, then we may very well regress and regression will not implement itself slowly.

We must pursue republicanism at all costs. To not do so is to let it unravel. Republics are what make human societies so very different from the way other organisms govern themselves. Republicanism is how we have overcome the forces of natural selection to cooperate and develop technology beyond any prehistoric imagination. We cannot abandon the capitalist survival instincts that drive all life, but we can reign it in through democracy and enforce a moderate amount of socialism that ensures our species and our world a better tomorrow. Only a fool would claim that extreme socialism, supposedly manifested in communism, is the answer. Even without pointing at the vile leaders who have mockingly attempted to implement communism, mere logic points at the flaws of such a utopian idea. Yet, extreme capitalism is just as tragic. This consumerist ideology is setting the tremors that will unleash a Malthusian tsunami upon us (as explained in the Preamble). What happens when mechanization has advanced to the point where the majority of our species no longer are needed in petty low-skilled jobs? How then will we occupy the impoverished masses? Will we keep them subjugated at gun point or offer them food from the excess we can’t even bring our fat bellies to indulge? Republicanism is not inevitable, but to maintain the republic in the face of such vast technological advances, a certain amount of socialism is.

To refuse to accommodate the impoverished, will be the downfall of the prosperous. To refuse republican applied, revised, and refined socialism alongside a capitalist foundation is to ensure that eventually those who are enslaved by this colonial economy will put down the picks and pick up the gun and when they do, they will not implement a republic, no, they will implement what Lenin did, what Mao Zedong did, which we know will succumb to the very dog-eat-dog type of society they sought to upend. As long as we polarize each other and cling to one economic theology or the other we leave civilization on shaky ground. As of yet, the alternatives are only radical thoughts. Civilism is moderate. Civilism recognizes the rationality of capitalism and the necessity of socialism. It is not a political party, it is a philosophical ideology. It is the cult of a logical pursuit to preserve humanity.