Every human being, i.e. a human body endowed with human consciousness, is part of  narratives. These narratives assign our place in past, present and future of society and the institutions making up society. These narratives shape the norms and values with which one functions in society and its institutions.

In our society the narrative of liberalism is predominant. In liberalism individuality and equality are represented in a problematic way. They have become traits of our personality forbidding us to develop a communal spirit and really understand the fundamental inequalities between people in our world. One is not surprised that social movements easily fall apart when individualism is an important value. The SoLiD movement should be the vehicle of a new, better narrative. A narrative with a superior vision on being an individual and (in)equality. To develop and propagate this vision and, most of all, to enable people to be a part of it. Contrary to the narratives from which the SoLiD movement evolves, it recognizes the fact that it’s story is never finished.

Human society is a gigantic network of overlapping organizations where individuals play a well defined role. But: the individual is formed by the interaction of these roles in those same organizations together with its inherited biological drives and other characteristics. This forms the unique personality present in every intellectually developed capable human body. The SoLiD movement sees a person as a result of its being a part of society. It rejects the idea of a society as the sum of previously independent human beings. In the SoLiD vision we see transformations of positions and changes in one-self as one process, in stead of the unchanging self as an agent of choices and decisions on what to do with its life.

Is there a big difference between this human and the more usual vision on the self? Maybe the difference does not seem that great, but the SoLiD idea of the self opens up new roads: possibilities to look over borders that at present keep our thinking locked up; the possibility to form a community that is more than an amorphous mass. With enough room for individuality.

To think about yourself this way is a tough task for the individualists most of us are. There is a persistent, understandable and partly necessary inclination to think of yourself as being the same person at all times and places; to place the unity, permanency and independency of the self above all else. And there is a strong inclination to think that everybody is the same: about the  same individualist as yourself. It is not easy to see yourself as a part of a SoLiD movement, in fact of any movement. Too make room for a SoLiD vision on yourself and others.

So… you still want to read our Manifesto?

EN Version 1.0 dd 130606 on NL Versie 4.3 dd 121217