Video - 1000Manifestos.com

E.O. Wilson: Encyclopedia of Life

Creator: E.O. Wilson is one of the world’s top Biologists, author, two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and winner of the 2007 TED Prize.

Purpose: To build a networked encyclopaedia of all the world’s knowledge about life.

Encyclopedia of Life Manifesto

(Excerpt from the Ted Video)

I wish we would work together to help create the key tools that we need to inspire preservation of Earth’s biodiversity. And let us call it the “Encyclopedia of Life” – a concept that has already taken hold and is beginning to spread and be look at seriously. It is an encyclopaedia that lives on the internet and is contributed to by thousands of scientists around the world. Amateurs can do it also. It has an indefinitely expandable page for each species.

…The encyclopaedia will quickly pay for itself in practical applications. It will address transcendent qualities in the human consciousness, and sense of human need. It will transform the science of biology in ways of obvious benefit to humanity. And most of all, it can inspire a new generation of biologists to continue the quest that started, for me personally, 60 years ago: To search for life, to understand it and finally – above all – to preserve it. That is my wish. Thank you.

Source

TED Video on saving life on Earth

Edward Osborne Wilson on Wikipedia

EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation

The banner image is from the EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation website home page

Midnight Oil: Beds Are Burning

Creator: Song written and performed by Australian band Midnight Oil composed of James Moginie, Robert Hirst, Peter Gifford and Peter Garrett, released in 1987.

Purpose:

“Beds Are Burning” is a political song about giving native Australian lands back to the Pintupi, who were among the very last people to come in from the desert. (Wikipedia). The song was also used as the first ever global music petition for Climate Change in 2009 as the “Tck Tck Tck, Time for Climate Justice” campaign.

Song Manifesto: Beds Are Burning

© Midnight Oil 1987

Out where the river broke

The blood wood and the desert oak

Holden wrecks and boiling diesels

Steam in forty five degrees

The time has come

To say fair’s fair

To pay the rent

To pay our share

The time has come

A fact’s a fact

It belongs to them

Let’s give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

The time has come

To say fair’s fair

To pay the rent, now

To pay our share

Four wheels scare the cockatoos

From Kintore East to Yuendemu

The western desert lives and breathes

In forty five degrees

The time has come

To say fair’s fair

To pay the rent

To pay our share

The time has come

A fact’s a fact

It belongs to them

Let’s give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

The time has come

To say fair’s fair

To pay the rent, now

To pay our share

The time has come

A fact’s a fact

It belongs to them

We’re gonna give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

Source

Official Midnight Oil Website

Song Lyrics from sing365.com

Official Midnight Oil Music Video from YouTube

Beds are Burning Background on Wikipedia

Midnight Oil on Wikipedia

Easy Rider

Creator: A 1969 movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern.

Purpose: Presents an alternate or counterculture view of life in the US in the 1960s including bikers, drugs, communes and the hippie lifestyles. It’s goal: a life of freedom.

Manifesto

Source

General: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Rider

Video (original trailer): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjlxqANj68U

Related Manifestos

Dead Poet’s Society

Creator: Movie made in 1989 starring Robin Williams and directed by Peter Weir. Scriptwriter Tom Schulman won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Purpose: Challenge conformity and make the most of your opportunities and your life.

Manifesto

Carpe diem.

Seize the day, boys.

Make your lives extraordinary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQtmGcdSDAI

Source

General: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Poets_Society

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQtmGcdSDAI

Related Manifestos

John F Kennedy: Man on the Moon

Creator: US President John F Kennedy, Speech delivered before a joint session of Congress, May 25, 1961.
Purpose: To secure funding for significant US projects to boost the US economy, support democracy over communism, diminish the threat of nuclear weapons and land a man on the moon.

This opening selection sets the context for wanting to commit to landing a man on the moon.

“…These are extraordinary times. And we face an extraordinary challenge. Our strength as well as our convictions have imposed upon this nation the role of leader in freedom’s cause.
No role in history could be more difficult or more important. We stand for freedom.
That is our conviction for ourselves–that is our only commitment to others. No friend, no neutral and no adversary should think otherwise. We are not against any man–or any nation–or any system–except as it is hostile to freedom. Nor am I here to present a new military doctrine, bearing any one name or aimed at any one area. I am here to promote the freedom doctrine.”

Kennedy then identifies a number of significant programs including:

“…I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

Sources

Original Speech to Congress, full transcript: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Speeches/Special-Message-to-the-Congress-on-Urgent-National-Needs-May-25-1961.aspx

The video at the top of this page is not the original speech. It is an excerpt from JFK’s speech at Rice University.

Full video of the latter speech at Rice University: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRbkBAOGEw

Martin Luther King: I Have a Dream

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUP_ISA030c

Creator: Martin Luther King, Speech made 28th of August 1963, Lincoln Memorial Washington DC.
Purpose: Call for racial equality and an end to discrimination.

Manifesto

Here’s some key excerpts from his speech:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”
“With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
“Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

Sources

General Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream
Full speech transcript: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
Complete Speech Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk

Comment

MLK’s I Have a Dream speech is, in my view, the best example of a worldview manifesto for two significant reasons.

Firstly, it clearly presents a world the author wants to see – a dream. While it’s stated in the personal ‘I’ it’s very inclusive in its words.

Secondly, it’s so vivid and precise in it’s details. For instance, “to sit down together at a table of brotherhood” is both literal (sit down together) and metaphorical (at a table of brotherhood).

Related Manifestos

Apple: Here’s to the Crazy Ones

Creator: Advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day (1997)
Purpose: Promotional Campaign as a series of television and print commercials.

Manifesto

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Sources

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Different

Comment

For me, this is one of the great manifestos that inspired the view of a Double-Sided Vision.

The strength of ‘Here’s to the Crazy Ones’ is that while it is literally an advertisement for a company, the ad does not sell a specific product.

Instead, Apple pitch a worldview that their users are likely to aspire to. It’s permission to be creative, just a little crazy, and ultimately change the world.

It’s a classic call to arms which is an essential quality of all great manifestos. And while an advertisement calling to its customers, it also has the bigger picture idealism that would inspire, motivate and engage the Apple workforce. That’s a double-sided vision.

I can imagine designer Johnny Ive walking into the then CEO Steve Job’s office with his latest prototype for the new curvy and colourful iMac and having Steve play the ad as the benchmark of success.

He might even ask: Is this crazy enough to change the world?