Supreme Regard

A lot can be said about the idea that became the very conceptual backbone of the Garden Village Project. “Supreme Regard” as it stands, is a contemporary reaffirmation of a concept that has wafted through the collective deposits of human aphorisms for millennia. In fact, the basic ‘ethic of reciprocity’ has been phrased and re-phrased by all of the major schools of philosophical thought since the times’ of Confucius to Martin Luther King Jr. and beyond. From the Qur’an to the Bible to the Buddhists to the Muslims to the Squamish Natives to the Existentialist Philosophers to public elementary schools of the modern day — the “Golden Rule” is a pretty well-trodden maxim. In short, it boils down as: Treat others as you would like to be treated.

So simple, so universally understood, and yet the world we face today looks starkly different than one we might expect if this moral code were kept in tact by everyone who actually understood it. Somehow, this beautiful notion slips through the cracks — not only at the higher levels of structured civilization — but even down to the person-to-person scale. But why does it get lost? I think that it has a lot to do with authority.

Authority is a funny thing. Sometimes it crops up naturally — where people of a distinguished age or experience level gain some sort of higher ground in relation to their peers — but the authority of one person over another seems to have overstepped these natural boundaries so far that it’s hard to really see where the lines became blurred in the first place. Though it’s certainly not exclusive to our place and time in history, the modern Western World serves as an example we’re all familiar with — and an extreme one at that. There are individuals at the top of a societal structure affecting more lives beneath them than ever before, and the ones at the very bottom rung are understood to be virtually powerless in any major decision-making. The colossal ravine separating the individuals at the two ends of this pyramid has been well documented and widely protested in recent years — but due to the civilization’s incredibly strong-helmed authoritative upbringing, shifting the status quo has proven quite difficult.

What the current system does, however, is not where the problem stems from. How it operates is only a symptom of what it’s built on.

If we consider the moral conscience of man as a house – we see that a manifesto as massive as Supreme Regard needs to be at the very foundation in order to function at all. You can’t just build an entire house on a foundation of inequality and disparity – and slip Supreme Regard in on the third floor. It predicates the way the rest of the house is even constructed.

So, we have a broad view of a society without a moral like Supreme Regard at its base. But if we now consider what it would look like if every individual approached one another with the compassion and understanding that Supreme Regard inherently designs, it’s possible to picture a new paradigm. Garden Village is a small but stable realization of this paradigm. During my time there, I felt an uncanny sense not only of belonging, but that I was integral. That my contributions were as important as the founders’. The same treatment was given to each newcomer I met — and though it took some getting used to — with time, everyone was able to settle into a mutual understanding that we were all on an even playing field. In terms of the actual property and what could be done with it, there were no distinct boundaries with the land being “theirs” versus “mine”.

If the connection hasn’t been made clear, this has everything to do with the lack of an authoritarian governing body. Supreme Regard, if you haven’t surmised, is more than the “Golden Rule”. To employ the practice is to escape any sort of ego hang-ups that have been instilled through a life of instruction. You are your own master. You are capable of working collaboratively with others, but never in a position to dole out orders. You are on a level plane of existence with everyone and everything around you, and recognizing that can be a major revelation towards compassionate understanding. To utilize this incredibly simple perception of reality, it’s possible to find the abundance offered by every living thing, and to see the plight of others as your own.

I understand what it means to be skeptical regarding the true application of what’s written here, believe me. I am typically the advocate of the unpopular vote. I won’t simply agree with an idea to play nice. But what I can say with honesty is that the only reason I can explain this concept in the terms above is because I actually experienced it first hand. Supreme Regard is a living, breathing model for a new day.