Human Survival
Field Guide.

INHERITED DOCTRINE / QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LIMITS OF LABELS Human Lies & Sacred Uncertainty

The Society’s founding work names The 13 Human Lies; the supplied list contains eleven headings, preserved here in order. “Lies” is the archive’s provocative word for labels mistaken for a complete account. It does not declare anyone’s identity, body, community or faith false, or erase social history, physical needs or the practical consequences of a belief. Two missing headings have not been invented.

THE 13 HUMAN LIES

01 Normal

02 Human Identity

03 Race

04 Gender

05 Language

06 Names

07 Religion

08 Authority

09 Body & Face

10 Thinking

11 Reality

READ A LABEL AS A TOOL Ask what a word helps you notice, what it leaves outside the frame and when it has stopped being useful. A name can support communication without containing the whole experience. Keep the label available for discussion rather than making it a test of belonging.

KEEP THE QUESTIONS SEPARATE What happened, what caused it and what it means may need different evidence or different conversations. A clear observation can coexist with uncertainty about a motive. Resist the temptation to purchase certainty with an explanation that conveniently leaves your own contribution outside the frame.

REMEMBER THE OBSERVER You have never occupied another person’s full experience. Ask what you may be missing. You can protect your choices while leaving part of the explanation unresolved; practical action need not wait for perfect access to somebody else’s inner account.

LEAVE THE STORY REVISABLE The Society is available for questioning too. Its figures, narrator and current edition receive no exemption. An unfinished account leaves room for new information, an ordinary correction and occasionally a joke that has outlived its official permit.

“The field guide is an invitation to freedom, never a superior identity certificate.”

The original Earth Field Archive