The New Aponist Manifesto
Aponism provides a structural safeguard for suffering-focused ethics, upholding individual autonomy against the radical logical extremes of utilitarianism.
We begin with a refusal.
We refuse the idea that suffering is the price of progress.
We refuse the idea that domination is the engine of history.
We refuse the idea that cruelty is “just nature,” that exploitation is “just economics,” and that violence is “just realism.”
We refuse the belief that beings must be broken so that systems can function.
We refuse the bargain that trades the vulnerable for the convenience of the powerful.
We refuse to accept any moral framework that needs victims to prove its strength.
We name this refusal Aponism: the commitment to reduce and prevent suffering, to dismantle domination, and to build a world where care is not an exception but a standard.
Aponism is not a mood.
Aponism is not a brand.
Aponism is not a purity contest.
Aponism is a practice of unlearning violence and replacing it with structures that do not require harm to sustain themselves.
Aponism begins with a simple recognition: sentience matters.
Where there is experience, there is a stake.
Where there is the capacity to feel, there is the possibility of being wronged.
And where wrong is possible, responsibility is real.
Aponism refuses the old permissions: “They are lesser,” “They are many,” “They are different,” “They would do it to us,” “Someone must suffer,” “It’s necessary.”
Aponism does not require perfection.
It requires direction.
It requires integrity—our means must not sabotage our ends.
It requires clarity—our ideals must survive contact with our own incentives.
It requires humility—our understanding must stay corrigible.
Aponism is not anti-life.
Aponism is anti-violence.
It is anti-coercion.
It is anti-erasure.
And it is anti-sacrifice of the unwilling.
Aponism holds that no being should be treated as a disposable instrument.
No being should be turned into a resource.
No being should be forced to carry pain for someone else’s comfort.
No being should be made into a warning to keep others obedient.
Aponism is not satisfied with condemning cruelty in private.
Aponism organizes to make cruelty harder to do.
Aponism redesigns the incentives that make cruelty profitable.
Aponism builds alternatives that make exploitation unnecessary.
Aponism is not neutral between oppressor and oppressed.
It is allied with the vulnerable by design.
Not because the vulnerable are saints.
But because vulnerability is the condition that makes injustice cheap.
Aponism does not worship strength.
It does not romanticize hardness.
It does not confuse cynicism with intelligence.
Aponism measures a civilization by how it treats those who cannot threaten it.
This is our grounding.
From it follow our articles.
ARTICLE I: NONVIOLENCE AS A DISCIPLINE OF POWER
We reject violence as a tool of moral education.
We reject cruelty as a shortcut to justice.
We reject harm as a proof of commitment.
Aponism commits to nonviolence—not as passivity, but as a discipline.
Nonviolence is not doing nothing.
Nonviolence is doing what works without becoming what we oppose.
Nonviolence is the deliberate refusal to use pain as leverage.
Nonviolence is the insistence that the vulnerable cannot be protected by methods that create new vulnerability.
We acknowledge that immediate defense may be necessary when harm is imminent.
Defense is not vengeance.
Defense is not expansion.
Defense is not permission to humiliate, terrorize, or punish beyond what is required to stop harm.
Aponism treats force, when unavoidable, as a regrettable containment—narrow, accountable, and time-limited.
We do not build identities around violence.
We do not glorify it.
We do not let it become our culture.
We do not allow “emergency” to become a permanent excuse.
Aponism chooses tactics that expose injustice without reproducing it: truth-telling, noncooperation, civil resistance, mutual aid, protective accompaniment, economic pressure, and creative disruption that targets systems rather than bodies.
Aponism insists that the humanity (and the sentience) of others is not a bargaining chip.
Even when we oppose them.
Especially when we oppose them.
ARTICLE II: THE REFUSAL OF DOMINATION
Domination is the practice of making another’s needs subordinate to your will.
Domination is the conversion of beings into tools.
Domination is the creation of hierarchies that must be defended through fear.
Aponism rejects domination in all its forms: personal, political, economic, cultural, and ecological.
We reject domination between humans.
We reject domination of other animals.
We reject domination of ecosystems for short-term gain.
We reject domination disguised as “order,” “civilization,” “discipline,” or “efficiency.”
We reject domination disguised as charity.
We reject domination disguised as righteousness.
Aponism does not ask, “Who deserves power?”
Aponism asks, “How do we reduce the chance that power harms?”
Aponism is not the replacement of one ruling class with another.
Aponism is the reduction of rule itself.
Aponism seeks the maximum freedom compatible with the minimum suffering.
Aponism treats consent as sacred.
Not as paperwork.
Not as a slogan.
As lived reality: real options, real safety, real ability to say no.
ARTICLE III: THE PRIMACY OF THE VULNERABLE
Aponism begins from the vantage point of the vulnerable.
Because vulnerability is where harm concentrates.
Because vulnerability is where institutions reveal their truth.
Because vulnerability is where moral language is tested.
Aponism prioritizes the protection of those who can be hurt most easily: children, the poor, the marginalized, the disabled, the excluded, the nonhuman, the future.
Aponism resists moral arithmetic that writes off a minority for the “greater good.”
We do not accept the logic of collateral damage.
We do not accept the logic of “necessary victims.”
We do not accept the logic that the powerless must pay for the comfort of the powerful.
Aponism is allergic to scapegoating.
It does not solve problems by creating targets.
Aponism will not permit the erasure of any group under the banner of compassion, purity, progress, or sustainability.
ARTICLE IV: LIFE-ERASURE IS FORBIDDEN
Aponism forbids projects that erase populations, cultures, or categories of beings.
Aponism forbids extermination.
Aponism forbids eugenics.
Aponism forbids forced sterilization.
Aponism forbids “mercy” narratives that hide violence behind pity.
Aponism forbids treating death as a policy instrument.
Aponism forbids pressuring self-harm or suicide as a “solution” to social problems.
Aponism holds that suffering is not solved by eliminating sufferers.
Suffering is solved by eliminating the causes of suffering.
We treat every person experiencing despair as someone owed support, safety, and care.
We treat mental distress as a call for solidarity, not a reason for abandonment.
ARTICLE V: TRUTHFULNESS AS AN ETHIC OF LIBERATION
Aponism cannot be built on lies.
We reject propaganda that depends on dehumanization.
We reject manipulation that treats people as puppets.
We reject selective truth that creates hatred.
We reject the temptation to win by becoming dishonest.
Aponism commits to truthful speech as a form of nonviolence.
Truth is not a weapon.
Truth is a shared floor.
We acknowledge uncertainty.
We correct ourselves publicly.
We separate what we know from what we infer.
We cite sources.
We avoid sensationalism.
We do not fake evidence.
We do not misrepresent opponents.
We do not smear individuals when systems are the true targets.
We practice the courage of saying: “I don’t know,” “I was wrong,” “I overstated,” “I need to check.”
Aponism understands that credibility is not a luxury.
It is the bridge between moral claims and real change.
ARTICLE VI: THE END OF EXPLOITATION
Exploitation is domination made profitable.
It is suffering turned into a business model.
It is vulnerability harvested.
Aponism rejects economic systems that require desperation to function.
We reject wages that do not sustain life.
We reject housing markets that manufacture homelessness.
We reject healthcare systems that ration survival.
We reject food systems that create hunger amid abundance.
We reject supply chains that treat labor as expendable.
We reject industries built on confinement, mutilation, terror, and slaughter.
We reject environmental destruction that pushes costs onto the poor, the nonhuman, and the unborn.
Aponism is not satisfied by “ethical consumption” as a substitute for structural change.
Individual choices matter.
But they are not enough.
Aponism organizes for policy, infrastructure, and culture that make compassionate choices normal and accessible.
Aponism seeks transitions that do not abandon workers.
Aponism designs exits from harmful industries with training, guarantees, and community support.
Aponism refuses to trade one group’s suffering for another’s.
ARTICLE VII: SOLIDARITY ACROSS SPECIES
Aponism recognizes that nonhuman animals are not objects.
They are lives with points of view.
They are not commodities.
They are not raw materials.
They are not test platforms.
They are not entertainment devices.
They are not disposable.
Aponism seeks the end of institutionalized animal exploitation.
Not through hatred of humans.
Not through contempt for those trapped in inherited norms.
But through truth, compassion, and replacement.
We build alternatives: plant-based and cultivated foods, non-animal research methods, cruelty-free materials, habitat restoration, and legal recognition of animal interests.
We do not bully people into moral growth.
We do not shame people into change.
We do not intimidate.
We do not dox.
We do not threaten.
We persuade, we support, we organize, and we transform the default.
We are not here to win arguments.
We are here to reduce suffering.
ARTICLE VIII: RESPONSIBILITY TO THE FUTURE
Aponism treats the future as morally real.
Future people and future animals are not abstractions.
They are predictable recipients of our choices.
Aponism therefore rejects policies that mortgage the planet for present luxuries.
We oppose ecological collapse.
We oppose the normalization of mass extinction.
We oppose technologies and economies that externalize harm onto those who cannot vote or resist.
Aponism embraces precaution where irreversible harm is plausible.
Aponism builds resilience: local food systems, renewable energy, public health capacity, disaster preparedness, and community networks that do not abandon the poor.
Aponism makes peace with the truth that not every desire can be satisfied sustainably.
But it refuses the lie that austerity must be imposed by force on the vulnerable while the powerful remain untouched.
ARTICLE IX: REPRODUCTION, CARE, AND NON-COERCION
Aponism insists that reproduction must never be a site of coercion.
No forced births.
No forced abortions.
No state-managed fertility.
No reproductive policy built on racial panic, nationalism, eugenics, or economic anxiety.
Aponism supports comprehensive sex education.
Aponism supports universal access to contraception and healthcare.
Aponism supports bodily autonomy.
Aponism supports parents with resources so children are not punished for existing.
Aponism supports those who choose not to have children, without stigma.
Aponism speaks honestly about suffering.
But it forbids turning that honesty into pressure, shame, or despair.
Aponism does not recruit by hopelessness.
Aponism recruits by compassion and courage.
We do not tell anyone to harm themselves.
We do not romanticize extinction.
We do not treat death as cleanliness.
We build a world where fewer are forced into existence under conditions of violence and deprivation, and where those who are here can live with dignity.
ARTICLE X: THE CRUELTY-PREVENTION PRINCIPLE
When every available option harms someone, Aponism chooses the option that best protects the most vulnerable from the most severe, irreversible harm.
This is not a license to do whatever we want.
It is a constraint.
It is a tie-breaker under moral tragedy.
It demands transparency.
It demands accountability.
It demands that we search harder for alternatives.
It demands that we bear costs ourselves rather than pushing them downward.
It demands that we revisit decisions when conditions change.
Aponism refuses “ends justify means.”
But it also refuses moral paralysis in emergencies.
When harm cannot be eliminated immediately, it must be minimized with humility and ongoing repair.
ARTICLE XI: GOVERNANCE AGAINST CAPTURE
Aponism is not only about what we believe.
It is about how we organize.
Because movements fail when their structures reward the wrong traits.
Aponist organizations must be designed to resist domination from within.
No permanent leaders.
No opaque money.
No unaccountable committees.
No charisma monarchies.
No secret doctrine.
No culture of fear.
Power must rotate.
Decision-making must be participatory.
Records must be accessible.
Finances must be transparent.
Conflicts of interest must be disclosed.
Whistleblowers must be protected.
Grievances must have real processes and real remedies.
Abuse must be addressed quickly, fairly, and publicly enough to prevent repetition.
Aponism does not hide predators to protect reputations.
Aponism does not sacrifice victims to protect “the cause.”
Aponism treats internal justice as part of external justice.
ARTICLE XII: CULTURE AS INFRASTRUCTURE
Aponism builds a culture where care is normal.
Where apology is not humiliation.
Where correction is not exile.
Where disagreement is not treason.
Where accountability is not cruelty.
Where boundaries are honored.
Where consent is practiced, not merely proclaimed.
Where people are allowed to learn.
Where people are expected to change.
Aponism rejects the thrill of moral superiority.
It rejects humiliation rituals.
It rejects the addiction to outrage.
It rejects the dopamine economy of enemies.
Aponism prefers the slower work: organizing, listening, educating, building.
Aponism knows that movements die when they become performative.
Aponism knows that cruelty can be committed with “good politics.”
So we watch ourselves.
We design against our worst incentives.
ARTICLE XIII: THE ETHIC OF MEANS
We do not do harm “for the greater good” if that harm recreates the logic we oppose.
We do not liberate by humiliating.
We do not heal by terrorizing.
We do not protect by scapegoating.
We do not build solidarity by lying.
We do not win compassion through coercion.
Our tactics must prefigure the world we seek.
Not perfectly.
But recognizably.
Aponism is not naïve about conflict.
It is disciplined about what conflict makes of us.
ARTICLE XIV: PRACTICES OF APONIST ACTION
We practice mutual aid, not as charity, but as shared survival.
We build institutions of care: clinics, food programs, shelters, legal defense, community education.
We train for nonviolent resistance and protective intervention.
We pressure systems through boycotts, strikes, divestment, and policy campaigns.
We expose cruelty with documentation that respects truth and dignity.
We create alternatives: co-ops, community land trusts, restorative programs, open technology, and accessible public goods.
We reduce demand for suffering-based products and increase supply of humane replacements.
We support workers trapped in harmful industries and fight for just transitions.
We measure success not by attention, but by reduced harm.
We keep score with reality, not with applause.
ARTICLE XV: RELATION TO OTHER MOVEMENTS
Aponism learns from every tradition that has fought domination: abolition, labor, disability justice, feminist struggles, anti-colonial movements, civil rights, indigenous sovereignty, animal advocacy, peace movements, and ecological defense.
Aponism refuses sectarian purity that fractures solidarity.
But it also refuses compromise that betrays the vulnerable.
We collaborate where goals align.
We negotiate without surrendering our red lines.
We are firm against cruelty and soft toward people.
We criticize systems more than we condemn individuals.
We remember that most people are shaped by constraints they did not design.
We aim to change the constraints.
ARTICLE XVI: A DECLARATION OF RED LINES
No genocide.
No eugenics.
No forced sterilization.
No extermination by policy or neglect.
No weaponizing hunger.
No weaponizing housing.
No weaponizing medicine.
No torture.
No rape.
No trafficking.
No slavery in any form.
No cruelty as entertainment.
No confinement, mutilation, or slaughter normalized as “production.”
No propaganda that demands dehumanization.
No suicide pressure.
No “mercy” that kills the unwanted.
No movement that asks the vulnerable to accept their own erasure.
These are not negotiating positions.
They are moral boundaries.
ARTICLE XVII: A DECLARATION OF BUILDING
We build a society where basic needs are guaranteed.
Where care work is honored and shared.
Where children are protected.
Where elders are supported.
Where disability is accommodated with dignity.
Where difference is not punished.
Where animals are not property.
Where ecosystems are treated as living contexts, not mines.
Where technology serves well-being, not control.
Where prisons are not the default answer to harm.
Where accountability is real and repair is possible.
Where power is limited by design.
Where the poor do not pay the price of the rich.
ARTICLE XVIII: A METHOD FOR MORAL DISAGREEMENT
We accept that good people will disagree.
We accept that values can collide.
So we commit to a method.
We state our assumptions.
We name the affected beings.
We map harms, including hidden harms.
We prioritize the vulnerable.
We choose the least cruel feasible path.
We document reasons.
We invite critique.
We revise when better evidence arrives.
We do not treat doctrine as infallible.
We treat it as living responsibility.
ARTICLE XIX: A WARNING AGAINST MISUSE
Every moral framework can be weaponized.
Aponism anticipates this.
If someone uses Aponism to justify domination, they are contradicting it.
If someone uses Aponism to justify erasure, they are violating it.
If someone uses Aponism to justify intimidation, they are betraying it.
If someone uses Aponism to justify hatred, they are hollowing it out.
If someone uses Aponism to justify despair as recruitment, they are breaking it.
Aponism does not give cover to cruelty.
Not even cruelty performed with “good intentions.”
Especially not cruelty performed with “good intentions.”
ARTICLE XX: THE VOW
We vow to reduce suffering where we can.
We vow to confront domination where it hides.
We vow to tell the truth even when it costs us.
We vow to organize rather than merely complain.
We vow to protect the vulnerable even when it is inconvenient.
We vow to build alternatives, not just critiques.
We vow to keep our means aligned with our ends.
We vow to correct ourselves publicly.
We vow to refuse erasure, always.
We vow to practice courage without cruelty.
We vow to practice compassion without cowardice.
Aponism is not the demand that the world become gentle overnight.
It is the refusal to keep feeding the machine that requires suffering.
It is the decision to stop calling cruelty “normal.”
It is the discipline of choosing care when domination is easier.
It is the architecture of a future where fewer beings are forced to pay for someone else’s comfort.
If you want a world without victims, you must stop building systems that need them.
If you want freedom, you must stop worshiping power.
If you want peace, you must stop making violence your language.
If you want dignity, you must stop treating lives as tools.
So we begin where we are.
We reduce what we can reduce.
We repair what we can repair.
We build what we can build.
We resist what we must resist.
And we do it without becoming the thing we are fighting.
That is Aponism.
That is our refusal.
That is our work.