On the evening of the festival of lights, the town dimmed its streets, and Mara stood on the bridge with her son Levi and counted stars. In the afternoon, a theatre group had performed the regional assembly in the market square, with a cook who asked about everything and a hydraulic engineer who talked too long. Mara had laughed until she cried. Later she went to the house of silence, as on every anniversary of her father’s death, and sat for an hour with nothing.
In a world that is becoming ever faster and more technical, something that lies at the core of being human is in danger of being lost: culture. It is not merely entertainment or decoration. It is the memory and the inner compass of a society, what carries people, tells them who they are and where they come from, and builds bridges between past, present, and future. And it is the place where a society asks the question that no economy and no technology can answer: what all of this is for. SOLIS therefore recognizes culture and meaning as a fundamental dimension, not as a side issue.
Culture as a Living Heritage
Every cultural heritage is considered valuable, whether great or small, global or local. There are no important and unimportant cultures, and no great and small stories. An Indigenous story weighs as much as a classical work, a regional dialect as much as a world language. Cultures may change, grow, and mix, and at the same time they may protect what is sacred to them. A community may decide for itself which of its traditions it shares and which it keeps, instead of leaving them open to access from outside.
So that culture is not left to the market or to chance, there are programmes for preserving, documenting, and caring for it: archives that safeguard languages, stories, and works, support for those who create and pass on culture, and spaces in which cultural knowledge stays alive. A programme that brings younger and older people together so that the older ones can share their stories, songs, and recipes preserves culture not as nostalgia but as a living way of being together. For people need roots in order to find their bearings, and societies need culture in order to create cohesion and resist uprooting. Diversity is not a problem here but a wealth.
Art, Music, and Literature
In many societies today, art has become a luxury good, a market object, or a prestige project. Yet it is far more: the language of the soul, the tool with which a society looks at itself, and the laboratory of new ideas and feelings. It is the link between the individual and the community, between reality and vision. SOLIS therefore makes art, music, and literature a load-bearing pillar.
Artistic creation is promoted, not merely tolerated. The funds support artists in every field, regardless of market value and mass taste, and the experimental and critical in particular receive space. A theatre group working on a play about social inequality is supported because it matters to society, not because it sells. Art is not a spectator sport. Children and adults alike are encouraged to create for themselves, to paint, make music, write, and act, without pressure to perform and without elitist barriers, and older people contribute their stories, from which the young learn.
Art is judged not by its market value but by its expressive power, its sincerity, and its social impulse. Street art, digital art, and traditional forms are taken equally seriously, and whoever takes up social or ecological questions finds particular support. A young person seeking their expression in graffiti therefore receives not just a criminal complaint but walls, workshops, and guidance to make something of their energy. For art gives the individual a voice and works for society like an immune system. It senses where something is sick, makes visible what lies beneath the surface, and builds bridges where words fail.
Spirituality and Philosophy
In many modern societies, the search for meaning is considered a private matter, religion something that does not belong in the public space, and philosophy the concern of a few specialists. But human beings need more than food, housing, and technology. They need meaning, depth, and a relation to the whole, and they need spaces in which to ask the great questions: who they are, what life means, and what we owe one another. SOLIS recognizes this dimension as fundamental and makes it part of the social order. Every form of spirituality is respected as long as it does not harm others. Religion, unbelief, and every form of the search for meaning stand side by side with equal rights. No one is forced to believe anything, and no one may impose their faith on others. A believing woman can practise her rituals as freely as a monk meditates or a thinker argues in philosophical conversation, and the protection of this freedom ends only where discrimination or coercion begins. For this there are public spaces of silence and reflection open to all: a house of silence where people go to pray, meditate, reflect, or be alone, whichever tradition they follow. And there are shared festivals and days of remembrance that are bound to no religion and celebrate humanity.
Philosophy, finally, is not a project for elites but a tool for everyone. Children learn early to think about the good life, about justice, and about happiness. Adults find spaces for asking questions together, where it is not about the one right answer but about thinking itself: evenings on which people from all walks of life talk about love, death, responsibility, courage, and failure. A society that allows such questions is more resilient and more compassionate, because it meets the uncertainty of existence not with distraction but with depth. This connects directly with the maturity that the chapter on education establishes. Meaning cannot be decreed, only found, and an order that takes this seriously invites reflection instead of steering it.
Rituals and Shared Experiences
In the modern world, much has become functional, work, consumption, even leisure, and there is often no room for what is experienced together, for moments that step out of the stream of everyday life. SOLIS sees in this a basic human need. Rituals are not merely folklore or religious tradition. They are bridges: between people and generations, between humans and nature, between the individual and the community.
In SOLIS, rituals are not prescribed but allowed to develop. They arise from people’s needs and experiences and may change and reinvent themselves. There is room for traditional forms as well as for new ones, for instance ecological or artistic ones. A town develops a festival together with its citizens in which art, music, nature, and community come together, not as an attraction for visitors but as an expression of a living identity. At a festival of lights, whole towns dim their lighting, and people stand together under the stars. Such rituals can be religious or cultural, social or ecological, and they create moments of pause, connection, and meaning.
In a world that is often restless and fragmented, they are the moments that remind us that we belong together and share something greater. They are not merely a programme but lived meaning, and they strengthen the community because they show that it is more than the sum of its parts. For this to succeed, communities receive the means to cultivate and develop their own rituals, and participation remains open to all, regardless of origin, faith, or position.
Meaning and Personal Fulfilment
In many modern societies, work is considered a means of earning money, success is equated with career and possessions, and relationships are a private matter. A decisive question remains unanswered: why we do what we do, and what truly fulfils us. SOLIS places this question at the centre, because a good society is not only efficient and prosperous. It is a space in which people can find meaning, not prescribed and not uniform, but personal and alive. In SOLIS it is natural that people may ask themselves what matters to them, where they want to make a difference, and how they can be part of something greater without losing themselves. Children are encouraged to be curious and to try things out. Young people are accompanied in discovering their vocation, not only according to income but according to passion and contribution. Adults have the right to change direction when their path no longer fits, so that an engineer who longs for social work can retrain without fear of losing status. Life is not divided into useful and superfluous areas. Work should not only function but make sense, and a contribution such as voluntary work with children is valued and recognized as a contribution even if it produces nothing.
To this end there are offers that help people find their own trail of meaning: counselling, mentoring, and spaces for reflection, communities that support people through transitions, and an education that includes not only specialist knowledge but the development of personality. This is more than a soft concern. A person without meaning becomes inwardly empty and alienated, and a society full of alienated people is sick, however brightly its façade may shine. Every person has a right to a life worth living: not only to survive, but to live.
Joy in Life and Humour
An order that takes being human seriously must also take laughter seriously. Laughter heals. It breaks rigid patterns, opens hearts, and creates community, and a society that can laugh at itself is vaccinated against the fanaticism that threatens every great idea. SOLIS therefore recognizes humour and joy in life as a resource, not as a distraction. Festivals, play, music, sport, and rest are not breaks from real life but part of it, and rest is not a luxury but a foundation of health. The rituals of this order allow irony and self-criticism, its art may mock, and its office holders must put up with being caricatured. A design that could no longer be smiled at would have ceased to be a design and become a dogma. That is exactly what SOLIS never wants to be.
Global Cultural Exchange
The present knows two opposing movements. On the one hand, cultural interconnection is growing. On the other, fears of appropriation, loss of identity, and being overrun by the foreign are growing. This gives rise to insecurity and mistrust, and lively exchange is often replaced by retreat and reproach. SOLIS takes a different path and understands global cultural exchange not as superficial decoration but as a necessity in a closely interwoven world.
Exchange is therefore deliberately fostered: through partnerships between schools and cultural centres, through cooperation between artists across borders, and through festivals and platforms that connect not only elites but also local initiatives. A music festival does not merely put people from different continents on stage one after another but lets them create something together that no one could have invented alone. The question of cultural appropriation is neither condemned wholesale nor ignored recklessly, but handled with awareness and conversation: where does a form come from, what does it mean, and who has access to it? Marginalized groups can protect their forms of expression, and cultures may share what they want to share and draw limits where they wish. Whoever wants to work with the patterns of a community therefore enters into an exchange with it instead of merely copying it.
Thus diversity is understood as a treasure and not as a threat. People discover new perspectives and forms of expression, which broadens horizons and strengthens compassion. Societies that live exchange are more resilient and more creative, and in a connected world the great challenges can only be met together. Instead of entrenching themselves behind walls, people come together in open squares and let art, music, and ideas flow, as a shared treasury of humanity.
Freedom of Culture and Flexible Identity
Culture gives meaning, creates identity, and connects generations. But it can also divide when it is captured, and serve propaganda when it submits to power or the market. In many of today’s systems, it becomes either a commodity or a tool of ideologies and loses its free, connecting character along the way. SOLIS understands culture as free, diverse, and at the same time carried by the community. Art, language, religion, and tradition can be freely chosen, no one is forced to give up their cultural identity, and culture may be critical and question authorities, including the order itself, in keeping with the maturity that the chapter on education establishes. An artist may therefore create political art without fearing censorship or commercial pressure, and a community may cultivate its traditions as long as it respects the immovable threshold of fundamental rights. So that culture belongs to everyone and not to a few, it remains a common good. Museums, libraries, theatres, and digital archives are open, education carries diversity forward, and cultural creation is supported by the funds instead of by market pressure, so that a young musician finds support without becoming dependent on commercial structures.
Identity, finally, is multidimensional and flexible in SOLIS, not one-dimensional and decreed. A person can understand themselves at the same time as part of their region, their profession, and the world, without these levels coming into conflict, and identity may grow instead of being fixed from above. Thus culture becomes a bridge that creates trust and shared values, makes dialogue between generations and groups possible, and gives orientation especially in times of change. Diversity is a strength here, as long as it is not artificially misused to divide. Culture is free and not for sale, and identity grows and is not decreed.