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CULTURE WATCH

Principles of the Georgia Guidestones, America’s Strangest Monument

Ed Newman
4 min readJul 17, 2020

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Photo credit: Dina Eric. Source: Creative Commons

Are you familiar with the Georgia Guidestones? When someone first mentioned it to me I thought it both interesting and strange.

Located 90 miles East of Atlanta, the monument consists of a set of 10 guidelines inscribed on a stone manmade structure in eight modern languages. At the top there’s also a short message inscribed in four ancient language scripts. Some people are calling it an “American Stonehenge.” The slabs and capstone stand just over 19 feet tall.

The creators of this monument have chosen to remain anonymous and the man who conveyed the instructions to the Eberton Granite Finishing Company 19 miles away used a pseudonym. Obviously it cost a pretty penny to produce and install. Purportedly the group behind this had spent twenty years in planning.

The inscriptions are in the following languages:
English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, and Russian.

The ten commandments inscribed there are as follows:
1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the Earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

A lot of it sounds “nice” but one gets a little concerned about the first two, the first especially. I’m curious how they propose to reduce the earth’s population by seven…

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Ed Newman
Ed Newman

Written by Ed Newman

An avid reader who writes about arts, culture, literature & other life obsessions. @ennyman3 Look for my books on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/y3l9sfpj

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