Obviously, there is no way to reduce the ideas of unism to a number of abstract formulas. Depending on the applications and cultural conditions, different aspects of unism can become of primary importance, driving the rest into the background. The enumeration below is nothing but a summary of my recent discussions with the promoters of other ideologies; most probably, the future will find it trivial and self-evident, shifting the public attention away to more intricate questions. Somebody will suggest better formulations; the others will revise my approach and methodology... It's all right with me, I intend that.

Today, on the early stage of development, unism yet has to distinguish itself from the other cultural trends. That is why its principles mainly take negative form, describing rather what in the other ideologies is not compatible with unism than the characteristic features of unism itself. With time, positive formulations will accumulate, forming a specific language that may be far from what I can imagine now.

Coherence and Consistency

The first and foremost principle of unism comes from its very idea of universal integrity. Any activity (and any discussion in particular) must be an integral whole, and a part of whole. Following unism means being consistent in one's deeds and attitudes throughout one's life. In unism, thought is never separated from action, and practical needs are always coordinated with one's views and convictions.

This also implies the necessity of development and self-correction. However, the present is not separated from the past, and the future grows from what we do today. The integrity of life is maintained in the temporal dimension as well. One should not simply dismiss one's errors; one must explain them and learn from them. No shame, no repentance, nothing to forgive.

In reflection, all the possible forms are equally acceptable within unism. One does not need to be always strict and formal; vague contemplation, scattered thoughts and random attempts will necessarily complement methodical treatment. However, unism does not accept doing anything just for nothing, it demands that any freaky fad at least serve personal development, thus becoming a part of social development, and the development of the world in general.

Productivity

According to unism, conscious beings re-create the world following their needs. Nature thus becomes culture, the second nature, something made rather than self-existing. This universal creativity restores the integrity of the world, uniting its different parts or aspects.

In other words, if something goes wrong, one is to make it better, rather than merely adapt to it. Everybody has the right to call anything in question, examine it and suggest the ways to improve it. However, this improvement must always follow from the idea of the whole, it must be objectively justified. No something just for nothing.

Any communication between the conscious beings is mediated by their products. That is, people never get in touch directly; they rather change their cultural environment in a way that can influence the behavior of another person in a socially significant way. On the highest level, the reason in general (the spirit) develops through reproducing the whole world, as well as the world reproduces itself in the universal way through consciousness. To behave as a conscious being, one must at least be productive; however, to become truly universal, the product must be intended to mediate the development of the world.

Hierarchical Approach

It is important to observe that anything special can only exist in respect to something more general. Consequently, the context of an activity is as important for its characterization as its inner organization. This implies that any idea must also entail the aspects of applicability, and any act can only be judged within its historical and cultural context.

At any moment, the world can be represented with a hierarchy imposing a definite order on the material and ideal aspects of the world's self-reproduction. There are always lower and higher levels of hierarchy. However, there is no absolute superiority. Any order can only exist in a certain respect, while an opposite order is possible in another respect, or at another moment.

Unism is incompatible with any dogmas. Any statement can only be valid in a definite cultural context, there no eternal laws or indubitable truths. Any views can be critically assessed and revised, regardless of any authority. There are no absolutely true ways of thought and ways of life.

Developing Convictions

Due to its anti-dogmatic nature, unism rejects any religion, or any other system of beliefs, which are considered as a sign of ignorance. One may, when entering a new area of experience, temporarily accept some ideas without prior examination, trust them for the time being, just to have something to start with. However, such preliminary assumptions and working hypotheses have nothing in common with beliefs. The difference is in the critical attitude inherent in true spirituality, the demand of validating any idea in the specific historical context. When one's suppositions are supported by practical activity and social experience, they take the form of convictions, which do not require any verification until the cultural conditions develop beyond the limit of their validity. Convictions will then be subject to revision; however, this does not mean mere replacement of one idea with another. New convictions grow from the earlier convictions, they must belong to the same hierarchy, being the different aspects of the whole.

Religious belief is a primitive form of conviction. To overcome this primitivism one cannot merely declare that all religions are wrong and misleading; religion must be explained and evaluated in its historical development, to understand its place in the hierarchy of reflection and thus prevent its destructive penetration to more universal forms.

Freedom

In the under-developed society, where people have to sale their products to support their existence, the overall mentality of the society is turned to commodity production rather than creative universality. This leaves its imprint on the products, restricting their ability to mediate the development of the world as a whole. In particular, one's ideas often get censored by the considerations of the possible economic outcome. The market value of the product overweighs its cultural value.

Nevertheless, it is important to oppose the non-commercial aspects of any activity to its class nature and economic limitations. Unism holds that, even in the strained circumstances, one can learn to observe the universality of one's actions, thus putting them beyond social and economic censorship. Thus one becomes free and promotes freedom.

Though freedom can take many individual forms, it always makes an individual representative of the reason on the universal scale; freedom feels like being equal to the whole world.