Peace Love Unity Respect, commonly shortened to PLUR, is a set of principles that is associated with

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

culture, originating in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It has been commonly used since the early 1990s when it became commonplace in

nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...

and rave flyers and especially on club paraphernalia advertising underground outdoor

trance music Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from Electronic body music, EBM in Frankfurt, Germany, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and quickly spread throughout Europe. Trance music is typically characterized by a tempo between ...

parties. It has since expanded to the larger rave dance music culture as well.

PLUR and rave culture

PLUR can be interpreted as the essential

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

of life and

ethical Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied e ...

guideline for ravers and clubbers, at least insomuch as it relates to interpersonal relationships, with basic directions on how people are expected to behave at a rave gathering or in a dance club. This universalist philosophy underpinning the tribal dance culture which began circling the globe with the rise of the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

, theoretically takes precedence over any chemical or musical aspects of the rave scene. Raves represent a modern

ritual A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...

istic experience, promoting a strong communal sense, where PLUR is considered an

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

. The four terms, among others – "Peace, Love, Freedom, Tolerance, Unity, Harmony, Expression, Responsibility and Respect" – are also part of the anonymous "Raver's Manifesto" (claimed to be written by Maria Pike in 2001) which has widely been spread among the international rave subculture. The PLUR handshake is used in kandi bracelet trading.

Elements

Peace Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence, and everything that discusses achieving human welfare through justice and peaceful conditions. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (suc ...

– The gentle resolution of negative emotions and conflict. *

Love Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...

– Performing acts and sharing feelings of goodwill towards others. The exchange of gestures such as hugging occurs frequently at a rave, and is considered a way of "spreading the love." * Unity – Welcoming others into the community, and coming together regardless of personal differences. *

Respect Respect, also called esteem, is a positive feeling or deferential action shown towards someone or something considered important or held in high esteem or regard. It conveys a sense of admiration for good or valuable qualities. It is also th ...

– Showing sensitivity for the feelings of others, and accepting one another with tolerance and without judgement. Treating each other as one would like to be treated.

Origins

PLUR is an aggregation of ideas that were part of the earlier

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

and

peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pe ...

("peace", "love") and

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

and

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

culture ("respect"). Specific use of the term dates to the early 1990s

scene. One of the most influential uses of the term was made by DJ Frankie Bones in June 1993. In response to a fight in the audience of one of his Storm Raves in Brooklyn, Bones took the microphone and proclaimed: "If you don't start showing some peace, love, and unity, I'll break your faces." It is also reported that as early as "on July 4, 1990, ..Frankie's brother and Storm Rave collaborator Adam X painted 'Peace Love Unity' on a train car". The fourth term, "Respect" was championed by Laura La Gassa (wife of

Brian Behlendorf Brian Behlendorf (born March 30, 1973) is an American technologist, executive, computer programmer and leading figure in the open-source software movement. He was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software ...

Variations

Another variation is PLURR - Peace. Love. Unity. Respect. Responsibility. Several other variations on the same four words, but in a different order (e.g. LURP), have been proposed. However, none of these are commonly used. Another variation is PLUM, with "M" standing for "movement". Also, the first three elements, "Peace, Love, Unity" are used separately. An example for this is the title of DJ Hype's 1996 track "Peace, Love & Unity".DJ Hype: "Peace, Love & Unity" (1996) on Discogs
/ref> Later incarnations and variations of PLUR can be seen in the adoption of

Pronoia The ''pronoia'' (plural ''pronoiai''; Greek: πρόνοια, meaning "care", "forethought" or "providence," from πρό, "before," and νόος, "mind") was a system of granting dedicated streams of state income to individuals and institutions i ...

and also

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

, with PLUR and Pronoia often being interchangeable terms, depending upon one's company.

References

External links

''PLUR''
acronym definitions {{DEFAULTSORT:Plur Peace in culture Love Rave Electronic dance music Etiquette Acronyms sl:PLUR