I have found most of Nate Hagens' interviews helpful. In one, a psychology guy is asked about oxytocin, testosterone and dopamine. He says oxytocin DOES spur nurturing, caring feelings--but only toward those we see as "us." Testosterone does spur aggression, but only against those we see as "them." What this suggests to me is that tribalism, Us versus Them thinking, is hardwired. And I can see a Darwinian reason why: for most of our history as a species (if not all of it) human survival depended upon the group. Tribes could thrive, individuals alone would likely die.. But early groups lived cheek-to-jowl--there would inevitably be tensions, rivalries, grudges...yet rivals had to go on hunts together, raise each other's orphaned children. I can see where it would be a great relief for these frustrated feelings, to have an outside group to cast these hostilities upon--scapegoats.
Yet we can rise above this proclivity, and this is the essence of wisdom--having a longer view. We are in the place we are, I think for two reasons. One is that wisdom and power are at opposite poles--those attracted to power are the least wise. The least wise of all are sociopaths, and these are the people who rule the world today. In the deep past, in tribes, they could not take power because the whole tribe knew who and what they were--sociopaths learn how to mimic psych-normal empathy and compassion, but they don't get good at it until adulthood. In modern, complex societies, anonymity allows a sociopath bent on power and wealth to hide what s/he is from the people around who must be manipulated and climbed over.
The other reason is sociopathic CULTURES. Agriculture allowed sedentary life, which allowed population growth, and grain storage, which led to armies and guards and hierarchy and patriarchy. The nub of the human predicament is that when an aggressive, expansionary group wants to take land from a peaceable, egalitarian group, it makes war on the latter and nearly always wins. Eventually it needs yet more land, and makes war on another neighbor. To this day, humanity has not found a solution to the problem--a culture based on domination--of women by men, of children by adults, of dark-skinned people by palefaces, of everyone else by humans, above all--has taken over nearly the entire world. Thus the ridiculous idea that war is normal, that a reasonable way to solve a conflict between two groups is to have the young men of the two groups kills each other until one can't stand it anymore (modified in recent decades by having them mostly kill civilians instead).
It's interesting that when Europeans came to "the New World" and encountered tribal peoples, whose cultures embodied great wisdom,, they rarely saw that wisdom--typically for humans, they saw each way the Others differed from their own as weird, wrong, perverse, inferior.. But when whites were kidnapped by Natives, and spent some time with them, they often refused to go back to the white when they had the opportunity, whereas captured "Indians" went home at the first opportunity--something Benjamin Franklin remarked on. I figure it's because it takes time to overcome cultural conditioning. Time that allowed white to see the good side of Native culture, while the Natives had already seen the whites' technological mastery and were not impressed with their lifestyles or culture.
Thank you, Mary, for your thoughtful response. This deepens what I mention when I say it is an evolutionary challenge rooted in our species’ development. The wisdom traditions I quote, and which are reflected in the graphic, come from what is known as the Axial Age, roughly 2,500-3,000 years ago, after which civilization had developed and the phenomena you note had fully manifested. I think these traditions developed to address the evolutionary challenge about how to move past the negative aspects of our being, to take us to a higher level where we indeed do unto others as we would have them do to us. The unique aspect of our time, in this long development of the human species, is our capacity to destroy ourselves if we don’t find a way to transcend the will to power and domination through the wisdom of compassion. If we don’t, as I say and for reasons you elaborate, we are at an evolutionary dead end. That is the test we face.
I'm in basic agreement, however I would point out that it is not just "ourselves" we put at risk of harm or extinction, but all of the other species we share this planet with. That much is obvious, but I've noticed that in almost all of the media when existential risks are discussed it is the human animal which gets mentioned as of crucial (often exclusive!) importance. Usually exclusive, actually. It's pathetic! We are but one species, and we're wrecking the biosphere for all of the rest.
Yes. Why I refer to Crazy Horse’s calling out “all living things” at the end. Our species is already an extinction event. Maybe nothing like us since the bacteria that turned Earth into an oxygenated environment. Hope we can find the wisdom to which Crazy Horse referred, and restore the circle of life. Rejoin it as human beings. Maybe it will be when we realize the threat to our own survival that we realize the threat to the whole.
And the thing is--we face an existential risk not only from potential nuclear war, but from climate change and other environmental hazards like plastic pollution, endocrine disruptors and likely things we aren't yet aware of as chemical manufacturers have a right to put anything profitable into the environment unless someone absolutely proves it's harmful. Then add in the risks of AI, of monkeying with biotechnology. And the burgeoning global police state, making it harder for activists to have any effect. I think there is now no chance we can effect a reasoned, policy-based change, an evolution or a revolution; our best chance now lies in imminent collapse because that's the one thing that will break the sociopaths' hold on power, and stop the reckless experimentation with technologies that could bring monumental threats. In the wake of collapse, we'd likely see large numbers of human deaths, perhaps billions--but this is likely now unavoidable. I expect each locality would evolve its own governance structure, highly varied. My hope is that a religion would arise based on a determination that "nothing like this must ever happen again." I think there is evidence that early humans wiped out the megafauna in the Americas and Australia and Eurasia, because their secret weapons of upright stance and opposable thumbs, combined with language and big brains, outweighed the disadvantage of nakedness, weakness and slow running. We'd become an apex predator and we gloried in it, until there were no more big meat animals and we realized our folly and instituted religious practices, scruples, ways of seeing the world that involved respect for other life, not taking more than needed, not wasting--and those scruples lasted thousands of years, right up until the tall ships arrived, carrying people who carried no such wisdom but lots of fancy metal tools and weapons and a heavily distorted religion twisted to justify violence and theft. So I see this as evidence that a lasting religious pattern could be protective in the future--if we can somehow overcome the problem that those willing to use violence to win, usually do.
There is a story about Thomas Midgley, the GM scientist who gave us those wonders, leaded gasoline and CFCs. He considered using bromine instead of chlorine for the latter. We are fortunate he chose chlorine, because bromine would have eradicated the ozone hole before we knew what was happening. With 10s of thousands of new chemicals being introduced each year, the odds one will be Vonnegut’s ice nine are not bad. I think the folly of our age is seeking power for power’s sake, rather than for reasonable uses. So the pursuers of power unleash all kinds of demons. We have mythologies and stories for this. Opening Pandora’s box. The genie who will give you your wishes, with a twist. The sorcerer’s apprentice whose magic escapes him. And Shelley’s modern tale of Frankenstein’s monster. If we get through this without being consumed by our powers, it will be a miracle. I hope you are wrong about collapse, but I often muse on how power systems have grown so impenetrable that maybe nothing but collapse can stop this juggernaut. Then, as I have written, our time will be a cautionary tale told around the campfires of the future telling people how not to live. I do think the problem started before the tall ships though. They announced the coming of the western empire, the culmination of a process that began probably with the Bronze Age, when metals gave ruling classes disproportionate military power. See my series on Fabian Scheidler’s “Megamachine” I did some time back. It traces the process from that time through the modern day.
Perhaps you didn't understand a piece of what I said. I meant in places where tribes still lived, the wise religious proscriptions were maintained--for the most part--until the tall ships brought the culture of domination, embodied by white people. There were places, even in the Americas, with slavery and human sacrifice. But those were places with settled people, rich places. Yes the problem of the culture of domination goes back several thousand years. Some talk like the problem is capitalism, but this greatly antedates capitalism. Corporations, fossil fuels and capitalism all put the fuel to the destructive fires, but those fires were already burning.
Power with is the aspect of power we humans have least developed. And it is the basis of evolutionary survival as participants in one Earth community. Imagine if we supported in each other the core aspects of power:
*capacity to self define
*access to resources (including basics like clean air( spiritus), water, food, safe enough space for the vulnerable ..not just inedible money)
*participation in decisions affecting day to day lives
having those for ourselves can be matched by the power to ensure these for others.
Yes. As Kropotkin pointed out, mutual aid is the foundation of evolution. We need to take care of each other, support each other. That is the way to long-term survival.
"We are going through dark times that indeed try the soul, but if we can see our way through our isms to our commonality, to that light in our eyes where the whole universe dwells, we can restore the circle of life."
I remember when I was in my early twenties I would sometimes see the light in the eyes of others, the light where the whole universe dwells, and I would find it very difficult to pretend that it wasn't happening, that it wasn't overwhelming and potent to the utmost. I felt I had to pretend in this way because no one around me ever spoke of the light in the eyes where the whole universe dwells. It was never mentioned, and I suspected most folks could not see and feel this "light". I didn't want to stand out as strange, weird, "other". So I kept the extraordinary potency of looking into another's eyes with this knowledge to myself.
It was easier to be bowled over by a butterfly or a honey bee. Because there was no risk of ostracism in having a fire in my heart with these.
Anyway, nothing can be more ordinary than to be blown away by the light in ANYONE's eyes. And nothing could be more extraordinary. That's the thing about seeing the light. It's both ordinary and extraordinary to the nth degree.
But it's not so easy for me to see plainly and directly anymore. My heart having been so badly broken by this world. It requires an almost absolute kind of tenderness to be dazzled so by the ordinary.
Oh, James! I feel for you. Been through my own hard bumps, to where the tragedies of this world, the inadequacies of our so-called “society,” and the illness of the collective unconscious weigh upon me on a daily basis. I can only say as I get older, in my 70s now, vistas seem to open up which transcend all that. Being present and aware is all I can offer.
This I know... being dazzled by the light in another's eyes is both ordinary and extraordinary... and heart-breaking if one believes our time is all we have got, a pinnacle not a turning point. Patrick's piece is superb. What I would add is that seeing one Earth community as the antidote to collapsing tribal and fundamentalist systems, is becoming a more shared worldview. We hundred and one monkeys are making a difference.
In the West of Ireland, in Loc Ine, there are rapids that reverse direction with the tides..four times every day. For a period each time, the waters and the long seagrass within them appear motionless. It is only by paying attention that one sees how slowly the grasses turn until the suddenly the whole flow is reversed.
"In terms of having a basic worldview, nature teaches us complexity and wholeness. It educates us about the inability of our minds to fit everything into a singular rigid framework, but instead to see life as a whole embodying dynamic complexity and interplay of opposites. A mind tuned to nature does not lend itself to narrow rigidity, but fluidity."
Nicely said! Did you mean to say "shared worldview"?
The sacredness of the natural world is my religion. Nature is my teacher.
“Basic worldview” is another way of saying you have fundamental beliefs that guide your actions. It may be shared or not. I share with you nature as a teacher.
I think this is the reality that so many ordinary people live. We know we have our differences, but want to be good neighbours. I'd like to see more of this geopolitically. It's really the only civilized path to take, and what we have isn't working. The horrors of what's going on in Gaza show this all too clearly.
The only thing I would question is where you say "When it is perceived that resources are limited, such as the limited land and water of Palestine-Israel, the question is who gets kicked off the bus." "Palestine-Israel" is not a singular entity when considering limited water or other life-sustaining reaources. Land, yes, for each, but land is developed for one, not the other. My point is that there is austerity for one, not for the other, and that's been ongoing for decades. Only one officially gets kicked off the bus, despite the backlash inflicted on the other. In the broader sense, austerity is manufactured by global energy, finance, and weapons, etc. Climate change makes it all worse and I believe that course is now being accelerated purposefully to increase the conundrum of austerity, greed, othering, and ever more investment in munitions. I could go on and so could you. I know you'll agree there are other isms to be considered such as the extremes of capitalism which tend toward either fascist flavor (meaning owned by giant financial interests whether or not backed up with militarism) or communist flavor (same, just with a pretense of providing for the public - think China) - both of which at their best keep the bulk of the population under control with just enough to be complacent and compliant. Neither of which allow for any public citizens to make any transformative difference in society beyond neighborly altruism - spiritually helpful to the individual but not enough to curb the wholesale suffering and slaughter.
No dispute that one party, the less powerful, is getting kicked off the bus. There is austerity for one and not the other. Water resources are short, and Israel disproportionately takes them. It is to be noted Israel had its own extremes of wealth and poverty, a higher per capita number of billionaires than the U.S. and a large poor class. An equitable economic system could use the resources for the benefit of all, including Palestinians and Israelis. But not the capitalist system that prevails there.
Israel is one of the most unequal high-income countries. The bottom 50% of the population earn on average €PPP11,200 or NIS 57,900, while the top 10% earn 19 times more (€PPP211,900, NIS 1,096,300). Thus, inequality levels are similar to those in the US, with the bottom 50% of the population earning 13% of total national income, while the top 10% share is 49%."
Explaining the historical context, the report said, "Overall, income inequality has remained at a very high level in Israel over the past 30 years. Liberalization reforms of the mid-1980s and 1990s led to a marked increase. While inequalities have slightly decreased since 2012, they remain at a very high level, in the context of a highly segregated society."
Israelis are consistently getting poorer. Despite the economy which grew in 2021, the gap between the rich and poor also grew wider and more people entered the cycle of poverty, a cycle that is a struggle to break.
According to the Israeli National Insurance Institute’s 2021 report on poverty and social gaps in the country, almost 2 million Israelis live in poverty, a little over 20% of the population. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development points to Israel as one of the countries with the highest economic disparity, with the rate of working poor in Israel also very high.
(These factors could help explain why turning anger on an external enemy is so attractive for the Israeli ruling class. Gets back to how a sense of resource scarcity propels tribalism.)
I have found most of Nate Hagens' interviews helpful. In one, a psychology guy is asked about oxytocin, testosterone and dopamine. He says oxytocin DOES spur nurturing, caring feelings--but only toward those we see as "us." Testosterone does spur aggression, but only against those we see as "them." What this suggests to me is that tribalism, Us versus Them thinking, is hardwired. And I can see a Darwinian reason why: for most of our history as a species (if not all of it) human survival depended upon the group. Tribes could thrive, individuals alone would likely die.. But early groups lived cheek-to-jowl--there would inevitably be tensions, rivalries, grudges...yet rivals had to go on hunts together, raise each other's orphaned children. I can see where it would be a great relief for these frustrated feelings, to have an outside group to cast these hostilities upon--scapegoats.
Yet we can rise above this proclivity, and this is the essence of wisdom--having a longer view. We are in the place we are, I think for two reasons. One is that wisdom and power are at opposite poles--those attracted to power are the least wise. The least wise of all are sociopaths, and these are the people who rule the world today. In the deep past, in tribes, they could not take power because the whole tribe knew who and what they were--sociopaths learn how to mimic psych-normal empathy and compassion, but they don't get good at it until adulthood. In modern, complex societies, anonymity allows a sociopath bent on power and wealth to hide what s/he is from the people around who must be manipulated and climbed over.
The other reason is sociopathic CULTURES. Agriculture allowed sedentary life, which allowed population growth, and grain storage, which led to armies and guards and hierarchy and patriarchy. The nub of the human predicament is that when an aggressive, expansionary group wants to take land from a peaceable, egalitarian group, it makes war on the latter and nearly always wins. Eventually it needs yet more land, and makes war on another neighbor. To this day, humanity has not found a solution to the problem--a culture based on domination--of women by men, of children by adults, of dark-skinned people by palefaces, of everyone else by humans, above all--has taken over nearly the entire world. Thus the ridiculous idea that war is normal, that a reasonable way to solve a conflict between two groups is to have the young men of the two groups kills each other until one can't stand it anymore (modified in recent decades by having them mostly kill civilians instead).
It's interesting that when Europeans came to "the New World" and encountered tribal peoples, whose cultures embodied great wisdom,, they rarely saw that wisdom--typically for humans, they saw each way the Others differed from their own as weird, wrong, perverse, inferior.. But when whites were kidnapped by Natives, and spent some time with them, they often refused to go back to the white when they had the opportunity, whereas captured "Indians" went home at the first opportunity--something Benjamin Franklin remarked on. I figure it's because it takes time to overcome cultural conditioning. Time that allowed white to see the good side of Native culture, while the Natives had already seen the whites' technological mastery and were not impressed with their lifestyles or culture.
Thank you, Mary, for your thoughtful response. This deepens what I mention when I say it is an evolutionary challenge rooted in our species’ development. The wisdom traditions I quote, and which are reflected in the graphic, come from what is known as the Axial Age, roughly 2,500-3,000 years ago, after which civilization had developed and the phenomena you note had fully manifested. I think these traditions developed to address the evolutionary challenge about how to move past the negative aspects of our being, to take us to a higher level where we indeed do unto others as we would have them do to us. The unique aspect of our time, in this long development of the human species, is our capacity to destroy ourselves if we don’t find a way to transcend the will to power and domination through the wisdom of compassion. If we don’t, as I say and for reasons you elaborate, we are at an evolutionary dead end. That is the test we face.
I'm in basic agreement, however I would point out that it is not just "ourselves" we put at risk of harm or extinction, but all of the other species we share this planet with. That much is obvious, but I've noticed that in almost all of the media when existential risks are discussed it is the human animal which gets mentioned as of crucial (often exclusive!) importance. Usually exclusive, actually. It's pathetic! We are but one species, and we're wrecking the biosphere for all of the rest.
Yes. Why I refer to Crazy Horse’s calling out “all living things” at the end. Our species is already an extinction event. Maybe nothing like us since the bacteria that turned Earth into an oxygenated environment. Hope we can find the wisdom to which Crazy Horse referred, and restore the circle of life. Rejoin it as human beings. Maybe it will be when we realize the threat to our own survival that we realize the threat to the whole.
And the thing is--we face an existential risk not only from potential nuclear war, but from climate change and other environmental hazards like plastic pollution, endocrine disruptors and likely things we aren't yet aware of as chemical manufacturers have a right to put anything profitable into the environment unless someone absolutely proves it's harmful. Then add in the risks of AI, of monkeying with biotechnology. And the burgeoning global police state, making it harder for activists to have any effect. I think there is now no chance we can effect a reasoned, policy-based change, an evolution or a revolution; our best chance now lies in imminent collapse because that's the one thing that will break the sociopaths' hold on power, and stop the reckless experimentation with technologies that could bring monumental threats. In the wake of collapse, we'd likely see large numbers of human deaths, perhaps billions--but this is likely now unavoidable. I expect each locality would evolve its own governance structure, highly varied. My hope is that a religion would arise based on a determination that "nothing like this must ever happen again." I think there is evidence that early humans wiped out the megafauna in the Americas and Australia and Eurasia, because their secret weapons of upright stance and opposable thumbs, combined with language and big brains, outweighed the disadvantage of nakedness, weakness and slow running. We'd become an apex predator and we gloried in it, until there were no more big meat animals and we realized our folly and instituted religious practices, scruples, ways of seeing the world that involved respect for other life, not taking more than needed, not wasting--and those scruples lasted thousands of years, right up until the tall ships arrived, carrying people who carried no such wisdom but lots of fancy metal tools and weapons and a heavily distorted religion twisted to justify violence and theft. So I see this as evidence that a lasting religious pattern could be protective in the future--if we can somehow overcome the problem that those willing to use violence to win, usually do.
There is a story about Thomas Midgley, the GM scientist who gave us those wonders, leaded gasoline and CFCs. He considered using bromine instead of chlorine for the latter. We are fortunate he chose chlorine, because bromine would have eradicated the ozone hole before we knew what was happening. With 10s of thousands of new chemicals being introduced each year, the odds one will be Vonnegut’s ice nine are not bad. I think the folly of our age is seeking power for power’s sake, rather than for reasonable uses. So the pursuers of power unleash all kinds of demons. We have mythologies and stories for this. Opening Pandora’s box. The genie who will give you your wishes, with a twist. The sorcerer’s apprentice whose magic escapes him. And Shelley’s modern tale of Frankenstein’s monster. If we get through this without being consumed by our powers, it will be a miracle. I hope you are wrong about collapse, but I often muse on how power systems have grown so impenetrable that maybe nothing but collapse can stop this juggernaut. Then, as I have written, our time will be a cautionary tale told around the campfires of the future telling people how not to live. I do think the problem started before the tall ships though. They announced the coming of the western empire, the culmination of a process that began probably with the Bronze Age, when metals gave ruling classes disproportionate military power. See my series on Fabian Scheidler’s “Megamachine” I did some time back. It traces the process from that time through the modern day.
Perhaps you didn't understand a piece of what I said. I meant in places where tribes still lived, the wise religious proscriptions were maintained--for the most part--until the tall ships brought the culture of domination, embodied by white people. There were places, even in the Americas, with slavery and human sacrifice. But those were places with settled people, rich places. Yes the problem of the culture of domination goes back several thousand years. Some talk like the problem is capitalism, but this greatly antedates capitalism. Corporations, fossil fuels and capitalism all put the fuel to the destructive fires, but those fires were already burning.
Power with is the aspect of power we humans have least developed. And it is the basis of evolutionary survival as participants in one Earth community. Imagine if we supported in each other the core aspects of power:
*capacity to self define
*access to resources (including basics like clean air( spiritus), water, food, safe enough space for the vulnerable ..not just inedible money)
*participation in decisions affecting day to day lives
having those for ourselves can be matched by the power to ensure these for others.
Yes. As Kropotkin pointed out, mutual aid is the foundation of evolution. We need to take care of each other, support each other. That is the way to long-term survival.
"We are going through dark times that indeed try the soul, but if we can see our way through our isms to our commonality, to that light in our eyes where the whole universe dwells, we can restore the circle of life."
I remember when I was in my early twenties I would sometimes see the light in the eyes of others, the light where the whole universe dwells, and I would find it very difficult to pretend that it wasn't happening, that it wasn't overwhelming and potent to the utmost. I felt I had to pretend in this way because no one around me ever spoke of the light in the eyes where the whole universe dwells. It was never mentioned, and I suspected most folks could not see and feel this "light". I didn't want to stand out as strange, weird, "other". So I kept the extraordinary potency of looking into another's eyes with this knowledge to myself.
It was easier to be bowled over by a butterfly or a honey bee. Because there was no risk of ostracism in having a fire in my heart with these.
Anyway, nothing can be more ordinary than to be blown away by the light in ANYONE's eyes. And nothing could be more extraordinary. That's the thing about seeing the light. It's both ordinary and extraordinary to the nth degree.
But it's not so easy for me to see plainly and directly anymore. My heart having been so badly broken by this world. It requires an almost absolute kind of tenderness to be dazzled so by the ordinary.
Oh, James! I feel for you. Been through my own hard bumps, to where the tragedies of this world, the inadequacies of our so-called “society,” and the illness of the collective unconscious weigh upon me on a daily basis. I can only say as I get older, in my 70s now, vistas seem to open up which transcend all that. Being present and aware is all I can offer.
This I know... being dazzled by the light in another's eyes is both ordinary and extraordinary... and heart-breaking if one believes our time is all we have got, a pinnacle not a turning point. Patrick's piece is superb. What I would add is that seeing one Earth community as the antidote to collapsing tribal and fundamentalist systems, is becoming a more shared worldview. We hundred and one monkeys are making a difference.
In the West of Ireland, in Loc Ine, there are rapids that reverse direction with the tides..four times every day. For a period each time, the waters and the long seagrass within them appear motionless. It is only by paying attention that one sees how slowly the grasses turn until the suddenly the whole flow is reversed.
"In terms of having a basic worldview, nature teaches us complexity and wholeness. It educates us about the inability of our minds to fit everything into a singular rigid framework, but instead to see life as a whole embodying dynamic complexity and interplay of opposites. A mind tuned to nature does not lend itself to narrow rigidity, but fluidity."
Nicely said! Did you mean to say "shared worldview"?
The sacredness of the natural world is my religion. Nature is my teacher.
“Basic worldview” is another way of saying you have fundamental beliefs that guide your actions. It may be shared or not. I share with you nature as a teacher.
I think this is the reality that so many ordinary people live. We know we have our differences, but want to be good neighbours. I'd like to see more of this geopolitically. It's really the only civilized path to take, and what we have isn't working. The horrors of what's going on in Gaza show this all too clearly.
The only thing I would question is where you say "When it is perceived that resources are limited, such as the limited land and water of Palestine-Israel, the question is who gets kicked off the bus." "Palestine-Israel" is not a singular entity when considering limited water or other life-sustaining reaources. Land, yes, for each, but land is developed for one, not the other. My point is that there is austerity for one, not for the other, and that's been ongoing for decades. Only one officially gets kicked off the bus, despite the backlash inflicted on the other. In the broader sense, austerity is manufactured by global energy, finance, and weapons, etc. Climate change makes it all worse and I believe that course is now being accelerated purposefully to increase the conundrum of austerity, greed, othering, and ever more investment in munitions. I could go on and so could you. I know you'll agree there are other isms to be considered such as the extremes of capitalism which tend toward either fascist flavor (meaning owned by giant financial interests whether or not backed up with militarism) or communist flavor (same, just with a pretense of providing for the public - think China) - both of which at their best keep the bulk of the population under control with just enough to be complacent and compliant. Neither of which allow for any public citizens to make any transformative difference in society beyond neighborly altruism - spiritually helpful to the individual but not enough to curb the wholesale suffering and slaughter.
No dispute that one party, the less powerful, is getting kicked off the bus. There is austerity for one and not the other. Water resources are short, and Israel disproportionately takes them. It is to be noted Israel had its own extremes of wealth and poverty, a higher per capita number of billionaires than the U.S. and a large poor class. An equitable economic system could use the resources for the benefit of all, including Palestinians and Israelis. But not the capitalist system that prevails there.
I didn't know there was such disparity within Israel. Thank you for educating me on that.
A couple of articles to tell the story.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-world-inequality-report-israel-among-most-unequal-countries-1001393789
Israel is one of the most unequal high-income countries. The bottom 50% of the population earn on average €PPP11,200 or NIS 57,900, while the top 10% earn 19 times more (€PPP211,900, NIS 1,096,300). Thus, inequality levels are similar to those in the US, with the bottom 50% of the population earning 13% of total national income, while the top 10% share is 49%."
Explaining the historical context, the report said, "Overall, income inequality has remained at a very high level in Israel over the past 30 years. Liberalization reforms of the mid-1980s and 1990s led to a marked increase. While inequalities have slightly decreased since 2012, they remain at a very high level, in the context of a highly segregated society."
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-729090
Israelis are consistently getting poorer. Despite the economy which grew in 2021, the gap between the rich and poor also grew wider and more people entered the cycle of poverty, a cycle that is a struggle to break.
According to the Israeli National Insurance Institute’s 2021 report on poverty and social gaps in the country, almost 2 million Israelis live in poverty, a little over 20% of the population. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development points to Israel as one of the countries with the highest economic disparity, with the rate of working poor in Israel also very high.
(These factors could help explain why turning anger on an external enemy is so attractive for the Israeli ruling class. Gets back to how a sense of resource scarcity propels tribalism.)
Like those grasses change in society and nature happens slowly and then suddenly. We can hope in this.