Man / Community Integration
In the distance, little Gustav could hear the uniform thunder made by the march of the “Hitler Jugend”. He hurried to find a hiding place in a nearby hallway. With horrified eyes, he saw many young boys marching in the street. Every so often, one of them would break out of the line and lash out with his heavy bat on anyone who did not salute the Nazi flag. Only long after the last echoes of the march had died away, did Gustav dare leave his hiding place and run home.
Parades of this kind were a very common sight in Germany in the early 1930s. Now a grown man, Gustav tells us the story of that day, when a leader of the Hitler Jugend came to his school to recruit all the children in the class. In his testimony Gustav described that it did not take long before he found himself marching in a kind of hypnotic state, brought about by the sound of the rhythmic beating of boots on the ground, shouting enthusiastically with all the others “Heil Hitler!”
With deep shame, he recalls how, with his heavy bat, he hit anyone who dared not salute the Nazi flag.
He also recalled the fury which he felt on such occasions. He remembers himself thinking: “How dare these Insolent people to insult our beloved leader?"
This post-war testimony given by a German citizen reflects the way in which a normal person can drift into merging with the group, losing his own identity.
He also recalled the fury which he felt on such occasions. He remembers himself thinking: “How dare these Insolent people to insult our beloved leader?"
This post-war testimony given by a German citizen reflects the way in which a normal person can drift into merging with the group, losing his own identity.
The Mechanism of Synchronization
Very little scientific study has been made on the individual–community relations. In fact, only recently have scientists begun to explore this issue which was originally dealt with only by writers, philosophers, and psychologists. The reason can be found in the fact that scientists did not realize the important influence of the community on the individual.
It is worthwhile spending some time and discussing the significance of this influence.
Studies conducted in this field show that individual–community relations are a combination of genetics and social relations.
The social relations aspect has been well covered by people outside the circle of natural sciences. Novelists and philosophers have dealt with this issue obsessively ever since Aeschylus presented his first play in ancient Greece.
The scientific study of the integration of individuals into a community has been limited to the study of the human capacity to identify with others. This is known as “The Theory of the Mind.” This research field is still in its infancy. Many studies are focused on the location of functions related to empathy, and the development of these abilities as we mature.
These studies, however, do not address the question discussed in this chapter, namely how the community influences the way in which another person thinks, behaves, and reacts to a given situation.
One need not be a scientific researcher to know that there is a feeling of empathy for other people. Everyone can see that we are synchronized in some way or another with others.
We feel pain when we see someone else writhing in pain. Laughter is contagious. We yawn when the person next to us yawns. We clap our hands in synchronized rhythm with the others.
These are all phenomena of synchronization between individuals.
Studies conducted in this field found that a synchronization gene exists. In addition, it has been found that the brain produces a hormone called oxytocin, known as “the love hormone,” because it causes us to feel empathy with the other. Hormones and brain patterns (better known as stereotypes) have evolved to assist us in the integration with others for the sake of creating a larger group which is better fitted to survive than the lone individual.
At the same time, evolutionary developments of the brain produced some traits enabling us to integrate even better. Those are the same traits discussed in Chapter One, traits which will achieve peace of mind through suppression and invention. We ignore the faults of fellow members of the group in the same way as we ignore our own faults. We feel good in the company of others within our cultural group in the same way as we ourselves long to feel.
A good deal of empirical information on this involuntary connection with others can be found, surprisingly, in studies of consumer behavior in the field of marketing. Advertisers use this information for the purpose of influencing consumers to buy their products. Marketing experts are assisted by studies in psychology, allowing them to employ the phenomenon of the herd mentality.
These studies find that the individual tends to buy popular products to be just like everyone else. The attraction of a product is enhanced by the complimentary words of celebrities, a person that one wants to imitate. As an individual finds traits in common with the other persons, his/her sense of identification grows. It grows even further when individuals find themselves isolated within another cultural group. Tourists often experience a sense of friendship with other tourists from their homeland even though these may be people with whom they would not necessarily choose to spend any time, back home.
Although very little scientific data exist on this mechanism, its existence cannot be ignored, nor can its importance be waved away.
This mechanism is so powerful that people may even feel a sense of sharing and understanding with their pets, their computers, or their much-loved car.
To understand the other person, it is important to know that this system of synchronization exists. Understanding the way it works is worth some research but, for the moment, it is important to acknowledge that the synchronization system can be found everywhere. Without it, musicians could not play music with precise coordination in an orchestra, and soldiers could not march in a parade.
Understanding the other requires assessing which part of each person is independent, and which part identifies with the community.
The Human Fractal System
People gaze in wonder at the complexity of nature. The greatest mystery of all is the formation of life, with special emphasis on human life.
Any man with some common sense acknowledges that nature always chooses the simplest path, just as water chooses the simplest way to flow, yet forms complex winding rivers.
The mathematician, Benoit Mandelbrot, showed that complex forms in nature such as the coastline were formed over time from simple and recurring elements since that is the simplest and therefore the most natural way.
A fractal is defined as a mathematical set which exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale. In “The Fractal Geometry of Nature,” Professor Mandelbrot explains that fractals fit the description of nature far more accurately than the simple forms of Euclidean geometry: "Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not shaped cones, the coastline is not made of circles, the bark is not smooth and lightning does not progress in a straight line."
As with many things in nature which at first glance seem complex but which when explored turn out to be simple, the fractal systems are the outcome of simple relations. The complex shape in the image here is in fact a regressive equation for the simplest ratio that can be defined by an equation:
f (z) = z2 + c.
The same process exists for many systems in nature, and all the complexity we see in nature is formed with the same kind of fractal hierarchy. Let me expand this idea beyond shapes to living systems in nature and introduce the “Human Fractal System” - HFS.
We know that the evolution of life began with the simplest building blocks and successfully developed into the tremendous complexity of life forms on earth.
Here we will focus on only a small part of that process: the cell in the human body, at the lowest level; the human at the second higher level; and the community at the top level. Just as the human comprises multiple cells, so the human community comprises multiple individuals.
We can consider cells, people, and communities as hierarchic human life systems. This hierarchic component integrates as a "Human Fractal System" (HFS).
Each level of this fractal system has similar features. As with geometric fractals, each level of the human fractals has the same characteristics of the other levels:
- The human cell can be viewed as a living entity. It is nourished (consumes food and oxygen) to keep alive, reproduces, protects itself, and finally "dies" like all living things. The cell contains features that allow it to cooperate with other cells for the welfare of the human body.
- The human body displays similar traits. It keeps alive by consuming products (eating food and breathing oxygen), reproduces, protects itself, and finally dies. It also possesses traits that enable it to connect with other people and to contribute his share to the community.
- Communities also display similar traits. They consume products (using energy for example), reproduce (by creating smaller and more homogeneous communities, as will be explained later) protect themselves, and finally die (when they surrender to other communities, or break up into smaller communities and ceases to exist). Sometimes, they join with other communities to form a greater community.
There are many levels of communities: the core community is the family; above it, there is the immediate social circle such as friends, political parties and so on; the next level is the nation; and the highest level is civilization, which can contain numerous nations. Each level displays similar traits.
A community, like the human body and the cells within that body, evolves in order to survive in the changing environment, and with competing communities.
A membrane separates one cell from the next. The human skin separates one individual from the next. The cultural envelope of community functions rather like the human skin, setting the boundaries of the community, while uniting and consolidating the individuals within that community into one body, and separating them from other communities.
Occasionally the cultural envelope is so tight that it creates identification among all the human cells comprising this community, thus forming a “herd”. Even when the individuals within that united organization do not completely lose their personal identity, they are connected and share an ideology that affects their personal ideas.
It is puzzling that scientists were not aware of the phenomenon of synchronization between people. Brain research is mainly carried out just on the individual. Only in recent years has the effect of the community on the individual been receiving more attention.
Researchers in the field of social psychology, and the Theory of Mind (TOM), as with related areas, study the links between people within the same community, but these fields of research are still very new.
Research of the human fractal system (HFS) is far simpler than one can imagine. There are two reasons:
- The most complex structures are built from simple, easy-to-understand, building blocks whose traits are reflected in the levels above them. But, as with fractal shapes, they form a new and more complex entity.
- As with the original geometric fractals, human fractals are based on just a few simple basic characteristics. Only their outcome seems complex. The fact that we do not know how to reduce it into a regressive mathematical formula does not obscure the similarity of the processes.
In the field of physics, scientists seek to reveal the unified theory that explains everything.
In the same way, researchers should march toward the unified theory of humanity.
Human Fractal System (HFS) is a good candidate for such a theory.
The Individual in the Community
"What do you most yearn for? Do you yearn to defend your own beliefs, or do you yearn to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?"
Julia Galef
First, let us try some self-investigation.
One tends to reject the concept of the herd phenomenon as something that happens to others, very probably ignorant people of the lower classes. You, the reader, are a free person who thinks and decides logically and independently.
Your worldview is the outcome of independent thinking and healthy logic.
Is that really true? The next time you read a political article in your favorite newspaper, stop for a moment and think. What makes you choose to read this particular article in this newspaper? If you're honest with yourself, you'll realize that your choice has quite a bit to do with the fact that it matches your worldview. Then please read some article that does not match your views. Did you find anything of value there? Of course, you did not. You probably think that all claims in that article are stupid claims. Did that article anger you? I think it must have annoyed you, to say the least.
Only if one is able to think out of the box, he might find that there might be some justification in the ideas of others. Then he will find a reason to consider the views of someone from a cultural group other than his own.
News reporters usually distort the information. The reporter will emphasize those aspects that match his worldview and minimize or ignore those that contradict it. That is even before making a commentary on the subject. Here’s a quote from a comprehensive study of journalists in Israel: “Around 7 of every 10 journalists feel that the media systems do not implement the rules of ethics and integrity as required from their subjects of interest, and about half of the journalists report on being heavily pressured to fulfill expectations of them at any price.
The even more problematic phenomenon, according to respondents, is the distortion of quotations by journalists. Almost 30% of those asked have frequently encountered this distortion of statements made by interviewees. An additional 23.2% have occasionally encountered such distortion of statements, and only 17.2% of respondents claimed that they had never encountered this issue of journalists distorting quotes.
An unfair review as a result of negotiation among journalists and sources is also a common phenomenon: 30.2% of respondents reported that they encountered this frequently, 17.6% encountered it occasionally, and just 21% said they had never encountered it.
No less worrying is the fact that 27.6% of respondents reported they had never encountered the impact of commercial considerations on news content, and just 18% said that they had never encountered incidents of censorship and breach of 'gag orders'.”
Should we rely on the information and commentaries of journalists such as these?
To be sure that you receive the full information and not just selected information based on your worldviews, it is important to expose yourself to many, diverse sources of information. That is the only way to build up a more complete picture of reality for yourself and reach your conclusions.
Usually, we prefer the commonly shared aspects of our cultural group and reject those that are different. Think about dating. Everything that the couple has in common increases their liking for each other. Their affinity derives from the feeling of sharing the same cultural group.
The interrogation method is commonly known as “good cop, bad cop” is based on arousing feelings toward the 'good cop' that seem to be in the same camp.
Studies have shown that we tend to like the similar and recoil from the dissimilar, sometimes to the degree that mentioning that dissimilar person’s name is enough to rouse a sense of loathing and even a physical reaction.
Racism is an extreme form of that recoiling from the other.
Some of the stereotypes causing this rejection derive from our education, while others are hard-wired from the time of our birth. They may be reinforced through formal education in school or a religious framework such as the church; they may derive from environmental pressure, or from personal experience.
The evolutionary justification for the existence of stereotypes is to consolidate the group (the herd) which, in turn, allows for a better chance to survive and to reinforce differentiation from other groups competing for the same resources. Categorizing people as belonging to “my herd,” in contrast to those who need to be distanced, strengthens the herd.
According to the Theory of Mind, the human brain developed a neural network whose purpose is to enable us to understand the thoughts, feelings and intentions of the other, predict the other’s behavior, and feel empathy for the other person. This neural network is based on the similarities between our cognitive and behavioral modes. The mechanism screens the modes of thought and behavior of someone not from our group or our framework of understanding. Such social skills hold tremendous evolutionary advantages. Living in cooperative communities has significantly expanded our chances of survival.
Balancing the Ego with the Community
The important issue in this discussion concerning cultures is the balance between the advantages that the individual receives from his cultural community, and the price he has to pay.
A desirable balance is reached when one enjoys the maximum benefits as a member of the community without endangering its existence or disrupting its development.
Cultural people behave according to the cultural codes even though no one is watching, or even if there is no personal benefit in it.
Some people are capable of free thought, which enables them to withstand the pressure of the community but most people adopt the rituals, and ways of thinking of their community.
The prophet, Isaiah, did not like this submission to rituals and preached for moral behavior and against hypocrisy: “Though you pray, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, cleanse yourselves, put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes and cease to do evil. Learn to do well, seek justice, relieve the oppressed, deal justly with the orphan, and plead for the widow.”
Teachers and educators worldwide watch in awe as their children succumb to the most hedonistic temptations of the Western world while abandoning their community's values.
The predatory competitiveness of the West is a type of brainwashing, although this may be unintentional.
Spreading values via mass media technologies is the most powerful form of cultural influence.
The reasons for this are:
There is no geographical limitation to the electronic invasion, and therefore it is difficult to stop this cultural influence at the country’s borders.
Anyone is exposed to this culture. There is no barrier, based on reading, as there was in the past.
Age is no limit either. Little children absorb this cultural flow, even before they learn to read. This makes it impossible to limit influences to a mature age group, a group that has already formed its own culture and may have developed a level of independent thinking which provides some buffer against unwanted foreign influences. These flows of cultural content through television and the Internet may be very acceptable to people of Western culture but they clash with other cultures. The brainwashing by Western culture is more dangerous than ever for them... The rise of extremist Islam is, in part, a reaction to this cultural invasion.
There is a strong tendency in Western culture toward extreme liberalism. These extreme liberals shift the balancing point far toward citizens’ rights, neglecting the citizens’ obligations to the state. In fact, by doing this, liberalism causes disintegration of the national fabric and social solidarity to the point of dangerous collapse.
Muslim culture goes to the opposite extreme, to the oppression of all freedom and individual achievement in order to establish the Muslim Caliphate in which Sharia law is applied to everyday life. Sharia law is the formal framework of Islam wherever Islam is practiced.
Muslims divide the world into two regions:
'Dar el-Aslam', or “The House of Islam” which is a Caliphate where Muslims rule according to Sharia law.
'Dar el-Kh’ra', or “The House of War” which is all terrain not yet conquered by Islam.
Both extreme cultures are now in close contact because of the Muslims’ immigration due to the Sunni/Shia war in the Middle East. The clash of these two cultures seems inevitable.
A healthy community would find a balance between the individual ’s freedom, and his obligations; in this way, the individual could integrate into the community, allowing both the individual and the community to prosper.
The human species is not unique in having a culture. Diverse species have some elements of culture. Primates and crows excel in that department but other species also show signs of a functioning culture. However, the cultures which humans developed are by far more advanced and richer than those of any other living creature. This is the reason that people could be organized in much larger groups than required by evolutionary needs.
Culture develops as an outcome of social evolution. At the basis of culture we find the same mechanism of synchronization with other humans, and the empathy we feel for the others. Without these, it would be impossible to describe many of the voluntary and involuntary actions of people: for example, musicians who do not agree with voluntary synchronization could not play in an orchestra.
These mechanisms cause people to feel one with their fellow members of the same culture. Sometimes their identification is so strong that they are willing to kill or be killed, for the sake of keeping their cultural community intact.
Involvement in community occurs at all levels:
At the initial level – building the image of the physical world.
Identification blurs and warps facts that occur in reality, changing the facts to match the shared culture.
This fact joins with the other reasons that cause a person from one culture to see reality differently from someone in another culture.
At the second level - understanding reality.
The structuring of stereotypes must be taken into account. Stereotypes engraved into the brains of people in cultures other than ours alter the data processing which takes place in their brains. They process data differently from the ways in which we do.
This is another thing we should consider when trying to understand the other.
At the third level – evaluating reality.
Values are rated quite differently depending on the cultural group.
Values are the most decisive factor as to how people think feel and react.
In nature, processes are based on balance, beyond the simple processes discussed in the previous sections. The nature of this balance can be described as follows: change in one element causes counter effects by changes in another place. For example: an evolutionary mutation improving the running speed of reindeer causes a parallel change in their predators' speed, maintaining a predator-prey balance.
Such a balance exists in every natural phenomenon.
According to Newton's third law: “When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body, reaching a new balance of forces.”
Most natural phenomena involve interactions of more than two elements. I like to consider the laws of balance in nature, not as Newton’s third law but rather more like the expansion of this law formulated as Lenz's Law allowing third party reaction to maintain the balance. Lenz's Law deals with electromagnetic induction, but it is rather a general law of nature as it allows the reaction to be caused by a third party rather than by a direct reaction. This is true in any case of disturbance of the balance in nature. A new level of balance is always maintained by counter effects involving numerous elements.
This is also true regarding the balance between the individual and community -- a phenomenon that is the subject of this chapter.
To understand the other person, it is important to take into consideration the balance that must be maintained between independent thinking versus the influence of the community.
One of the main issues, one which should be studied, is what shapes the mechanism of cooperation among people and causes the formation of one large, cooperative body. Cooperation is linked to what evolutionary researchers define as “altruism,” this being the individual’s willingness to forego his rights for the sake of strengthening the community. This cooperation can be discerned at all three levels, as defined in previous sections:
The level of individual cells, which form a body while foregoing parts of their independence. Despite each of them having all the information needed to create a whole body, they do not. Only the sperm and ova cells reproduce.
The level of the individual body, which foregoes part of its independence in favor of the community by obeying the laws that limit it, and by volunteering for the community’s benefit.
The level of many communities (such as families, a circle of friends) that create a nation, while foregoing part of their independence. For example, living under selected leaders elected by majority rule in a democratic nation even if this was not their choice.
A conflict exists in nature between the “egotist gene”, the will of the individual to survive and multiply on one hand, and altruism on the other.
Altruism is the phenomenon of foregoing personal survival for the sake of the survival of the community.
According to Hamilton’s Law and, actually, according to common sense, altruism becomes stronger as the more an individual feels closer to with his community. This can be explained as a drive for expanded survival: from the survival of the self to the survival of the immediate family, then to the survival of the close community, expanding to the nation and, finally to the whole culture (which is usually identical to religion).
The very fact that communities exist proves that altruism exists since it would be impossible to live in a community without foregoing some part of one’s personal independence.
Balance is maintained not only within the person and the community. All three life systems -- cell, body, and community -- balance each other.
When the body is in danger as, for example, when the skin is wounded, cells tend to multiply and grow faster in an attempt to close the wound. When the community is in danger, as in wartime, people tend toward a higher consensus, and become more altruistic. Then people become more patriotic and less tolerant of those who are out of the consensus.
The effects of balance also work in the reverse situation. When the community has no pressing dangers, as with successful empires with no enemies, people are more concerned with themselves and less willing to contribute to their community.
The most important balance is found between the egoistic traits in the individual and those of altruism that drives us to contribute to the community at the expense of personal benefit.
Throughout the evolutionary process, it was found that the optimum requires a balance between the traits that allow individuals to cooperate as a group in order to face dangers, as well as other traits that maintain the individual’s freedom to think and act beyond the accepted norms of the community. Individual freedom is necessary to introduce 'new blood' into art and innovations, so vital to the development of the community.
The right “dose” of both these traits differs from one individual to the next, and even within the same person facing different circumstances, or with the passage of time.
In our community in Israel, for example, among those representing the left wing, there is greater emphasis on individual rights, at the expense of contributing to the community. For example; the right of privacy is preferred to the need to investigate in order to protect the community.
Among those representing the right wing, we can find a greater emphasis on the obligation of the individual to strengthen the community at the expense of the individual’s welfare. For example, there is pressure to volunteer for combat units at the expense of a safer form of military service.
In the past, however, these roles were reversed. The right-wing city residents were the egotists, while the left-wing people in the Kibbutz were the altruists.
Decades ago, the pioneering kibbutz members of the political left were the biggest group of volunteers for elite combat units, and the kibbutz itself was perceived as an example of sheer altruism, a community in which the individual member was required to forego his rights for the community’s sake. Currently, however, the biggest group of volunteers for elite combat units comes from the political right wing.
The question then is: what is the correct balance? To what degree must an individual contribute to the community, and what can that individual receive from others? We should keep in mind that an individual’s investment in the community strengthens all that community's members including that individual himself.
In my view, the smart strategy would be for citizens to invest in their community as much as they can, without causing themselves harm. In this way, the community would prosper, as would the contributing individual. This is much like the owner of a manufacturing plant who invests in the purchase of new machinery that would increase production and therefore also increase future profits despite the immediate expense.
Cultural people behave according to the cultural codes even though no one is watching, or even if there is no personal benefit in it.
Some people are capable of free thought, which enables them to withstand the pressure of the community but most people adopt the rituals, and ways of thinking of their community.
The prophet, Isaiah, did not like this submission to rituals and preached for moral behavior and against hypocrisy: “Though you pray, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, cleanse yourselves, put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes and cease to do evil. Learn to do well, seek justice, relieve the oppressed, deal justly with the orphan, and plead for the widow.”
Teachers and educators worldwide watch in awe as their children succumb to the most hedonistic temptations of the Western world while abandoning their community's values.
The predatory competitiveness of the West is a type of brainwashing, although this may be unintentional.
Spreading values via mass media technologies is the most powerful form of cultural influence.
The reasons for this are:
There is no geographical limitation to the electronic invasion, and therefore it is difficult to stop this cultural influence at the country’s borders.
Anyone is exposed to this culture. There is no barrier, based on reading, as there was in the past.
Age is no limit either. Little children absorb this cultural flow, even before they learn to read. This makes it impossible to limit influences to a mature age group, a group that has already formed its own culture and may have developed a level of independent thinking which provides some buffer against unwanted foreign influences. These flows of cultural content through television and the Internet may be very acceptable to people of Western culture but they clash with other cultures. The brainwashing by Western culture is more dangerous than ever for them... The rise of extremist Islam is, in part, a reaction to this cultural invasion.
There is a strong tendency in Western culture toward extreme liberalism. These extreme liberals shift the balancing point far toward citizens’ rights, neglecting the citizens’ obligations to the state. In fact, by doing this, liberalism causes disintegration of the national fabric and social solidarity to the point of dangerous collapse.
Muslim culture goes to the opposite extreme, to the oppression of all freedom and individual achievement in order to establish the Muslim Caliphate in which Sharia law is applied to everyday life. Sharia law is the formal framework of Islam wherever Islam is practiced.
Muslims divide the world into two regions:
'Dar el-Aslam', or “The House of Islam” which is a Caliphate where Muslims rule according to Sharia law.
'Dar el-Kh’ra', or “The House of War” which is all terrain not yet conquered by Islam.
Both extreme cultures are now in close contact because of the Muslims’ immigration due to the Sunni/Shia war in the Middle East. The clash of these two cultures seems inevitable.
A healthy community would find a balance between the individual ’s freedom, and his obligations; in this way, the individual could integrate into the community, allowing both the individual and the community to prosper.
The human species is not unique in having a culture. Diverse species have some elements of culture. Primates and crows excel in that department but other species also show signs of a functioning culture. However, the cultures which humans developed are by far more advanced and richer than those of any other living creature. This is the reason that people could be organized in much larger groups than required by evolutionary needs.
Culture develops as an outcome of social evolution. At the basis of culture we find the same mechanism of synchronization with other humans, and the empathy we feel for the others. Without these, it would be impossible to describe many of the voluntary and involuntary actions of people: for example, musicians who do not agree with voluntary synchronization could not play in an orchestra.
These mechanisms cause people to feel one with their fellow members of the same culture. Sometimes their identification is so strong that they are willing to kill or be killed, for the sake of keeping their cultural community intact.
Involvement in community occurs at all levels:
At the initial level – building the image of the physical world.
Identification blurs and warps facts that occur in reality, changing the facts to match the shared culture.
This fact joins with the other reasons that cause a person from one culture to see reality differently from someone in another culture.
At the second level - understanding reality.
The structuring of stereotypes must be taken into account. Stereotypes engraved into the brains of people in cultures other than ours alter the data processing which takes place in their brains. They process data differently from the ways in which we do.
This is another thing we should consider when trying to understand the other.
At the third level – evaluating reality.
Values are rated quite differently depending on the cultural group.
Values are the most decisive factor as to how people think feel and react.
In nature, processes are based on balance, beyond the simple processes discussed in the previous sections. The nature of this balance can be described as follows: change in one element causes counter effects by changes in another place. For example: an evolutionary mutation improving the running speed of reindeer causes a parallel change in their predators' speed, maintaining a predator-prey balance.
Such a balance exists in every natural phenomenon.
According to Newton's third law: “When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body, reaching a new balance of forces.”
Most natural phenomena involve interactions of more than two elements. I like to consider the laws of balance in nature, not as Newton’s third law but rather more like the expansion of this law formulated as Lenz's Law allowing third party reaction to maintain the balance. Lenz's Law deals with electromagnetic induction, but it is rather a general law of nature as it allows the reaction to be caused by a third party rather than by a direct reaction. This is true in any case of disturbance of the balance in nature. A new level of balance is always maintained by counter effects involving numerous elements.
This is also true regarding the balance between the individual and community -- a phenomenon that is the subject of this chapter.
To understand the other person, it is important to take into consideration the balance that must be maintained between independent thinking versus the influence of the community.
One of the main issues, one which should be studied, is what shapes the mechanism of cooperation among people and causes the formation of one large, cooperative body. Cooperation is linked to what evolutionary researchers define as “altruism,” this being the individual’s willingness to forego his rights for the sake of strengthening the community. This cooperation can be discerned at all three levels, as defined in previous sections:
The level of individual cells, which form a body while foregoing parts of their independence. Despite each of them having all the information needed to create a whole body, they do not. Only the sperm and ova cells reproduce.
The level of the individual body, which foregoes part of its independence in favor of the community by obeying the laws that limit it, and by volunteering for the community’s benefit.
The level of many communities (such as families, a circle of friends) that create a nation, while foregoing part of their independence. For example, living under selected leaders elected by majority rule in a democratic nation even if this was not their choice.
A conflict exists in nature between the “egotist gene”, the will of the individual to survive and multiply on one hand, and altruism on the other.
Altruism is the phenomenon of foregoing personal survival for the sake of the survival of the community.
According to Hamilton’s Law and, actually, according to common sense, altruism becomes stronger as the more an individual feels closer to with his community. This can be explained as a drive for expanded survival: from the survival of the self to the survival of the immediate family, then to the survival of the close community, expanding to the nation and, finally to the whole culture (which is usually identical to religion).
The very fact that communities exist proves that altruism exists since it would be impossible to live in a community without foregoing some part of one’s personal independence.
Balance is maintained not only within the person and the community. All three life systems -- cell, body, and community -- balance each other.
When the body is in danger as, for example, when the skin is wounded, cells tend to multiply and grow faster in an attempt to close the wound. When the community is in danger, as in wartime, people tend toward a higher consensus, and become more altruistic. Then people become more patriotic and less tolerant of those who are out of the consensus.
The effects of balance also work in the reverse situation. When the community has no pressing dangers, as with successful empires with no enemies, people are more concerned with themselves and less willing to contribute to their community.
The most important balance is found between the egoistic traits in the individual and those of altruism that drives us to contribute to the community at the expense of personal benefit.
Throughout the evolutionary process, it was found that the optimum requires a balance between the traits that allow individuals to cooperate as a group in order to face dangers, as well as other traits that maintain the individual’s freedom to think and act beyond the accepted norms of the community. Individual freedom is necessary to introduce 'new blood' into art and innovations, so vital to the development of the community.
The right “dose” of both these traits differs from one individual to the next, and even within the same person facing different circumstances, or with the passage of time.
In our community in Israel, for example, among those representing the left wing, there is greater emphasis on individual rights, at the expense of contributing to the community. For example; the right of privacy is preferred to the need to investigate in order to protect the community.
Among those representing the right wing, we can find a greater emphasis on the obligation of the individual to strengthen the community at the expense of the individual’s welfare. For example, there is pressure to volunteer for combat units at the expense of a safer form of military service.
In the past, however, these roles were reversed. The right-wing city residents were the egotists, while the left-wing people in the Kibbutz were the altruists.
Decades ago, the pioneering kibbutz members of the political left were the biggest group of volunteers for elite combat units, and the kibbutz itself was perceived as an example of sheer altruism, a community in which the individual member was required to forego his rights for the community’s sake. Currently, however, the biggest group of volunteers for elite combat units comes from the political right wing.
The question then is: what is the correct balance? To what degree must an individual contribute to the community, and what can that individual receive from others? We should keep in mind that an individual’s investment in the community strengthens all that community's members including that individual himself.
In my view, the smart strategy would be for citizens to invest in their community as much as they can, without causing themselves harm. In this way, the community would prosper, as would the contributing individual. This is much like the owner of a manufacturing plant who invests in the purchase of new machinery that would increase production and therefore also increase future profits despite the immediate expense.
The ratio between a person’s willingness to contribute to the general good, and that person’s investment in self-welfare, in short between egoism and altruism, defines the person’s worldview. Balance is achieved in time because only balanced systems are stable.
If we position worldviews on a graph, we can better understand the relationship between the two worldviews. Left-wing versus right wing, conservative versus innovative, belief in God versus non-believers.
Most people would be seen in the middle range of this graph, but there will always be some in the peripheral areas.
In tough times, this Gaussian graph is steeper, and more people 'slide off' to the extremes.
If we look at the behavior of these extremists more closely, we will find that those at the two polar extremes of the graph are actually very similar.
Their most typical feature is the support of rituals, and clinging to symbols.
Religious people are extremely conservative as regards their traditional clothing; they cannot miss their prayers and admire their spiritual leaders.
Extreme liberals are equally enthusiastic about their labeled clothing, cannot forego the current music trend, and admire celebrities as their spiritual leaders.
Luckily for us, the silent majority is the group that determines the community's character.
If we position worldviews on a graph, we can better understand the relationship between the two worldviews. Left-wing versus right wing, conservative versus innovative, belief in God versus non-believers.
Most people would be seen in the middle range of this graph, but there will always be some in the peripheral areas.
In tough times, this Gaussian graph is steeper, and more people 'slide off' to the extremes.
If we look at the behavior of these extremists more closely, we will find that those at the two polar extremes of the graph are actually very similar.
Their most typical feature is the support of rituals, and clinging to symbols.
Religious people are extremely conservative as regards their traditional clothing; they cannot miss their prayers and admire their spiritual leaders.
Extreme liberals are equally enthusiastic about their labeled clothing, cannot forego the current music trend, and admire celebrities as their spiritual leaders.
Luckily for us, the silent majority is the group that determines the community's character.
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