SEE FAMILY LIFE TO KNOW SOCIETY

If we want to understand a society, let alone would wish to bring about certain changes in a society, there’s no need to ask for the national budget deficit, nor for the official government structure, important export products, turnover of corporations, employment figures, infant mortality rates, art forms or tourist resorts. We best ask for the prevailing kinship system.

Why? Because at home children learn how people relate to each other. These behavioral patterns they internalize subconsciously and, as adults, tend to reproduce the acquired behaviors in the wider society. That repetition is facilitated by other adults who have learned patterns of social relationships in more or less similar home situations.

The subconscious is crucial in the internalization and reproduction of behaviors. It is our subconscious brain that decides on what we think, feel and act. In this way, our subconscious makes us largely fit in with existing behaviors at school, at work, in politics, in the traffic, in enjoying art, and follow the media. Finally, our subconscious makes us behave at home, as adults in the family, in ways that we have learned as children. Even styles of deviation from those behaviors may have been picked up in childhood at home.

It is also because of the subconscious character of shared behavioral patterns that it is hard to bring about changes at will, both in ourselves and in others, let alone if there is a lack of motivation to bring about modifications.

PEACE AND FOOD

Again sleepless nights for many because of warfare and terrorism, but if we want to redress death and injury we’d better look at diseases. Oh, yeah, they are not in the news like bomber planes and terrorist attacks, but diseases can reach us easier and more lethally than warfare and lawlessness. Much easier.

About 60 million people die every year out of whom less than 5 million through violence, road traffic, suicide and the like. This makes diseases accounting for nearly 90% of all deaths in the world, each year.

Of course, we have to consider old age as a natural contributor to diseases. One way to bring in aging is by comparing countries. Worldwide, the average life expectancy at birth is about 70 years but average Africans do not live longer than 50 years and many others also do not reach 70.

The early arrival of their death comes from diseases, among adults, but even more so among children. They are vulnerable for diseases mostly because of malnutrition, and a lack of proper food is especially fatal for children. About nearly 7 million children under the age of five die each year.

But here and there is the mistaken belief that poverty cannot be alleviated while we can stop warfare by demonstrations, media attention and perhaps even by voting. Meanwhile, the reality is that both poverty and warfare are ongoingly produced by the established power structure. Therefore, the reduction of both poverty and warfare requires modifications in the established power structure.

To pursue such modifications, we may understand that we sometimes get too easily carried away by emotions and that governments, corporations and media feed on that tendency. In order to redress this tendency in us, we can reinforce our capacities to collect numbers and see proportions, so that we rank our priorities independently and sensibly. In the course of time, this power undermines the societal establishment that produces poverty and warfare.

PRIORITY BOMBING

The Islamic State killed about 1,000 people and more than 100,000 Kurds want to go back home, so the US chases Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State, and bombs his terrorist army.

The Assad regime killed about 100,000 Syrians and more than 1,000,000 Syrians want to go back home, but the US does not chase Bashar Hafiz al-Assad, president of Syria, and does not bomb his terrorist army.

The Israeli government killed about 100,000 Palestinians and more than 5,000,000 Palestinians want to go back home, but the US does not chase Benjamin Netanyahu, prime-minister of Israel, and does not bomb his terrorist army.

NOW AND THEN

NOW AND THEN
Trying to simply forget the past is self-delusionary. It’s like intending to walk on three legs. Although it is not always a very welcome message, our behavior is guided by our subconscious and that is also where our history is stored. If we want to live without our history, we’d better learn to explore that subconscious and digest it, or it will go on guiding us, in ways that may be quite different from what we want to think or do. 
This contradicts the here-and-now approach that is emerging as part of the post-modern, a-historic, quick-fix, individualist happiness culture. But we can only let go of what we have acknowledged to the fullest extent. Here-and-now exercises can be of help if they guide us in bravely identifying our unwanted behaviors and either digest their subconscious origins or consciously step out of those origins. But anyway we have to learn dealing with the heat of our unwanted behaviors.

Well, it took a long while before humanity accepted that the Sun was not circling around the Earth, and quite a while before humanity accepted that climate change was a reality. Now we may need time to accept that we are guided by our subconscious. Of course, to deny that is expensive, but let’s be patient anyway.

http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2009/10/sci-brief.aspx

FADING IMAGES

As many parts of the world, the hills of Northeast India, hidden between Bangladesh and Birma, were once covered by virgin forests and thinly inhabited by tribal people. Rainfall was abundant, the diverse vegetation and the fertile soils retained the water and fed the rivers throughout the year. Women collected plant food without degrading the natural resources. Men burned strips of forest to rout game or prepare for one-time crops. The bands of people were small and the forests vast enough to not being depleted. Spirits were felt living in the trees and rivers, plants and animals. 

It was not the paradise of Adam and Eve. The forest was full of danger. Spirits could be unnerving. Customs were harshly maintained to preclude overexploitation of nature, regulate life in the village and keep warfare with neighboring tribes within limits. The sense of belonging and meaning of life fitted the natural and social conditions without question. It all contributed to survival of the communities. 

From elsewhere modernity comes. The nation-state army and other state organizations directed from Delhi took over from the British. Transferred technologies increases production. Allopathic medicine makes more people live longer. Farmers start to sell wood on the market and raise cash-crops over large stretches of slope, impoverishing the bio-diversity and the capacity to retain water. Slash-and-burn practices become disastrous with increased populations and shrinking forest areas. During monsoons water and top soils wash away. The dry seasons see less water seeping through and river beds dry up. Slopes of bare rock appear in the aftermath of modernity. 

Privatization of land, individual market operations, northern-based school education, returning migrants, the television - all undermine the old behavioral patterns. As social sanctions erode, including for sexual behaviors, promiscuity is on the rise and contributes to epidemic forms of AIDS. Civil servants of local origin, not used to the impersonal expenditure of public funds, keep the money for themselves and neglect the maintenance of roads and terracing of slopes. 

The surface of modernity is embraced; deeper tribal identity is vanishing. Along with the erosion of slopes, the sense of belonging, meaning of life, and respect for the self, others, nature and the spiritual world disappear. 

While here we joggled in our jeep over bad roads, the last discussions with villagers in mind, it dawned on me that I had been humming a particular song for a while. Nina Simone ever sang it. It was about an originally African tribal woman, losing her identity and self-esteem in the hostile and fundamentally different society of New York. In vain I tried to remember the text. Once back home, I found it. It goes like this:

IMAGES  

She does not know her beauty

She thinks her brown body has no glory

If she could dance naked under palm trees

And see her image in the river

Then she would know, yes she would know

But there’re no palm trees on the street

No palm trees on the street

And dish water gives back no images 

The tribals of Northeast India, as in many parts of the world, are heading for something similar. They lose their nature and they lose their soul. Modernity is a bridge too far. The image in the river is fading away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMDQ6b_bEhs

HUMANITY SURVIVAL

Here is my ranking of what endangers the survival of humanity most. Like to rearrange the list?

1.     Depletion of ground water

2.     Depletion of fish in the oceans

3.     Deforestation

4.     Global warming

5.     Ocean acidification

6.     Processed food poisoning

7.     Decreasing plant resistance

8.     Pollution of ground water

9.     Pollution of surface water

10. Pollution of air

11. Pollution of soils

12.  Road traffic accidents

13.  Warfare

14.  Economic crisis

15.  Terrorism

16. Depletion of oil reserves

More than 70% of the groundwater stock is being withdrawn.

http://www.geowords.org/ensci/12/12.htm

Global fish stocks are exploited or depleted to such an extent that without urgent measures we may be the last generation to catch food from the oceans.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120920-are-we-running-out-of-fish 

A SENSIBLE SOCIETY

What happens in so-called democracies, let alone in dictatorships, is that new governments replace cabinet ministers and top officials, bring about some minor changes in the distribution of the national budget and let strong ministers and officials indulge in ego-trips.

A sensible society installs a government that solves or reduces the most important problems of that society. For that purpose, this society first makes an inventory of most important problems by consulting all citizens in such a way that the citizens come to understand how to identify main problems and the consultation results are processed in a priority list. There are plenty computer programs available to do that job.

How can we help citizens help identifying main problems in a society? First of all by thinking about criteria. For instance, is the number of people that yearly die in the traffic or because of suicide of more or of less importance than the risk that a terrorist attack takes place, or that the average income per capita decreases or rises. Again, there are plenty of techniques available to help citizens sort out such choices. Much depend on the skills of drafting proper questionnaires.

Once the priority list is compiled, the new government is to solve or reduce the listed problems according to the established priority. At the end of its term the government is to account for what they were assigned for. Just like it goes for sports coaches, a successful government may get another term or is replaced by another government.