Kibbutzim - Rehearsal for Future Society?
Many people ask the question: what awaits us in tomorrow? If there is nowhere else to strive, is it worth continuing this life? Will there come that notorious end of the world, which we hear so often today? Maybe humanity will perish, like a multitude of ancient civilizations on the next round of self-destruction? And if he survives, what will the person become? What will the society be like? …
We live at a turning point in history, when a crisis sweeps literally every area of our life: economic, social, individual, psychological. This is the time when ideas ran out, and material needs were sated to the limit and no longer require the investment of the previous strength and abilities. Everything is there, but the frustration of life is growing.
In this situation, many ask the question: what awaits us in tomorrow? If there is nowhere else to strive, is it worth continuing this life? Will there come that notorious end of the world, which we hear so often today? Maybe humanity will perish, like a multitude of ancient civilizations on the next round of self-destruction? And if he survives, what will the person become? What will society be like?
In this sense, a social experiment that has been going on in Israel for more than a century provides interesting food for thought. This is the experience of creating agricultural communes, or kibbutzim. And it will help us to see all its pros, cons and prospects System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan.
A bit of history
The word "kibbutz" comes from the word "quutsa" which means "group". And this is no coincidence, because the main thing in a kibbutz is the idea of uniting people. It is no coincidence that most of the organizers of the first kibbutzim were from Russia - a country with a urethral-muscular collectivist mentality, as Yuri Burlan's System-Vector Psychology explains. These were people led by the dream of freedom and justice. Justice, understood exactly as the bearer of the urethral mentality understands it, tuned in to give back to people and raised on the priority of the public over the personal - not for himself personally, but for everyone.
Arriving in 1904-1914 in the lands of Israel, then not yet fully formed as a state, young idealists conceived of building a Jewish society here without religion, without exploitation, which would contribute to the creation of a new personality. Of course, this idea was close to the Marxist communist idea, which later became the basis for the creation of the Soviet state. On the other hand, it was dictated by quite pragmatic goals: it was clear that in those difficult historical conditions under which the kibbutzim arose, it would be possible to survive only together, only by uniting.
The first collective agricultural settlement Dgania appeared in 1909, and by the end of the First World War there were already eight of them, each of them numbered 250-300 people. And this despite the fact that the conditions were practically unbearable. For kibbutz was allocated waste, hopeless in terms of agriculture land. People were sick, malnourished. There were no clothes, and houses were built of clay without any conveniences. There was a constant threat from hostile Arab neighbors. However, the idea won over everything. Solidarity, belief in higher ideals made people invincible in their striving for a better future.
Who knows if the State of Israel would have survived if it hadn't been for the kibbutzim? The free and independent spirit of the founders of the settlements was inherited by many of their descendants, who later became prominent figures in Israel, who laid the foundation for its rapid development and prosperity. There are now over 200 congregations in Israel, showing the viability of this social idea.
Basic principles of the kibbutz
The basic principle of socialism reads: "From each according to his ability - to each according to his work." The basic principle of communism: "From each according to his ability - to each according to his needs." The first kibbutzim followed this principle because the consciousness of its members was high, personal needs were reduced to a minimum, and humility and humility were elevated to the rank of virtues. People were still burning with the idea, which, according to Yuri Burlan's System-Vector Psychology, makes the material needs of the body less important in a person's life, and the future takes priority over the present.
The main ideas underlying the creation of kibbutzim were described back in the 1920s in the "Law of Kvutsa" of the first settlement of Dgania. Many of them operate to this day. Each member of the kibbutz had to work. And if in the USSR there was an iron law "He who does not work, he does not eat", then in the kibbutz it was expressed like this: "Who does not work, we do not love."
That is, it manifested itself in public censure, in provoking a feeling of social shame, which is a very difficult condition, especially in a society permeated with such strong social ties as in the kibbutz, where everyone is so dependent on the other.
The most surprising thing is that the realization of such consequences of non-compliance with the rules of the kibbutz very often keeps its members from asocial actions, because they really have something to lose - the feeling of security and safety that the “big brother” - the community gives. System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan speaks of how important it is for a comfortable psychological state of each person to feel social security. And the kibbutzim clearly demonstrate this.
The principles of collective labor and collective self-government, communist life on an equal footing, equality of rights in management and in the economy are expressed in the amazing way of life of the kibbutz. Whether you are a factory manager, a dishwasher or a doctor working outside the commune, you give your salary to the general treasury, from where it is distributed equally to everyone. No money is used inside the kibbutz. But if you have unexpectedly large expenses related, for example, to medical treatment, the community will pay them in any amount. Responsibility of everyone to everyone and everyone to everyone, mutual support are also the distinctive features of this hostel. Many outsiders tend to live in the kibbutz because of this special atmosphere, but individualists do not take root here.
The upbringing and education of children is another social task. In the first kibbutz, children did not even live with their parents, they only spent evenings with them. Now the child is sent to a nursery from 3 months, and then in schools of various levels, future members of society are trained from them. Here everyone is equal, but everyone is an individuality, which they try to respect and develop. A young man makes his own choice of his future profession, and he is paid for training in any educational institution. And then he can make a decision: whether to stay in the community or go live outside of it. But more often they return, because from childhood they learn to look at the world not with their own eyes, but through the eyes of society.
Shared free transport, canteens, laundries, clinics, full maintenance of pensioners and sick people - is this not the ideal of the society of the future, to which we all strive?
What is the secret to the prosperity of the kibbutzim?
But kibbutzim today are not only a paradise for everyone living in it. They are also centers of highly technological agricultural and industrial production. For example, in kibbutz Jezreel, they invented a robot for cleaning swimming pools, and then the company Maitronics appeared, which produces it for the whole world. It was in the kibbutz that the drip irrigation technology was developed and tested, thanks to which Israel's agriculture flourishes today.
Only 2% of the kibbutz population produce up to 40% of the country's agricultural products. Moreover, they are all environmentally friendly, because the production of genetically modified products is prohibited in the country by law and religion. On the world stage, kibbutzim are becoming increasingly respected economic partners.
It turns out that the economic model that is used in the kibbutz is no less, and perhaps even more effective than that proposed by Western economists. The latter argued that economic efficiency is possible only with the existence of competition and economic inequality. This is how the consumer society tries to develop in the modern, as Yuri Burlan's System-Vector Psychology says, the skin phase of human development, when competition for material success becomes the main driving force of business development. The effectiveness of this path can be judged by the general economic crisis that gripped the world.
Kibbutzim, on the other hand, refuse to personally reward their members for the result of work and additional material incentives. Their high results are based on high moral and ideological motives, according to which a person voluntarily limits himself in satisfying individual needs in favor of general social well-being.
So are we going to build kibbutzim?
Of course, not everything in the communal way of life is so smooth. According to Yuri Burlan's System-Vector Psychology, a person lives according to the principle of pleasure. He is a being that receives by nature, an egoist from birth. It is impossible to change human nature. So is it worth trying? Perhaps only a few can achieve such a high degree of consciousness and responsibility for their neighbors? And they are already changing their priorities in order to please modern trends. Many kibbutzim have already had to move from the utopia of complete and universal equality and asceticism to modern economic principles.
Whereas previously hired labor in communities was prohibited, now it is used more and more. Many say that kibbutzim are turning into rentiers, living on dividends from the exploitation of developed land, using hired labor in agriculture and manufacturing, opening tourist facilities and shopping centers on their territory.
70% of kibbutzim have abandoned the communist distribution of values, and salaries are increasingly dependent on the labor invested. In 2007, the public property of the first kibbutz Dgania was privatized. Along with public property, private households are increasingly common in kibbutz. Many had to abandon free communal canteens, this symbol of unification. Now some families eat at home.
The idea of the first builders of kibbutzim to unite all communities into a "network of communes" also failed. It is easy to unite within a small team of 100-200 people, where emotional, family and household ties are strong. But to feel a part of a large group, to feel like a cosmopolitan is much more difficult. As it turned out to be impossible at one time to spread the "fire" of the Great October Revolution to the whole world.
Why didn't everything work out?
So is it futile to build kibbutzim? And this is just another failed attempt to remake human nature? Not everything is so simple. System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan helps us to see that many of the principles of constructing kibbutzim are quite consistent with the reality of the future. How is this known? From the logic of human development, which, as system-vector psychology says, goes through four phases on its way: muscular, anal, skin and urethral.
After the Second World War, the world entered the skin phase of development with its consumer priorities and the growth of individualism. Currently, we are experiencing all its vicissitudes, overcoming which it is very difficult for us, since the skin values are opposed to our society with the urethral-muscular mentality. It would seem that we have never been as far away as now, from the ideals of the builders of communism in the USSR and the kibbutzim. Maybe that's why the shoots of new thinking have rotted in the bud? Maybe humanity is degrading? No, it was just a test of the pen. Both the USSR and the kibbutzim were premature for spreading them around the world. But mankind needs to learn from something, try.
The second reason for failed attempts is the wrong way of implementing the idea. Although the ideals of communism are complementary to the urethral-muscular Russian mentality, in order for them to take root for centuries, and not for 70 years, it is not directives and repressions that are needed, but a deep awareness of their mental properties. A person must have a sufficiently strong inner basis to want to deeply change himself. Likewise, the idea of kibbutzim without such awareness ended up in the egoistic self-awareness of man, creating a paradise for the elite. Only the realization of what a person is, where he goes, what his future is and who is able to lead him there, can make the dream of the pioneers a reality.
World of the future
Ahead, very soon, we are waiting for the urethral phase of development, which should absorb all the values of the urethral measure. What will the society of the future be like? So, the principles of the society of the future from the point of view of System-Vector Psychology of Yuri Burlan:
- priority of the general over the personal, full surrender for the good of others. In society, there will be mutual guarantee, responsibility for each other, when the interests of the neighbor are in the first place, and individual interests are not a priority;
- lack of laws and money. The return does not need any restrictions, including limitation by law. Because each person will feel the other as himself, and he will not be able to harm anyone. Morality (internal spiritual limitations), social shame will become the laws that will regulate relations between people;
- all children are ours. In this society, there will be no division into our own and other people's children. Taking care of all the children of society as of its future will become a priority for every person;
- everyone will be able to realize their individual abilities for the good of society, thereby contributing to collective survival, and for their own survival will have everything they need. Finally, the principle will be fully realized: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
How close the kibbutz have come to the implementation of the principles of the urethral society of the future, is not it? But the next step - a united humanity - is possible only through universal psychological literacy. After all, you can only feel another person as yourself, and his desires as your own, if you know the psychic nature well.
Want to know more? At the lectures on System-Vector Psychology by Yuri Burlan, you will find amazing discoveries about human society, about the course and logic of the development of human history. To get into the free online training, register:
