This diary will not be a comfortable one to read around these parts, but it is really quite a simple work! It was prompted in light of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the arguments around here about the hoped for proper course that this conflict should ideally follow, I have been thinking about human reality and whether progressive thought has been or can be realistic or just an outlier of potential human behavior? If the latter, what would have to change to make progressive ideology and actions the norm
If you were assured of your and your loved ones basic needs being met for now and in the relative future, would you risk your life in a war?? Why? On the other hand, if the ability of yourself or your loved ones to survive now or in the relative future was at risk, would you perish quietly while others took the available resources so they could survive? What is the carrying capacity of any environment and how do humans not exceed it; OR do they exceed it and thus kill each other off?
Mankind groups together in societies to try and assure that society’s survival, IMO. When that society’s inhabitants sense survival threats, they try and assure enough resources for their survival even if other groups cannot thus survive! Sound familiar? Abraham Maslow described a pyramid of need to show motivation behind human behavior. A graphic of this pyramid is below.
While our deficiency needs MUST be met for survival, our being needs are continually shaping our more optional behaviors. This statement to me means that people will fight to survive by almost any means, but their upper level behaviors after their survival is assured is more arbitrary and optional. I think that many of us here are discussing upper level motivations while much of the world, including the US government, is acting in the must area for survival! This explains why we talk about all these solutions that never actually happen because our solutions do not deal with the survival reality of many groups. If we want progressive ideas to be embraced by the future of mankind, we must assure that the lower level Maslow needs for everyone are assured for now and the relative future.
Now how do we actually do that??? (See poll)