The Individual and Society

In our last conversation we spoke about creating a school in which the highest value would be one's contribution to society. Since in modern upbringing the main thing is personal success, achieved at the expense of exploiting one's neighbor, children's capacity for connection is poor: exploitation and violence flourish. Could you expand on what a child's contribution to society means? What exactly do you mean by contribution? What can a child do?

I mean that no one is regarded separately, but only together with society. The clearest example is mountain climbers roped together. If one falls, they all fall. That is why their success can only be shared, belonging to the whole group.

Besides the group action, there are also leaders, "stars."

That is precisely the problem that has recently distorted the very concept of the game. It has ceased to be a team effort: everyone wants personal achievements, and is therefore ready to sell himself for a large sum of money, no matter to which team or country. As a result, each one plays for himself, not for the team. But we must, from the earliest age, cultivate in children a collective responsibility, a sense of the group, in which no one has weight or value in himself. We do not look at him personally, but only at his ability to elevate the group, to raise it up, to set it in motion, to draw out its forces and to be one whole together with everyone. We must teach the child to seek this unity instinctively, automatically. Animals have this instinct; we are not speaking of phenomena divorced from reality. It is known that special preparation is given to the crews of submarines and other confined places, where the cohesion of the collective is a matter of life and death. A person literally loses his "I" and perceives and evaluates everything only through everyone. Of course, he is specially prepared for this, but we see that it is possible.

A submarine crew member completely nullifies his own desire, for if he fails to do what is required, no one survives, not only him. Is their sense of connection to the group stronger than their individual life?

Of course, this is an extreme case, where through special training people are turned into a collective. But I am speaking of the need to raise a person as a normal member of society, capable of taking other people into account. He must understand that he is obligated to contribute to society: not because otherwise he will not survive, but because society is the place in which he must constantly be. It is the foundation without which he cannot exist, his family, which he is obligated to care for. We can raise our children this way and, within a single generation, reach a state of similarity to Nature.

What do you mean by the expression "for the sake of society"?

Only that which relates to unity is regarded as valuable, and the rest is cast aside. It seems to us that in our world we achieve success through our actions. But this is an illusion. Now, when the world is becoming integral and plunging into the crisis of our lack of correspondence with integrality, all success depends solely on our ability to unite together.

Nature compels us toward this, but you say that it must be cultivated, since it will not happen on its own? So it is something beyond the nature of egoism? How should this be expressed in school?

The school must be different. First of all, the child must be taught not subjects, but the ability to be part of society.

What does that mean? For example, setting out a chair not only for himself but also for others?

Not only that. There must be a common approach: each one regards himself, and receives examples, upbringing, and guidance, only in connection with others. From the moment he becomes aware of himself within society, literally from the age of three, the little person must be included in a state of living together with others, in which he depends on everyone and everyone depends on him. This instruction must enter into him naturally, instinctively: habit becomes second nature in all his social relations.

This applies to learning as well: we must change our approach to it. We look at Nature from an egoistic, individual point of view, and that is how we teach about it. But if we come to see Nature as a single whole, in which everything is interconnected and balanced, then we will also teach children to understand the universal connection: we must be connected among ourselves and with Nature within one global system. Then the study of biology, physiology, geography, and so on would become a single body of learning, for we exist within a single Nature and we ourselves break it up into disciplines. We have divided Nature into pieces and study them as though they were unconnected to one another. But we live in a single, round world. If our approach to Nature were global, we would discover different formulas: how the still, vegetative, animate, and human are connected together, and in what harmony they abide with one another. Then all the disciplines would be studied differently, as one subject that reveals a single Nature.

Perhaps such a school would have a subject called "How to Create Harmony"?

Yes, for that is precisely what we must do.

There is an opinion that such an upbringing spares the child from crises, since from the outset he looks at reality differently and sees its deeper level. Today the child studies each subject deeply and in detail, but no one connects them together. A different program of upbringing is needed, one that would require connecting phenomena.

In essence, we study not Nature, but its parts; we look at it with a narrow gaze and specialize in studying it in a distorted form, as something disconnected.

It is interesting that the educational system in the United States sets itself the task of forming a child ready to compete in the 21st century. Yet the method for achieving success in the 21st century that you propose is entirely opposite to the one they are trying to implement in the U.S. There they tell the child that his ability to withstand competition in the 21st century will make the country stronger, and everyone strives for this. However, their approach to achieving this goal is destructive and leads to the opposite result.

I would rather not speak about their future, but it will serve as an example for everyone. America has gathered the best scientists and the most advanced technologies. This is how they picture their future: a powerful technological power, leading in the development of technological and scientific achievements, while manufacturing flows to Asia. But I believe that we will soon witness a great crisis of this scheme.

If science does not deal with Nature as a whole, it collapses into crisis. Today we see how the world is becoming "round," and we do not know how to cope with it, we do not know the connections between its parts.

The solutions being proposed lie in the realm of technology: teach children modern methods of communication and we will achieve success. But this is an absolutely wrong direction. And in doing so, only one facet of the child is touched, while his social needs, of which you speak, are not taken into account.

By having the child see the whole picture of the world, we solve all the problems of both him and society, and most importantly, of our balance with Nature.

Do we need to raise the importance of society in his eyes?

No, he simply must feel himself and society as a single whole. This is how it was in ancient tribes, where there was no division into "I" and "they." It was impossible for me to deceive another person, for he is my brother. We have no such concept; we deceive a brother more often than a stranger!

We have been speaking about the system as a whole. Let us shift the discussion to the realm of the family, the home. Should parents talk about this with their children?

The agreement of all of society to follow this path is necessary, because we have no choice. We are obligated to change public opinion and, gradually, acting through various systems, to introduce this approach. And if not, then the crises and blows of Nature will compel us.

But how can one begin, at home, to embody the global idea we have been speaking about? The school works differently, but people are drawn to unity, and they want to begin somehow.

I think that in schools, too, there will be no spirit of competition. If we change our view of society, the class, or the group, as well as our attitude toward success, then everything will be completely different. We have already said that in school one must not give grades or hold exams. What should be evaluated is only the degree of the child's participation in joint activities, the measure of his help and support. When, together with everyone, he studies Nature from the point of view of its globality and integrality, then his conduct and his evaluation will be one. Let us say, his attitude toward his friends and his attitude toward the subject will be regarded as one whole.

It turns out that for us as educators, what matters most is the child's ability to sense society the way he senses himself, not to separate between himself and the environment.

The child must feel that without the group he cannot achieve success, that only through connection with the others, through agreement and mutual support, when no one is left alone, can he arrive at success.

We observe this in school. There are studies showing that in classes with a friendly atmosphere, students' level of achievement is higher. They did not work together as a group, yet each one's personal result improved. In other words, when we feel bad on the emotional level, we learn poorly.

The final conclusion of all the studies over the past forty years is this: learning in a friendly group is more effective than in an ordinary classroom. But so far this has found no application.

True, it is applied to a minimal extent. But the point is that through the group the child receives great force, and this can also be dangerous and frightening; the negative experience in this area is well known. In my own practice I have repeatedly encountered people who were raised in boarding schools. Many of my patients felt that they absolutely did not fit into society, and they even suffered a social trauma because they could not get along within their group. As a result, their lives turned out to be, to one degree or another, ruined. That is why what we are speaking about automatically stirs fear in me: if we use the force of the group, then the group must act very correctly. How can this be achieved? How can we guarantee that there will be no such excesses?

We are speaking about balance. Looking at Nature and at our own condition, we understand that there is no choice: we must be connected together, or else we will perish. That is why we are obligated to explain to children the necessity of unification. By this we observe the laws of Nature. But what matters is upbringing, not the suppression of a person and his desires. We want to accustom him to taking part in the life of society.

And how do we preserve individuality, so that the child's "I" is not erased?

His "I" will not suffer, because we explain to him how to achieve success by virtue of being together with the others. Today, even in science, it is impossible to achieve anything without a team, a research group.

Absolutely true. Everything happens within a group, and success depends on the degree of unification of its members, on their desire to be together in thoughts, aspirations, and inclinations. The global Nature being revealed today obligates us. That is why I see no difficulty here. The main thing is to learn the lesson from the failure of the kibbutzim and of communism in its Russian version, where the force of suppression was applied.

To find a way to be together.

And the better we prepare children in school, the easier it will be for them in life.

We have noted that the most important element of upbringing is the environment, the society into which we gradually introduce the child. Our aim is for the child to perceive himself as part of society, and not as something separate, and to measure his success by the success of society. As a result, he will begin to perceive himself and the environment as a single family. By instilling in children a global approach, we will give them the correct approach to a new investigation of Nature. In this way, out of their midst will come new scientists and researchers such as we never even dreamed of. And in this the child's individuality is not erased. On the contrary, he gains the opportunity to find his place in society and to attain the understanding that unification and the group lead to greater success than personal research. The success of such an upbringing will lay in the child a fruitful foundation that in the future will yield the highest and kindest results. All that remains is to implement it!