In my essay Are we other than our social systems? I concluded that we are, in fact, other than our social systems since we came before them and they developed as a means of controlling the population with the rules being made by a ruling elite. Social systems are not a natural part of our species. Starting from the premise that this is true, I can not help but wonder whether or not a group of humans could live together without any social systems as I have defined them. (i)
The reason that I wonder whether or not we could actually live together without social systems is three-fold: (1) we have had social systems for thousands of years, (2) most people believe that social systems are a natural part of being human, and (3) over-population makes many of the factors which contributed to the success we experienced in the first 90% of our existence impossible to replicate. I think it is fair to assume that everyone would agree that we can not "go back". Many people, throughout history, have tried to return to a previous more prosperous or happier time. We know it doesn't work. Our history, current situations, experiences and mentality are all different from that at the time to which we might like to return. For that reason it can never be the same.
What this means is that if we are going to somehow attempt to replicate the communal life situation of those who lived in the days without social systems, or without social systems are we know them, we must look for a new and different way to create the results we desire.
One of the things I'm sure that we would all like to replicate is greater equity. This isn't going to happen while we still have the haves and havenots. I think it is reasonable to assume that the one-percent who control our lives and own 44% of the world's wealth (ii) isn't going to decide to share. When you create the divide between the haves and havenots you quickly find that the havenots will fight among themselves for the scraps the haves drop. It's called survival. President Lyndon Johnson; originally a good-ole boy southern politician who knew how to manipulate this reality then became the US President to pass some of the most important civil rights legislation in history; explained the concept politically. According to Bill Moyers, an American journalist and political commentator who served as the ninth White House Press Secretary under the Johnson Administration from 1965-67, when President Lyndon Johnson was in Nashville, TN with a group of southern politicians Johnson told Moyers the secret to their success. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." (iii) How are we ever to get the one-percent to share their wealth and the poor to stop fighting among themselves for the scraps? I do believe that it would be possible to non-violently force the top one-percent to share. What I don't believe possible is getting the remaining 99% to cooperate. We have no experience of anything other than struggling and fighting over what the one-percent don't take. I'm afraid that the only thing we could expect would be failure.
One of the ways to force the one-percent to accept an egalitarian society is to crash their precious capitalistic system. That really wouldn't be hard. It is totally unsustainable and barely functional as it is. If the havenots would actually cooperate and refuse to over-consume, the system would quickly collapse. Sadly, it would be the havenots who would suffer most so you can't blame them if they refused to cooperate. Since I can not see any other way of non-violently forcing the haves to cooperate, I would have to conclude that we are doomed to failure.
The other option would be to change the social systems. I figure that would be a lost cause as well since it is the elite few who define the social systems. The masses changing the social system would be rather like Orwell's Animal Farm. In that book the animals rebelled against the authoritarian farmer and took over the farm. By the end of the book the pigs and dogs had become the elite with the saying "all animals are created equal but some animals are more equal." (iv) We would eventually end up creating another elite group to set the rules just as the pigs took over the position and power of the farmer. Actually we see this same pattern in the American Revolution, French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, among many others.
This historic reality would support the position of the early twentieth century philosopher, Juddi Krishnamurti. Were he here now I'm sure he would argue that this is cyclical. When we attempt to break free we end up just establishing another 'environment' (like my social systems) as a savior. The only way to become truly free is to stop and question the environment. "But if you understand the significance of environment, that is, wealth, poverty, exploitation, oppression, nationalities, religions and all the inanities of social life in modern existence, not trying to overcome them but seeing their significance, then there must be individual action, and complete revolution of ideas and thought. Then there is no longer a struggle, but rather light dispelling darkness." (v)
This confronts us with a conclusion that I was really hoping to avoid; viz. individual personal action. Krishnamurti obviously would not hold out any hope for group action. Animal Farm.
I have to admit to being a skeptic. In fact, I can be so skeptical that I'm skeptical about being a skeptic. Nevertheless, we can not ignore this option. We have explored a couple of group options and found them frought with problems such as the cost in life and resources, the poor fighting over the crumbs and the development of a new elite. If we consider making this quest an individual effort, we likewise find problems. The biggest problem is the time factor. Assuming that it could actually be accomplished, I would have to wonder how many hundreds of generations would pass before freedom and equity are achieved. Then there is the high percent of the population who wish to be free but are so indoctrinated by the elite that they believe that their life is as life should be. "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal." They would not participate in any group or individual effort mostly out of fear of losing what little they have because they have been convinced that this is truly their lot.
What all this means is that I see no way we could ever make living without social systems, or at least without our current social systems, a universal experience. Again the skeptic in me doubts the ability of the current elite to permit groups of people to establish communities based upon equity, freedom and the hunter-gatherer (HG) model. All we need to confirm this is look at how current hunter-gatherer tribes and other indigenous people who live outside the social systems are treated. Indigenous people face "eviction from their ancestral lands, being denied the opportunity to express their culture, physical attacks and treatment as second-class citizens." (vi) Brazil President Bolsonaro is outspoken in his desire to eradicate indigenous people from the Amazon. (vii) Here in the United States indigenous people experience tremendous abuse. No treaty made by the US government has gone unbroken. Even the growing nomad community, made up of people who do not want to live the conventional, sticks-n-bricks, capitalistic nightmare, experience growing harassment and prejudice. Why? Because those of us who do not want to participate in the capitalistic social system are seen as a threat to the system. Not only might we attract more people to a simpler lifestyle but we don't participate in excessive consumption which is all that holds the fragile, unstable and unsustainable capitalistic system together. Also almost all of us live in undeveloped, wilderness areas. Capitalists want these areas to search for their treasures, dump their trash or other environmentally destructive activities. For someone to live anywhere without 'turning a profit' seems to be more than any self-respecting capitalist can handle. How, then, could we ever purposely develop communities, villages or tribes for those who would prefer to live a simple, egalitarian life?
I'm afraid that we can't leave this discussion or draw any conclusions without considering the most important problem with the greatest impact; viz. over-population. Two of the most important factors in the success of the HG are small groups living together with plenty of area for all groups to hunt and gather. We don't have either. Even if we got the 1% to share and everyone was excited to participate, how are you going to create small group living with sufficient space when you have cities like Tokyo with 38 million people in 845 mi2. That is one person for ever 1.36 square feet!!! The entire planet has only 57,308,738 square miles. That sounds like a lot but that includes land areas that are uninhabitable. According to the University of Texas only 24,642,757 square miles of the Earth's land is habitable. Divide that by 7.7 billion people and we find that we already have one person on every .0032 square miles or about 312 people per square mile over the entire habitable land on Earth. That isn't really sustainable nevertheless conducive to small group living with an agrarian or modified HG lifestyle.
It would seem that while there are probably many of us who are emotionally and intellectually prepared, and even desirous, to move toward a much simpler lifestyle, it is not currently an option for most because of the choke-hold of the capitalistic elite. Even if we could overcome this blockade we are confronted by the sheer numbers of humans. I must admit that I do not want to contemplate, nevertheless put in print, what it would take for humans to live without social systems. It would seem that the best we can do is follow the advice of philosophers like Krishnamurti and find our freedom and peace as individuals who have learned to deal with the everyday negativity of the social systems.
FOOTNOTES:
(i) see What Constitutes a Social System? 3/15/2020. https://oldconservationist.blogspot.com/2020/03/what-constitutes-social-system.html
(ii) Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report. 2019.
(iii) Lyndon B. Johnson. (1960)— Said in 1960 in response to racist signs held by Johnson's motorcade in Tennessee. Recounted by Bill Moyers, then a member of Johnson's staff, in Bill Moyers: "What a Real President Was Like; To Lyndon Johnson, the Great Society Meant Hope and Dignity," The Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1988.
(iv) Orwell, George. (1945). Animal Farm. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. New York.
(v) Krishnamurti, Juddi. Total Freedom: the essential Krishnamurti. Harper Collins Ebooks. p. 20.
(vi) Tryon, Zoe Indigenous Peoples. ://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/indigenous-peoples/
(vii) Phillips, Tom (26 Jul 2019) 'He wants to destroy us': Bolsonaro poses gravest threat in decades, Amazon tribes say. The Guardian on-line. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/26/bolsonaro-amazon-tribes-indigenous-brazil-dictatorship
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