Newsmax: “Millennials Know Not The Socialism They Ask For”

My latest article in Newsmax: “Millennials Know Not The Socialism They Ask For”

A monument of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) in front of the Central Pavilion in the All-Russia Exhibition Centre in Moscow, Russia. (Danielal/Dreamstime) 

There’s an important reason why socialism failed horribly in the past, and today’s young minds must take that into account.

More millennial Americans are fed up with capitalism, and would prefer to live in a socialist country. That’s the tendency a survey last month conducted by YouGov and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found, as millennials were the only U.S. age group that favored socialism over capitalism.

Why would American millennials be attracted to socialism? When you think about exploding student debts, high rents, stagnant wages and job insecurity, why wouldn’t socialism surface in their minds as a potential solution to resolve these stresses, with systems to subsidize their every need?

Millennials Indicate a Change of Spirit in Society

Over the past three or so decades, there has been a significant shift in the tectonic plates underlying the human spirit. The baby boomer American dream spirit evolved into a fundamentally different millennial one. While the baby boomer strove for tomorrow’s prosperity, the millennial settles for today’s convenience.

Possessions we used to save up for and wait to buy are now available the moment after we think about them. Our desire to be publicly recognized and admired no longer needs to pass the approval of specialists or industry executives, but can be fulfilled instantly on social media. Being smart today isn’t about memorizing and recalling information, like we once incessantly trained and tested ourselves on. Our tech devices are “smart,” and our image is tied to how savvy we are about using all this tech to our advantage.

That’s the unique socio-economic paradox of the millennial generation: working long and hard is no longer to achieve luxuries, but necessities. Through technological developments, we’ve made the fruits of wealth, public admiration and knowledge readily available and struggle-free. And yet, today’s millennial struggle is to keep up with the costs of food, housing, education, healthcare and childcare.

A natural result of this process is for socialism to sprout up in the millennial mind, “Why do I have to break my neck just to make ends meet?”

Where Socialism Falls Short

As someone who experienced Russian “socialism” firsthand during my university years, I’m sure millennials would be interested in the first part of the story I can tell them, about a government that unloads the weight off people’s shoulders, takes care of all their basic needs, and leaves no one without affordable food, housing, education, transportation, healthcare and childcare.

But what’s the other side of the story?

Socialism doesn’t take into account the default state of human nature: the fundamental need to fulfill oneself before any other person. The fact is that people don’t wish to live their lives in order to benefit other people. Any surplus effort one makes within a socialist system sees no direct surplus reward, and even if we can see how everyone would be better off in a communal society, we wouldn’t be able to give up on our individual gain. Our very nature won’t let us.

Thus, people lack motivation to work for the benefit of the whole. The Soviet approach to this problem was to shove it down people’s throats and expect them to be thankful later. But then, even its enforcers relied on the same motivation, and the system imploded with unthinkable violence and suffering.

How Millennials Can Push for a Better Society

It depends on people wanting to benefit other people. People have to be organically motivated to contribute to society, wishing to see everyone become happy and secure. This is not our default state and certainly not where society is now.

However, it does exist in potential. Everyone agrees in theory with ideas of equality, altruism, mutual consideration and kindness, but in practice, these ideas cannot be forced, they need to gradually sink into the human spirit and change us from within if we are to even consider a social structure that applies them.

If we begin to engage regularly in connection-enriching programs, we could cultivate our natural potential for human connection. I believe the most pragmatic initiation of this could start with our children. The concern for their future can be our motivation to work on a better society.

By focusing on raising the next generation to be better socially connected, we adults would also be positively influenced by this process. We would thus create the beginnings of a supportive environment for connective ideals that could blossom into some practical and balanced changes in society.
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Between Good And Evil

Torah, Deuteronomy, 33:27 – 33:29: …the abode for the God Who precedes all, and below, are the mighty ones of the world. He expelled the enemy from before you, and said, “Destroy!”

And Israel dwelled safely and alone as Jacob [blessed them], in a land of grain and wine; also, their heavens will drip dew.

Fortunate are you, O Israel! Who is like you, O people whose salvation is through the Lord, the Shield Who helps you, your majestic Sword! Your enemies will lie to you, but you will tread upon their heights.

Once people correct all their egoistic deficiencies, they come to an absolute state where the entirety of egoism remains below and it blazes and burns; it still wants. You do not destroy it, you rise above it, and in this is the correction.

It is about two systems of absolute evil and absolute good. They are positioned one in front of another and between them is this understanding and awareness of existence that is called creation. It is similar to the Creator, but precisely because it consists of two opposite forces.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/6/17

To Shake The Jews

Question from Facebook: Why do you constantly put Jews above other nations?

Answer: I do not mean Jews by nationality. A Jew is someone who passes from our world to the upper world. The word “Jew – Yehudi” in Hebrew comes from “Yihud – unity.” It is a person who aspires to unity. Israel (Yashar El) is someone who is directed to the Creator.

We do not speak of ethnicity. Jews have no nationality. They are special and unique people and do not genetically originate from one’s parents like other nations.

Jews are representatives of various ancient nationalities that inhabited Ancient Babylon, Mesopotamia 3,500 years ago. Abraham gathered them in a group and started teaching them Kabbalah. That is how people that he called “Israel,” which in translation means “straight to the Creator,” appeared. They were people who wanted to attain the Creator.

Question: So, you only have a demand to this group, who does not want to return to its original state, called “the group that followed Abraham”?

Answer: Of course. I do not extoll this group, but on the contrary, I would like to sort of shake them so that they would come to their senses and understand that they face a huge task. I also do not want them to be self-satisfied and think that they have already fulfilled the commandments and the program of creation that was assigned to them.

They should show an example of true unity to the whole of humanity and become the “Light for others.” Then the people of the world will stop treating them with disdain and hatred. They will understand that this group of people, called the Jewish people, will bring the whole world closer to its best condition by performing their function.

Remark: In fact, the phrase “God’s chosen people” irritates everyone.

My Comment: But God’s choice is that we must fulfill a certain task! And nothing more.

And if today any Frenchman, Spaniard, German, Russian, Tatar, Englishman, etc., wants to become a Jew, then please, he can become one. To do this, he must only recognize that he is striving toward the Creator. That is all. So, try to think: do you need this?

Aspiring to the Creator means that someone wants to be like Him, that is, to gain an ever-increasing quality of bestowal and love for one’s neighbor.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 10/2/17

Who Suffers?

Question: Humanity’s history is the history of the exploitation of the weaker by the stronger and more advanced. If it were that rocks rather than people suffered, it would be easier to relate to all of this; it would be like watching a movie. But it was people who suffered. Or is that also a part of the movie?

Answer: It is difficult for me to answer the question: “Who suffered?” In reality, it is our egoism that suffered.

That is why, ultimately when we achieve correction, in the corrected state we do not feel that we suffered, we detach from it and rise to a completely different and opposite level from the one who suffered.

It turns out that Kabbalists, who rise along the levels of spiritual attainment, discover true states and do not attribute the past to themselves. They attribute it to the control of egoism over them.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 7/16/17

Humor In Spirituality

Question: What is humor in spirituality?

Answer: Humor is the ability of reason to find a form of particular release: it is not rational, not on its own level, but on a level above the rational. And that’s when good humor is achieved, a spark from reason.

It is faith above reason when you rise above your own ordinary mechanical thinking. That’s why Kabbalists very much respect humor, good jokes, and clever stories.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 7/9/17

Desire: The Engine of History

Question: Having read your book “The Fate of Humanity,” (Судьбы человечества) written with co-author V. Hachaturyan, I gasped with delight: How clearly you laid out the forces in the development of world history! But to this day, my friends don’t believe that history is propelled by individual desire. How can I explain this to them?

Answer: There are two forces in creation: the Light and its opposite, desire. Light is the force of bestowal, love, and fulfillment. The opposing substance is the desire to receive.

Aside from these two constituents, nothing else exists! Everything else comes from the juxtaposition of these two forces and exists between them: the world, world history, anything you can name.

No matter what we construct or create, it all consists of two opposing forces: electron and positron, plus and minus, north and south, etc. These two forces exist within everything that is created, depending on what level and to what degree they interact with each other. The correct use of both forces, in principle, brings comfort, health, etc.

The Creator is called the force of bestowal, the created being is the force of reception. An individual consists of both forces. Moreover, the force of the Creator acts as enlivening force because the desire to receive (created being) is completely dead, as ash, devoid of any signs of life. But, gradually, as the quality of bestowal enters it, everything then comes into existence from him. This is exactly how the universe, and everything within it, came into being.

Kabbalah investigates both forces on all levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. Higher than the level “human,” that is, the spiritual human, nothing exists. When you begin to enter the material and feel the interaction of both forces, you discover absolutely all possibilities of attainment: you see where everything comes from and world history is then understood.

In everything, Kabbalists see all possible combinations of both forces. Any form, any appearance, all forces of nature exist as one against the other. There is no force that acts on its own, there is always something opposing it. Not one force manifests as purely positive or only negative; this cannot be! They do not exist outside of their interaction with each other because otherwise, we would not sense them; they would not manifest. The desire to receive exists only because it is brought to life by the Creator’s desire to give, fulfill, satiate.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/16/17

Why Does Nature Punish Us? Part 4

Question: How can relationships between people affect a volcano or an earthquake? Can an ocean find out that people on its shore have begun treating each other better and then it will calm down?

Answer: We all: inanimate nature, plants, animals, and humans belong to one system. Tsunamis and hurricanes are awakened by the same forces that are controlled by our thoughts and feelings. It is only that our mind and feelings are at a higher degree than the force that causes hurricanes. A hurricane is strong in quantity, and a person—in quality.

If we improve our relationships at the human degree by “ten grams”, getting closer to each other, then by this we weaken the hurricane at the lower degree not by ten grams, but by ten billion times. It will not cause any harm.

After all, this is one system, one level above another. We, at the human level, are at the qualitative level and the hurricane, at the inanimate level, is at the quantitative level. Its strength is in quantity, and ours is in quality, and therefore, human thought is capable of starting and stopping hurricanes. However, so far, we only start them.

Question: Can one hundred thousand people that stand on the shore stop an approaching hurricane with the force of a thought?

Answer: No. First, they do not need to stand on the ocean shore for this. The main thing is that we must reach connection and unity between us and balance the evil forces that we have with the good forces. Then at all degrees—inanimate, vegetative, and animate that are below us—balance will also be restored.

Question: Does it mean that the threat does not come from a stormy ocean, the earth that shakes beneath us, or an erupting volcano? Should we turn the force of our thoughts to them?

Answer: Not at all! We should pay attention only to ourselves, to correcting our attitudes to others. As much as this may seem fantastic, unrealistic, and unscientific, it works exactly this way.

We must learn to control our thoughts, desires, and intentions. After all, if we do not do this, then they automatically turn to the egoistic side, seeking to bring more benefit to us and more harm to others.

Question: What will the corrected person of the future be like?

Answer: The corrected person of the future will learn the skill of keeping an ideal balance with others so that he will not be above all, and they will not be above him, but they will all be friends, connected by good relationships. Thanks to this, all of nature will come to balance, and this will be called the Garden of Eden, paradise.

Question: What will people worry about when they wake up in the morning in such a Garden of Eden?

Answer: It is written that “the world acts according to its unchanging laws” and in life everything will be the same. But a person will take care of the balance between himself and all of nature, including all of humanity.

Question: Will this be a good life or will it be too boring?

Answer: Do not worry, you will have experiences, not from the problems, but from pleasant things. Instead of worrying about a call from the police, the doctor, or the school regarding your children, you will be touched by a good attitude toward you.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/10/17

The Way From Chaos To Harmony, Part 4

Question: When you look at nature, it seems that in it everyone tries to devour each other, but at the same time the whole complex of opposing forces in the end develops into complete harmony, which is called “life.” How does it happen that each individual brings disorder to nature, but nature as a whole is harmonious?

Answer: If we study laws by which the general system of nature operates, we see that they complement each other. Although the whole system is egoistic and is guided by very simple, primitive and abrupt principles, the overall process of its development is aimed at growth, self-attainment, and realization of evil. In the end, we need to understand in what kind of horrible egoism we exist.

From the selfish struggle, forces will grow for understanding, feeling, and realizing what we are doing and for what. Is it possible that our whole life will pass in fighting with each other, like cats that are driven to fight by blind instinct?

Gradually, all of nature—inanimate, vegetative, animate, and especially human—are approaching the realization of evil. We begin to disclose that our nature is bad and it shows us such a life only in order for us to understand what we need to correct in ourselves.

Question: The purpose of disorder is to show us how to move forward to order?

Answer: The world exists and is ruled by complete harmony. Disorder is created in our perception artificially because “Everyone judges according to his own flaws.” We look at the world and see disorder. But as soon as we stop watching it, it immediately turns into the world of Infinity.

The moment I look at the world, I immediately spoil it with my properties. It turns out that due to gradual development, I come to the realization of the fact that I need to correct myself.

Question: It turns out that we look at the world as through broken glasses and, therefore, see it broken?

Answer: We do not see the right connections between all parts of reality; therefore, it seems chaotic to us. In fact, the world is absolutely perfect.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/24/17