Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Makes People Right-Wing and Left-Wing?”

How Do People Who Have No Political Connections Become Left or Right-Wing?

Nature consists of two forces: giving and receiving, plus and minus, positive and negative.

We each also play host to these forces. They exist on all levels of our lives: material, psychological and spiritual.

As for political right-wing and left-wing inclinations, I would first stay clear of defining them as such because nowadays these terms have become very convoluted, making people confuse one for the other.

In its origin, however, a left-wing inclination leans toward completion, connection and compromise, while a right-wing approach is its opposite: leaning to defining borders, limitations and boundaries. In other words, by nature a left-wing approach is “what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is yours,” and a right-wing approach is “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine.”

However, in our distorted lives today, which are far from nature, we see nothing that expresses true left-wing or right-wing inclinations. This is because we live in times where an overblown human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—stands at the foundation of everything we think and do, making us far removed from any kind of natural approach to these inclinations.

There are no genuine examples of real left-wing and right-wing inclinations in today’s world because they are blended with the desire to exploit anything and anyone possible in order to fulfill egoistic pursuits. For instance, a person might naturally have a left-wing or a right-wing inclination, but due to the ego’s powerful urge for fulfillment today, then that person could very easily find themselves on the other side in practice.

I thus think that dividing people and nations into left-wing and right-wing brings us no lasting benefit. Instead, we should focus on upgrading our education around the world so that we learn how nature works, how we develop, where we are headed, and what we would like to see in a better future state. If we start elevating our awareness to understand how we can reach balance with the new globally-interdependent conditions we find ourselves in, then we would start seeing an expression of our more natural inclinations. We would then see how people and nations are left-wing or right-wing inclined by nature, and accordingly we would be able to guide everyone to a more harmonious and peaceful future according to every person’s and nation’s natural inclinations.

Part and parcel of this new educational process requires running a serious ongoing examination into how we could reach equilibrium among the differing inclinations in humanity and guide a positive course of development. We need to constantly scrutinize humanity’s and each nation’s optimal form, while understanding each nation’s different nature and thinking about how to piece all people and nations together in complementarity.

There is a need for competition and the use of power that lets the stronger win, and there is also a rightful place for the weaker desires that demand government support for their lives. Both inclinations need to find their expression, and we can each make decisions according to our respective characters.

We need to understand the complex richness of nature, which does not let us simply be good people that can agree on something and hold that agreement. We change from one moment to the next. That is why, even during the process of signing a certain agreement, we can already find ourselves thinking about how to breach it and benefit ourselves at the other party’s expense.

The human ego today does not let any person or side hold onto anything that holds us all together. Accordingly, we can expect more and more friction between the left and the right as we further develop. Moreover, if we fail to regulate the friction, then the conflicts between the two sides could lead to major destruction, like another world war.

We need to understand that these opposite inclinations are embedded in our nature and they will increasingly unravel so that we create a system that balances them. It is similar to how, in electricity, we place a resistor between plus and minus where they connect and perform some kind of work. We similarly need to approach our inclinations, but we require something common for us all to work toward.
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