Morality which is difficult will often be abandoned. Principles which require constant will will be enforced through fear, and this fear will always manifest in negative ways, typically war and violence of all sorts.
Why is there such income inequality now? Well, first and foremost, because we have taken the last fucking limit off the power of banks to create money, and the Fed to pull them out of the hole when they go too far, as they invariably do.
But equally, and more saliently, because we have created a system where the sky is the limit as far as wealth, and we have filled it with men and women who feel fear continually, who are compelled to work as if someone were pointing a gun at their head, and for whom too much can never be even approximately enough.
The system, obviously, is not the problem. Jeff Bezos hurts no one with his wealth, and his ambition and compulsions have created tens of thousands of jobs, which help a great deal. Apparently Seattle was in the dumps economically around 2000. Someone told me they had a sign on the outskirts of town on the outbound freeway “will the last person to leave please turn the lights off?” That was before Amazon and some other similar companies.
But returning to my key point, if someone like Bezos was born to a tribe of 100, and if he was mothered the way he was apparently mothered, then he would HAVE to either be the chief, or be the foremost warrior in conflicts with other tribes. He was born to stand out. He was born to work obsessively until that happened. This, because he is, or was, fundamentally unhappy, and thus emotionally unstable outside of his chosen solution of work.
Our world is filled with such people. Those without talent become heroin, or sex addicts. Or alcoholics. Far too many of them recently.
Progress, genuine progress, will consist in a close focus on how our children are raised, with particular focus on the first, usually forgotten, 4 years or so. Having extended family is hugely useful. Having an ersatz family in the form of a tribe would be perhaps equally useful.
These are the questions we should be asking. This is where the focus needs to be on building a better society. Laws are containers which sift out those whose traumas are too strong to stay within the lines, versus those whose fear conditioning is sufficient to keep them within those boundaries. They are completely unnecessary for good people, those who respect others, and who know how to regulate their own behavior.
A perfect society has no government, or at least no police and no jails. This is what we should be aiming for, and what all people who pretend to the label of “Progressive” should have in the front of their minds at all times.
These societies have existed. I have seen them. They do not last, because they do not need to remain on Earth. Angels become angels. But becoming angels is what life on this Earth is all about.
I continue to dream, and my dreaming hurts me. It hurts me to feel what is possible, and not even know how to get there myself, much less lead others. I am moving in the right direction. The quality and character of my dreams are changing. I am changing. I am calmer now than I used to be. But I still have many miles to go before it is my time to sleep. So I feel.