– In psychology, a “boundary” is determined as the place where my interests collide with the interests of the people around me. As it often happens, the desired resource is limited. In that case, two scenarios might unfold: Either I yield that resource to the other person, or I fight to possess the resource. Does the concept of the integral society, the human being of the future, lie in yielding or fighting?
– Neither. It’s to affirm what is shared, and only what is shared. There is no “yours” or “mine.” You and I must both own the resource together, and that doesn’t mean each of us has his own half, but that the resource is shared. This is the goal of integral upbringing.
– When the Americans tried to civilize the Indians, they encountered a problem: The Indians did not have private property. They did not understand the meaning of “stealing” or “taking someone else’s property” because everything was shared in their community.
– Now you are describing something similar. Does that mean there shouldn’t be private property as such?
– That’s right. The Indians did not have private property before the egoism emerged. Even now, for the most part, their egoism is at a very low developmental level. I am familiar with some of these people and I even had a chance to observe them in Canada.
But today we are at the highest peak of egoistic development. Our egoism is enormous, demanding constant satisfaction, regardless of everyone, and even in order to spite them. I enjoy being superior to others. The worse someone else feels, the better I feel.
At our current stage, we have to create a society in which I will feel that everything belongs to everyone, including myself, meaning that I belong to everyone and not to myself. There should be nothing in me that I could call my personal “self,” but only “we” and “ours.”
We, not the Indians, are the ones who have to achieve this today. This work requires enormous efforts, upbringing, and education, but when it happens, it will be a serious correction of man’s nature. Through the corrected egoism, we will feel a completely different reality, a different world!
– Let me be more specific. Suppose there are five children and three chairs, and all five want to sit. How should the situation be handled?
–They should be brought up so that if there are not enough chairs, they wouldn’t desire to sit on a chair, but would all prefer to sit on the floor, or at least they would all insist that someone else sits on the chair. We have to instill in them the understanding that if another person benefits, then I benefit too.
This is not easy, but children accept it naturally, especially at the age of 9 or 10. They grasp it much more naturally than 12 year old teenagers or young adults at 17 or 18. At that young age it’s possible to create the prerequisites for solving the problems of “mine,” “yours,” and “ours.”