
Community Brain.... Palestine and Israel
This a stage in a discussion created with Wael Al Saad about the concept of communal brain a term he propose "Palestine Brain". One of the questions Wael put was about the difference between Palestinian Brain and Palestine brain.
There are few discussions that relate to that them please review them too.
Palestine Brain: Our mess and the meaning to BE Palestinian
The Paradox of change - Palestine brain
Here Is reaction to that idea of "Communal Brain" where I try to investigate more deeply into the structure of communal wold views and communal processes. I focus on the Israeli/Zionist/Jewish system that I know, while I accept ignorance about the content of Arab,Palestine, Arab-Israeli.
I use the term ethno-centric to describe a world view where there is great weight on evaluation of what is good. If you fill unconformable with the term it is referrer to
wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocentrism
The notion of Communal Brain as "Palestine Brain" link us to the general notion that human groups tend to create culture and process knowledge to create better life condition. Communal Brain point to the communal processes that structure the communal actions and values. This concept scheme enable us to differentiate the personal from the communal and still acknowledge both perspectives. There is one line of connection that cored in people who seek the Communal Brain and that they recognize their responsibility that exceeds their personal needs and includes the needs of the whole.
Feeling responsibility for the Whole originates with consciousness of being embedded in the community of Your People (family, tribe, culture, nation, religion, humanity etc.) And as this identity and awareness expands, it escorts one on an ever-widening journey of broadening scopes of inclusive relationship. The perspective grows and continues to widen and to encompass not only all people on this beautiful blue-green planet we call Earth, all sentient beings and non-sentient beings; everything involved in the processes and systems of life Planet Earth. Some even say this inclusive perspective can stretch even beyond our Planet to consciousness of the universe. It is from here, I believe, where we can find our way back to the spiritual roots.
We can speak of different brains. Many different brains. Palestine Brain. Israel Brain, Ethno-centric Brain, World-centric, Patriarchal Brain, Feminist Brain, Socialist Brain, Democratic Brain. Many different brains emerging from different paths. It is significant to recognize the role of life conditions in shaping the contents; stories, beliefs, outlooks, inlooks socio-economic structure and value-systems of our variant brains.
To be able to be part of a more complex level of communion, according to developmental models (and even in chaos theory and complexity sciences), one must pass through the ethnocentric stage as a foundational element in order to be able to hold worldcentric perspective and more complex inclusive views. It is a necessary developmental phase that cannot by bypassed. One cannot grow a leg without first growing bones that are structural components of a leg.
These developmental stages of awareness effect the quality of the world views of a nation. The ethnocentric brain of Israel (predominantly Jewish population) emerged in parallel with the European stages of national identity. This has resulted as both a blessing and a curse for both Israel and Palestine. Any individual can access any of the levels of views. And in the density of the community we can recognize groupings with different centers of gravity and patterns of thinking and outlook. Nationhood is a group process emergent through a historical narrative, stories we hold dear and near in our brains.
For example, one can see how the German Brain at the beginning of the 20th century developed an extreme, fierce ethnocentric view. This view meshed with the most sophisticated knowledge technological and otherwise, available on the planet ever at that time. The German Brain of the early 20th century was activated through the agency of the national-socialist movement which triggered the hubris of a group of like-minded humans and set them in a course to lead and 'serve' humanity by controlling it. Control is a normal structural feature of the National Brain in any form. In relation to our example of the German Brain, its ardent identification and Nation vision made it blind to other perspectives and thus brought World War II upon that generation.
Life conditions rendered by WW II and evolving notions of Nationalistic forms in Europe, the Soviet Union at the time indeed had a seminal shaping effect on the emerging "Zionist Brain". The Israel Brain is rooted in the 19th century Jewish Brain (the national identity part) which we can recognize as Zionist Brain. The Zionist Brain is a set of ideas and world view that was captured by many. Zionist Brain processes were manifested in literature and activities that were focused on creating a national state for Jews. This group managed to organize "national state" organizations even before Israel declared in 48. These organizations (social organizations responsible for health and work, armed defense etc.) were later strengthen the power of the Jewish-Zionist to manifest Israel from 1948. This was a crucial combination of factors that stimulated a group of people rooted to the Jewish Brain to mesh and culminate in the energetic thrust that created Israel … and create the Naqba.
Looking at this more deeply, The Zionist Brain is a product of the Jewish Brain that is here for 5,000 years.
I think not many noticed how the Jewish brain formed, and the simplicity and beauty of the process recorded in the Old Testament. When there is a sacred ritual that is essential part of makes you Jewish – you must tell the story of the exodus from Egypt every year. This story kept in the Jewish brain (tradition) feeds the Jewish identity and enabled it to survive in the world of other identities. The Jewish traditional practice of the last 2000 years to study enriched humanity as we can find statistically significant many Jewish originate people involved in breakthrough. The Holocaust is significant event in the forming of the Jewish brain and it tide most of its energy toward the creation of Israel. Sadly from the circumstances of the time, the dominant view was nationalist hence the Jews invested in an ethno-centric creation.
As we know this Zionist project succeeded in creation a modern relatively strong state. Israel security issues continue to exist and present threats from the "terrorists" or "atomic bombs" that continue question Israel survival. This pushes the Zionist brain see as it is the Jewish brain and reject more world-centric identity. There exists deep expectation from all Jews to support Israel and identify with it. A lot of Israelis think of Israeli as Jewish and blind to the Arab part within Israel (20% of the populations are Arab). From a world-centric Jewish identity we can see how the international Jewish communities now try to support Arabs as well as Jews. While we have the Palestinian problem the attraction of the Zionist view of Judaism is very strong. This is one of the lines within the Jewish-Zionist that directly affected by the Palestinians, Israelis and the Zionist brain is working to justify itself as it is attacked by the ideas of Palestinian identity.
The Palestine Brain exists for some times, it has strong roots in the Arab world that I am too ignorant to describe in details. Its venues and narrative path are vogue to a person like me, but from what I have studied the Arab wisdom has no inferiority from the European – Jewish structure. Its focus is different values then the Jewish one and its path different in many ways. Palestine brain is an Arab brain driven by the sting of the Naqba. And this brain is about to get independence and while It is forming to manifest itself it can access technology and knowledge that even the Zionist did not have. The Palestine brain has the capacity to forge a path of peace into the Arab brain. As in this generation many Palestinians in the western world are more educated and wealthier. The Jordanian state (kingdom) shows strength and open spirit that can support this nation going though its hard transition from oppressed population to of becoming autonomous successful state as the Palestinians deserve to be.
As the Palestine Brain forge now the Palestine future it has many advantages for development. While the Atmosphere of the 19th and beginning of 20th century were strongly influenced by National emergence the Palestine brain has capacity of perspective the Zionist brain could not hold. With the Technology we have today the Palestine Brain has access to communication and knowledge sharing technologies that were not in any one dream till 50 years ago and ideas that recognize the global forces that has much more direct influence on individuals.
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