Distinction, Conflict and Community

Weaving Wisdom Path From The Five Books of Moses, Our Emotional Brain and Our Lives.

In Search of Wisdom: Distinction, Conflict and Community

Wisdom from Interpersonal Neurobiology (INPB):

We make distinctions to live.  This person is OK.  Those people are dangerous.  Some distinctions are necessary, some useful, but many are downright dangerous.  At the same time the Israelites dealt a deathblow to their Midianites neighbors who they labeled as enemy, we witness two other distinctions made within their camp.  Understanding these different distinctions and how our brain manages them will help us live wisely in our diverse but interconnected world.

After labeling the Midianites as dangerous, the Israelites conquered them, destroyed their cities and killed all the men and most of the captured women and children.  Was this an atrocity or a regrettable necessity?  During this same time, the Israelites distinguished between the vows of men and women and negotiated a special land deal for two tribes in contrast to the remaining ten. It seems that labeling people within our group or without changes how we act.  Outsiders are easily destroyed, while within, compromise is the overall rule, even though some differentiation carried a social sting.  Separating inside from outside our community has been useful for a good stretch of U. S. history.  A mere twenty or so years ago, we divided the world into the democratic good guys fighting the communist evil empire; while several decades earlier, the fighters for freedom defeated (but rebuilt) the Axis powers.  Before that, the Blue coated Northerners defeated the Southerners in Grey, as colonial Patriots had done to the Red Coats.  Oops, both those last two distinctions started as conflicts within the community.  Today, we label states red or blue, and slam the other guys with sound bites that paint them as bad or evil (you choose Tea Party or Radicals, Right or Left).  But what worked from ancient times until recently is rendered unworkable by our interconnected, interdependent global technology and economy.  Is it wise to be using ancient distinctions to guide our modern world and weapons?

Consider for a moment how blurry the inside/outside distinction has become. Where was your computer made and what accent do you hear when you call for tech support?  Who owns the stores you shop in?  Who serves your food or clears the table?  Who drills for, owns, operates, and supplies the gas we use as we drive our cars, most of which involve multi-national technology?  As our economy becomes more technologically global, wisdom from the Five Books of Moses and Interpersonal Neurobiology can help us reevaluate distinctions.

Now, slay every male among the children. What can we possibly learn from this almost genocidal behavior? Our first bit of wisdom is that the Midianites were outsiders, but not strangers. Actually intimate others living next door, they were a people whose gods (and sexual rites) were tempting to the Israelite men.  Labeled outsiders by the Israelites, as we did to Japs*, Commie Pinkos* or terrorists, the Midianite danger was fueled by desire and vulnerability inside the Israelite community.  And we are all vulnerable.

The second learning is that we generate internal working models and response patterns of safety or danger through our earliest experiences with our parents and caretakers.  “Before we “know” what has happened, autonomic arousal processes have readied us for action and reaction.”¹ Before our conscious mind gets a clue, our early intimacy patterns impose distinctions of safe or dangerous upon our adult world.  This vulnerability, whether others are intimate or distant, is often only noticeable through our actions, no matter what we are thinking.  So it was for the Israelites. The emotional soup in which these second-generation escapees grew up was liberally seasoned with the fear and chaos of their parents’ slave and escape experiences. The same is true for most second-generation immigrants or survivors of the Holocaust or other human or natural disasters.  We seek to soothe those fears and manage the accompanying vulnerabilities, often gravitating towards others with similar patterns and pains.  Our desires, discomforts and search for relief empower their seductiveness.  Fears embedded in our early neural patterns can exaggerate the danger we see in those outside the community.  But what is different when distinctions are inside the community?

If a woman makes a vow to the Lord . . . and her father [or husband] learns of her vow . . . and offers no objection, all her vows shall stand.  Beyond the social sting of that paternalistic culture where fathers and husbands decided for the household, their daughters and wives included, this distinction between a man’s and a woman’s vows can be understood in the interest of familial and societal harmony.  Consider that the man has made a deal with the neighboring farmer only to find out that his wife has vowed never to speak or deal with those neighbors again.  The family’s interest overrode the woman’s and the husband could nullify her vow, without bringing guilt upon her.  But there were limits to his power.  If he didn’t act immediately upon hearing it, her vow stood.  Our ancestors believed that a vow to the Lord was sacred, not to be made, or overturned, lightly.   Within the household, the partners were able to regulate and limit each other’s commitments for the good of the partnership.  The same is true for us, and it enhances familial and emotionally connectivity.  “The success, security, and stability of a partnership hinges on the partners’ capacity to regulate various internal bodily, emotional, and mental states in real time, separately and together.”² Since mutual, beneficial connection is the goal within the family and community, we must wrestle with our earliest patterns, lest those automatic distinctions undermine beneficial community connections.

“It would be a favor to us,” [the Gadites and Reubenites] continued, “if this land were given to [us] as a holding; do not move us across the Jordan.” Similar regulation was applied among the tribes when the Reubenites and Gadites wanted to stay back and occupy the conquered lands. At first their request angered Moses but negotiations quickly achieved a compromise.  After building towns to protect their families, the Reubenite and Gadite warriors would spearhead the charge across the Jordan.  They then would stay and fight until the Promised Land was conquered.  Only then would they return back across the Jordan to their wives, children and animals.  Negotiation and compromise worked as each side held back on its need to defeat the other.  Rather each acknowledged the merit within the other’s desires and developed an agreement that brought each side some of what they wanted.

In our interconnected world, we court disaster when our earliest fear based responses automatically run our family or political lives.  In the interest of family, community, national and global survival, we would be wise to identify what others want of us and, within reason, deliver some to them.  With very few exceptions, we can assume that people both inside and outside our specific community share this planet with us and possess brains filled desires, vulnerabilities, and frustrations.  When we focus on distinctions and differences, we generate fear in ourselves toward them. Fear forces disconnection. When instead we focus on connections among us, we invest in our personal, community and global survival!

* The use of the derogatory ‘Japs’ instead of Japanese and ‘Commie Pinko’, etc., is an intentional example of how many derogatory labels easily inhabit our culture and consciousness.

1. Solomon, Marion and Tatkin, Stan, Love and War in Intimate Relationships, 2011, p. 43.
2. Ibid., p. 44.

Quotes from the Five Books of Moses are from Etz Hayim, 1999.