Dumb Luck & Human Destiny

There is no place for luck in a species that considers itself intelligent.

(If you have received this by email, please click on the title to read the latest version. I often correct typos and continue to edit my essays, after publishing the first version).

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

A couple of weeks ago, the media showed images of survivors of the Gaza genocide living in tents and makeshift shelters, languishing under cold weather, heavy rain, and flooding. There is no point going on about how it made me feel. Anyone with a heart and a conscience knows exactly what it feels like to get a glimpse into the horrors that Gaza’s people are going through, and to imagine ourselves in their place. None of our fellow human beings in Gaza deserve to live like this. None of them deserved to be bombed out of their homes, have their lives destroyed, their children and loved-ones brutally, and gruesomely murdered. None deserve to exist in limbo, not knowing if they will survive Israel’s carnage, and what fate awaits them if they do. They do not deserve the trauma and grief Israel deliberately and systematically inflicts on them.

In 1947-1948, while the colonial powers aided and abetted the perpetrators, Gaza’s residents, their parents, and grandparents were brutally ethnically cleansed from their original homes. At the heart of all setter-colonial movements is the policy of the ‘elimination of the native’ (Patrick Wolfe). In the case of Zionist settler-colonialism, the ‘natives’ are the non-Jewish, indigenous people of Palestine.

The indigenous people of Palestine did nothing to deserve their fate. They were not ‘bad people’, or criminals getting their ‘just comeuppance’. They are ordinary human beings like you and me. They just happened to be in the location the Zionists had their cold colonial hearts set on, for their future, exclusively Jewish ‘national home’. The historical connection between the Jewish people and Palestine is irrelevant. Settler-colonialism is what it is, regardless of the reasons, or rather excuses, perpetrators use to justify the unjustifiable. The people whom the original Zionists marked for removal or elimination lived where they did for the same reason any of us happen to live where we do.

I often wonder why I am safe, and why I have the life that I do. Why is it that I was able to survive my childhood trauma, and even recover from it? How is it possible that I have made it to sixty, and that I am not homeless, or living in a tent, out in the cold, hungry, fearful, and subjected to bombings by an enemy determined to annihilate me?

When I left Israel at the age of twenty-seven, I was not politically enlightened. I was reflective, and had the sensitivity to sense what was going on around me. But I did not understand Israel’s history. My knowledge about the country I was born in, its history and its reality, was based entirely on my Jewish-Israeli Zionist indoctrination. I left Israel because I grew weary of the life that Israeli society offered me. I could not see a future in a staunchly capitalist society that was determined to live forever by the sword, and in perpetual fear. Even without understanding history properly, it was clear to me that we had a choice about how we lived. I never subscribed entirely to the idea that all of Israel’s problems were caused by the outside world.

Like all perpetrator societies, built on the devastation they have wreaked on others, Israeli society cannot be happy, peaceful, or content. It is permanently stressed, chronically anxious, jumpy, and exhausted. Life there is a constant emotional roller-coaster. People are on tenterhooks, always waiting for the next drama or disaster, which their media promise them is always around the corner. As a result, the general atmosphere is impatient, harsh and intolerant. It is not psychologically healthy for anyone. It is also dangerous if you are a Palestinian, or if you are a Jew who opposes Zionism. (There are other groups that are increasingly under threat in Israeli society, but that’s for another essay).

From early childhood I have been passionate about human potential. I must have realised instinctively that Israeli society and its culture could not provide me with the ingredients I needed in order to recover from my childhood trauma, and live a full and healthy life. Stressful environments do not support development. They favour physical survival at the cost of the ingredients that human beings need in order to be well and to thrive, such as gentleness, patience, validation, kindness, connection, consistency, fairness, and justice.

I could not imagine any future for myself in Israel’s psychological pressure cooker. Or rather, I did not want the future I could envisage. I knew I needed space to breathe, to find out who I was, and to develop. I craved a little softness, patience, and kindness; just as much as I craved a greener environment. Coming from the crowded, noisy, sprawling, and soulless urban desert around Tel-Aviv, I wanted to live somewhere where I could see some green out of the window.

Photo by Jakob Cotton on Unsplash

The trip from Israel to Sydney took about twenty-four hours. It was in November 1991, thirty-three years ago. My husband and I had very little money. We had to find jobs as soon as we arrived, and rent a flat as quickly as possible. But even with no material security or comfort, life instantaneously felt better. The constant, familiar tension we were so accustomed to was noticeably absent, and it was a huge relief. It was as if I could breathe better.

At some point it struck me that just by moving myself from one place on the planet to another, I changed my entire existence. It brought home to me that where we happen to be born, and the circumstances we find ourselves in — our location in the world — determine our fate. I was exactly the same person I was twenty-four hours earlier. The only thing that changed was my physical location. Why did I suddenly have a better life? What did I do to earn it?

The sad reality is that it is not our character, talents, or abilities that determine the quality of life we have, and the opportunities available to us. Because of the way we have organised our world, it is chance that determines whether we survive, and have an opportunity to fulfil our human potential. I am here, living the life I do, not because I am particularly clever, or have special traits, or because I deserve it more than anyone else. I am here because of dumb luck.

You might think that it wasn’t luck that changed my life, but my willingness to take a risk and move to another country. Perhaps you think that I had enough vision, hope, and determination to take my chances in a new place, despite having been brought up to believe that the world outside Israel was dangerous. (Thank you. It’s very kind of you).

However, it was not my intelligence, or character that determined Australia’s immigration policy back in 1991. I was lucky to be born white enough, be fluent in English because the Israeli education system made English compulsory, be in good physical health, and married to someone whose academic qualifications and work experience enabled us to pass Australia’s ‘points test’. I know others who wanted to move to Australia, but could not, because the rules excluded them. If my circumstances were any different, I would have been stuck in Israel.

I have always felt deep empathy towards asylum-seekers who are treated like criminals in the West. Apparently it is a crime to want a better life if your skin colour is the wrong one, or if the immigration policies in Western countries exclude you. People do not become asylum-seekers because of who they are. I am in no way a better or more deserving person than anyone whose unlucky circumstances placed them in a harmful country, and who does not fit within the immigration policies of the country they hope to escape to.

We can, and should banish ‘luck’ from our existence

Our species comes from natural environments that were often inhospitable and dangerous. In her book, A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving, Prof. Athena Aktipis says:

“… it’s astounding how much death and destruction was part of daily life for hunter-gatherers. During much of human evolutionary history, somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of your social group would die from a catastrophic event in your lifetime. These deaths often happened as a result of natural disasters, wars, famine, or disease. Some human populations dealt with much bigger risks as well, as they migrated thousands of miles across uncertain territory to colonize the globe.” (p.12)

Imagine what it must have been like to lose so many people you knew and cared about, in overwhelming circumstances out of anyone’s control. Imagine the grief, and the trauma of loss. Imagine what people saw, and witnessed. It should not be too hard for us to imagine, because we can see it all on the faces of Gaza’s residents, and of persecuted people in so many parts of the world. The difference is that they are not victims of unavoidable, natural disasters, but of deliberate harm inflicted on them by their fellow humans.

Our ancestors could not help what happened to them. Where you were born determined your destiny. If you were lucky to be born where there was enough food, a bit of kindness, cooperation, and safety, you would not only stay alive, but could develop your potential. But if you happened to be born into an anxious, or brutal group that struggled to find food, or stay safe from the many predators that ate us, life would have been so much more difficult.

The natural environment is beautiful, provided it does not include things that want to kill, and eat us. If hunter-gatherers’ life was easy and safe, we probably would not have bothered developing agriculture to secure our food supply. We would not have been in such a rush to build cities, and remove ourselves as far away as possible from the dangers of the natural world. We probably would not have developed advanced technology so quickly either.

Putting physical survival first is a natural evolutionary adaptation common to all mammals. Where there is a threat to life, all functions and needs that do not support immediate survival, temporarily retreat to the background, until the threat is gone. (Just to be clear, stress does not mean having a lot to do and not enough time to do it. Stress is what we experience when we feel under threat). We may have distanced ourselves from nature’s randomness and insecurity, but we still carry the psychology that our harsh history has bequeathed to us.

Our so-called progress has given us an incredible opportunity to create a world where everyone, regardless of location or circumstances, is enabled to develop to their potential. Instead, we have Gaza, Lebanon, Aleppo, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, and so much more. In our ‘developed’, ‘democratic’, ‘affluent’ societies, we are all ‘just two or three pay cheques away from destitution’. ‘All’ means the majority of us, who do not live on capital, and are not independently wealthy, but must sell our labour to survive. Except for a tiny minority of wealthy people, everyone else still lives with varying degrees of existential insecurity. Most people might be more comfortable than our ancestors, but they still live with incredible insecurity. Incredulously, most people’s life is a constant struggle for survival, even in places that are not currently under attack, in a state of war, or social unrest.

Things are slightly better in the UK, where you are not thrown out of A&E (ER), if you do not have private medical insurance, and where we still have a social safety net. But our mean neoliberal economy keeps our support systems permanently under threat of cuts and changes. Those who have no choice but to depend on them are deliberately not allowed to relax and feel secure. The US is a ruthless economic jungle, and things are far worse for people there than they are here in the UK. For all our great achievements and potential, people’s fortunes are still down to dumb luck.

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If our way of life is not insulting enough, the expectation that everyone should have good mental health in this world is especially cruel and cold-hearted. However, it is hardly surprising, given that researchers and practitioners in the field of mental health have long sold their soul, not to mention their intellectual integrity, to the gods of neoliberalism and survivalism. We have plenty of solid science to tell us what people need in order to be well and thrive. We know that without basic safety and stability the human brain struggles to allocate enough resources to development, and we know that this results in psychological suffering. We also know that the ingredients we need for psychological health and development can only come from our environment. But we continue to perpetuate the unscientific myth that people should be OK, despite everything. When people are not well, they are told there is something wrong with them, and they need medication to ‘manage the symptoms’. Medicating people’s mental health generates an obscene amount of wealth for giant multinational pharmaceutical companies. They are not only at the heart of our neoliberal economies, they directly enable them. Viewing human suffering — contrary all good science — as a ‘malfunction’ inside people, instead of a malfunction in the environment in which they live. It enables us to continue to avoid changing our social and political context, which contains the real of causes of human suffering. It is a perfect trap.

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Humans are no longer afraid of sabre tooth tigers, giant hyenas, or volcanoes. We are afraid of each other. Our modern security and defence systems are not there to protect us from the dangers of the natural world. They protect us from other humans. Next time you go through an airport’s tiresome security process, remember that it is there to protect you from your fellow human beings, and this is not something to be proud of, or content with.

We have enough knowledge, science, and ingenuity to make things safe for everyone, and to enable everyone’s development, wherever they are in the world. Instead, we choose to recreate and perpetuate the patterns of insecurity, trauma, loss, and horror that our ancestors lived with by necessity. There is nothing progressive or enlightened about what we are doing. We should be ashamed of ourselves for forcing everyone to live with unnecessary fear, and for narrowing our existence instead of expanding it.

We should be deeply ashamed for continuing to accept and perpetuate the idea that some humans are more deserving or entitled than others, and for choosing leaders who encourage us to continue to think this way. We vary in our abilities, and our needs, but we all have the same intrinsic value and the same fundamental need to grow to our potential. Equality does not mean sameness. It means equal value and equal right to stay alive and develop to our potential. No one is more deserving than anyone else.

We must stand up for the people of Gaza, and for anyone who is subjected to injustice, brutality, and war, internationally or in our own communities. We must banish killing for good, and ban the development of weapons. We must banish economic insecurity, and let go of our brutal survivalist ethos. Dumb luck should never determine anyone’s destiny. Until we get this, we are nothing but a failed species, sliding backwards to an ever more primitive state of development.

Is it really so radical to ask people to please not kill or exploit other people? Is it radical to ask for a bit of gentleness, kindness, and cooperation? In what way is it radical to ask that we organise our world to ensure that everyone’s survival and growth are a given, and not dependent on chance or luck? Anyone who thinks it is radical, needs their head examined. They certainly should not be given power over people, or a gun.

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