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Workers in an Israeli factory that makes military hardware.

This article is a continuation of  Material Poverty, Symbolic Poverty and Alternatives for Social and Political Thinking in Israel.

This article attempts to point out elements of the social given of our period and to suggest an alternative socio-political discourse.

First, we must define the concept of a “social given.” In every human society, there exist ideological alignments which justify the society as it is. These alignments are generally expressed by more or less organized doctrines. Those responsible for constructing these doctrines are the educated elite of the society, including religious figures. Alongside the organized doctrine, a social given develops, which is the translation of the ideological alignment into simple language that everyone can understand, and most importantly according to which everyone can work.  

The social given determines our values, our social behavior and the means of oppression employed by society. It trickles down into every crack and into our interpersonal relations, it appears most natural. The saying “this is just how the world works” expresses this social given. At this point comes the question of who actually determines these alignments? We tend to think they have existed forever, although some of them have become hegemonic only in recent years, and in relation to the expanse of human history, it is almost as if they never existed.

The importance of building an alternative sociopolitical discourse is derived from realizing the grip of the social given on the wider collective unconscious, and particularly on the collective unconscious of the marginalized and oppressed populations. Its power is measured in the difficulty in changing public awareness of these givens.

Concerning tenure at work, for example, a social given was created amongst the working class. Its members viewed tenure as security, and particularly as continuity. Each person knew what her or his life path would be, and knew that her or his children would continue in this same way. Twenty years ago, in wake of the global change in capital, the global neoliberal ideology reinvented the concept of tenure in the workplace. This ideology views tenure in the workplace as a social and economic disaster which acts barbarically against the health of market forces, forces which alone are capable of creating prosperity. As a result, stubborn battles were fought, resulting in the crushing of strong worker unions, both in Israel and throughout the world. Academics and government mouthpieces began to build an organized doctrine, comprised of mantras that repeat themselves again and again, including: the market decides, efficiency, output and input, standards, tenure at work is a disaster, etc. These mantras served to construct a new social given. Eventually, the majority of people, particularly amongst weakened populations, became accustomed to the “natural” situation in which there is no possibility for tenure at work, and they begin to not even think to demand or receive it. This is a point when it is so internalized that members of the weakened populations now believe that part of their “advancement” as individuals is precisely not to continue in the same job for a long time. In this way, the social given destroys the trace of its own creation. Capital is no longer what determines that there will be no tenure, but the belief of the vast majority of humanity that it is good, as individuals, not to keep the same job and moreover, that constant transition between different jobs will bring them more "interest" and occasionally a higher salary.

Amongst youth, the social given appears even more natural, as they are still far from deciding about their lives (partners, children, home, etc.). However, the problem becomes acute when people become older, expressed in an ongoing concern for the future, uncertainty about the guarantee of a livelihood and a fear to commit to long-term plans.

This is true also concerning the concept of merchandise (material or virtual) in the neo-liberal age: “use and discard.” This expression is central to understanding numerous layers of the social given. It has ties to unending psychological and sociological layers.

Our period is characterized by the dizzying pace of exchanging merchandise and capital. Companies change their owners through financial machinations over mere hours. Merchandise is upgraded within weeks. When capital changes hands so quickly this means, as I noted in the previous article, that the capital holder has no responsibility toward his workers. From the capital owner’s perspective, workers, as human beings, are merchandise defined as “use and discard.” Capital hops among countries and has no obligations toward its workers; it uses them and when there no longer exists a need, it discards them. To every new country it arrives, the process repeats itself. The relation of capital to human beings results in a trickling down of banality of life and human dignity. Capital uses the labor power of men and women until they reach 40 or 50, and then tosses them into the cycle of unemployment. The youth from these same disempowered communities view this as an opportunity to gain employment, until it will be there turn to be tossed. As this system works rapidly, people have insufficient time to digest the process and fight against it. Today the bosses are Israeli, tomorrow they will be European and the day after Chinese and English. Accordingly, the boss is simultaneously global, virtual and ever-changing--people as merchandise.

This process results in a loss of humanity amongst people. If it is “natural” that everything is rapidly replaced, that there is no time to stop for a moment and think what is happening here, then it is “natural” that the weakened amongst us—women, children, elderly, foreigners, blacks, Palestinians—are those who must lose, as “this is how the world works.”  Internalizing the social given results, as always, in a search for the nearest “other” as s/he, unlike international capital, is not virtual. It is my neighbor, the one with whom I take the bus. It is the man who “took from me” a job. It is the one who competes with my child in the educational factory, and so on. The relation toward the other is animated by the social given. We all know these twisted rules, and we all act according to their logic. In this sense, none of us are free from responsibility. That is to say, if we recognize the need for an alternative discourse, we are all responsible. Guilt feelings alone do not free their bearers from responsibility. One who believes otherwise walks over the weakened populations with feelings of superiority. We all wish to survive in the social chaos, but none of us would be willing to exchange our place with that of the most oppressed person.

The sole relative advantage we have on our side is the desire to replace the existing social given with a message of hope for another society and a better future. A message of change, but a relation of respect to which we are obligated to weakened communities is the profound understanding that no one is free from responsibility.

Additionally, it must be recognized that the social given in our period has cracks that derive not from the power of the radical dissenters, but from the speed in which everything is replaced. Every day a new fashion comes out. Every day, for example, there is a new model of mobile phone and before you had the opportunity to purchase the third generation, the fourth generation appears. Ostensibly everything is permitted—apart from dissent against the overall system. This is the essential contradiction that allows for cracks. The central problem is that these cracks are quickly filled by the social given capable of connecting between a mythological past and an eternal future.

Fundamentalism, as a phenomenon characterizing our generation, derives power from its ability to take shortcuts and offer an easily digestible alternative on the level of a social given that offers a solution to social divisions and the irresponsibility in today’s homogenous society. In this sense institutionalized religion, as an eternal human institution, allows community cohesion and the demarcation of borders between “us” and “them,” thus facilitating the construction of communities based on the simple social given, clear and seemingly most humane, despite its internal contradictions.

Although the fundamentalist social given quickly deteriorates into the same patterns as the neoliberal society, such as the exclusion of women in other, additional ways, it is consolidated quickly as there exist no other believable alternatives that are part of the community landscape.

In addition to the need to build an alternative ideology to neoliberalism and fundamentalism, it is necessary to construct another social given. This does not mean creating slogans to be chanted at demonstrations (although this is also important), but a simplification of the values and world view according to which we work. And this means to be a part of the weakened communities. The alternative social given will not be built by those with the knowledge and vision for a better society, but by their interaction with the oppressed.