Are there any advantages/ benefits to living under a dictatorship?

In the Soviet Union, people were made hungry and forced to work, otherwise they would be taken to work in concentration camps in Siberia.

People had nothing to do but struggle to realize their life’s bare essentials to survive. That is, the conditions were set for people to engage in and think only about their essentials.

In other words, such a system lowers human beings to the level of animals so that people become easier to control. There are several examples where rulers generate such conditions in order to make societies live like animals, constantly struggling to meet their basic needs. We then become preoccupied with being safe, secure and comfortable, with no lofty aspirations.

If we are relieved from the pressure just to sustain our physical existence, then we immediately start demanding more. We further develop and can no longer tolerate pressure from the ruling systems.

Then, we encounter another problem: How will we act when we can further develop?

Since we are egoists by nature, where we each prioritize self-benefit over benefiting others and nature, then our further development means becoming more sophisticated egoists. We develop increasingly refined tools of trying to satisfy ourselves with no real consideration of others, failing to pay attention to the accelerated path to self-destruction that we pave. In that regard, dictatorship is preferable because it places clear boundaries around society, relating to people like robots moving around a machine.

Therefore, in order to realize our additional freedom in a way that does not lead us to destruction, but to benefiting us all, we need to couple our increased freedom with an upgrade in our education. In other words, we need a higher level of understanding throughout society on how today’s tightly interdependent world is completely different to the world of the past, and how to balance our attitudes with today’s globally-interdependent conditions in order to bring about a harmonious and peaceful change.

We can then change our behavior from being animals to being human beings, knowing how to grow, and using our additional freedom to grow as human beings.

Based on the video “The Key to Prosperous Human Development: Learning How to Use Freedom for Growth” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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