Polarization on Esther Perel & Yuval Harari

every conflict between nations and couples ends the same way—with talking

How is conflict between couples and war between nations the same and different? In a talk on polarization, Esther and Yuval discuss fighting and make up sex, Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, and small democracies. I find myself agreeing with both in surprising areas, detect a shocking admission by Yuval, and point out the logical fallacy in both that there is no right or wrong as measured by objective goals and adherence to principles of fairness and clear thinking.

My viewer, the magnificent Maria from Melbourne, alerted me to this video. She is very interested in couples therapy and has found Esther to be a valuable resource. However, Esther’s appearance with Yuval, the WEF ideologue, alarmed her. The premise that I put forward is that we should neither wholeheartedly believe nor reject what someone says based on who they are or their associations. Instead, we need to look at the person’s consistency within their own framework and how the statement fits with the logic that makes the most sense of the known facts.

Esther began with a very interesting point: in couples with long-standing arguments, the other person knows what the partner will say and is already prepared to oppose it. What can divert this opposition is surprising them with agreement, by acknowledging whatever is driving them to hold the position they have. This seems especially good to remember going into the Christmas season where positions on the vaccines, say, are already known. Even though there’s certainly new information, the response of “kill the messenger” is still in play, even or especially when adverse reactions have been experienced. But you can undermine the pre-rehearsed rant by not playing your part, starting on common ground, and seeing what happens.

So if you start with what gives the intensity behind the other person’s argument, you can free them to listen to something else because you’ve already said the thing they were going to say. Then you follow with, “And if we only were to listen to my position, here’s what else we’d be missing.” And then you’ve covered the next thing they were going to say. As Esther says, “We co-create each other in polarized relationships, we intensify each other.” So if we want the other person to see our view, we need to show we’ve listened to them.

Esther goes on to say that she’s also done conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians and wonders if that common ground might be found among parents from both sides who’ve lost children in the conflict. Yuval then surprised me by saying that it wasn’t enough, it was a very small group. But Israel, he says, is going in the opposite direction of “becoming more and more entrenched that we are completely right and they are completely wrong, we are pure and good, there isn’t even a tiny thing that’s wrong with us, and they are bad and evil, there’s not even a tiny bit in what they say of justice.”

Over the last 10-15 years, Yuval points out, Israel has become so strong that they don’t need to compromise, they can just subdue because the disparity in power is so great. He then compares this to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and quotes that ‘All wars end the same way … by people talking.’ But with Ukraine, there needs to be fighting and victories on the battlefield because when someone’s as powerful as Russia, they don’t see a need to talk. “First fighting, then you get to the ‘good place’ of talking.” To which Esther replies, “It’s called make-up sex” and the audience laughs.

But I would say that if you’re talking about sex after violence, it’s actually called rape. And to Yuval’s credit, he later says that he cringes when Esther says ‘make-up sex’ because you can’t make the analogy between couples arguing and a war where people are being killed. What Yuval is saying about Russia is interesting on a couple of levels. First, he seems to be acknowledging that Russia is winning—something we don’t hear much about here in the States.

Second, if you take what he’s saying about Russia and apply the same logic to Israel, it seems that he’s saying Palestinians need to be more violent before Israel would ever see a need to talk. Essentially, he’s saying that there’s no moral imperative that will ever matter to them as long as might makes right. His analogy to Russia doesn’t take into account the power disparity between the ethnic Russians in the Donbas region and the neo-Nazis and coup government who’ve committed atrocities against them since 2014. With the US and NATO behind them, Ukraine’s puppet government had no reason to negotiate—maybe soon they will or maybe it’s too late. But the point Yuval makes applied to Israel is very interesting.

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The logical fallacy in both Esther and Yuval’s positions is that neither side, to them, is more right or wrong by any objective standard of a goal or a set of principles. To them, the objective is peace and compromise, an end to the fighting. But every tyrant, every slaveowner, every domestic abuser wants peace. Of course they do. They want the ones they’re abusing to stop fighting. That’s where the arbiter comes in, to replace the power imbalance with an objective means of determining fairness and setting consequences.

In Esther’s example of Israeli and Palestinian children killed in the conflict, I saw an art exhibit a decade ago that used flags to represent the children killed each year. It was wall after wall of Palestinian flags, with occasional Israeli ones. There’s no equivalency of both sides being wronged. The principle of equality means that any statement can be reversed—if this is right for me, then it has to be right for you, if this is wrong for you, then it’s also wrong for me. To pretend there’s no right or wrong is willful deception. And Yuval is too intelligent to be not using this deliberately.

In my local paper there was an op-ed called “Hanukkah and another rise of anti- Semitism” by Stephen Kessler:

Sadly, anti-Semitism is on the rise again on college campuses, where heated debates about the Palestinian-Israel conflict too often spill over into anti-Jewish antagonism and where students who support Israel are often shouted down or harassed. … Jewish students are often harassed over the issue of Zionism (the reestablishment of a Jewish state on Biblical territory). Five years ago there was a series of anti-Semitic incidents on campus, where Jewish students were encircled by other students and yelled at while celebrating Israel Independence Day…. Strangely, anti-Semitism has become prevalent on the far left as well as the far right in the US … supporters of Palestinian rights say they are not engaged in anti- Semitism, which is a prejudice, but in anti-Zionism, which is a political movement. But as Rabbi Richard Litvak notes, anti-Semitism is never far below the surface of anti-Zionism, with the underlying message that Jews are somehow counterfeiters who don’t belong—a vile belief that has led to persecution and extermination worldwide.

Like in Yuval’s circular reasoning, there’s no connection to principles of right and wrong that are applied equally. Let’s translate the definition of Zionism from the Jewish-specific “reestablishment of a Jewish state on Biblical territory” to a generic form: Reestablishment is a very neutral term for an armed invasion that killed resisters and exiled survivors, expelling them from their own homes. A Jewish state is a government explicitly based on racial supremacy. Biblical territory is the family record of a dynasty claiming the divine right to rule over others’ lives and lands in perpetuity.

The rabbi’s statement that “anti-Semitism is never far below the surface of anti-Zionism” turns protest against the persecution and extermination of Palestinians into the precursor for persecuting and exterminating Jews. Again, it’s hard for me to imagine that this convoluted and twisted logic is not deliberate propaganda. But if I’m being challenged, I will readily admit to my belief that all “scriptures” in which God grants land titles or the right to rule are counterfeit. And if everyone is entitled to their ancestral lands, those of European, Middle Eastern or African descent need to all exit North America.

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In the last three minutes of the video, Yuval speculates on how people can be changed without violence. He has two answers: through storytelling and through experience, for which his example is hunger. Sage Hana quoted him today on one form of storytelling:

“This is the crucial revolution. And COVID is critical because…this is what convinces people to accept…to legitimize…total biometric surveillance.”

She also included a quote from his WEF boss:

Yuval emphasizes that before the 19th century, democracy could only happen on a small scale because there was no ability to communicate. Now, he states, we have the capacity to participate at a global scale. But this centralization of venues—even without the censorship—doesn’t mean there’s a process for bringing the best ideas forward and making decisions. That can’t be done by one group of rulers assuming the authority to tell everyone else what to do. That can only be done through networked communities, where authority and responsibility go hand-in-hand.

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To follow up on the importance of storytelling, aka ideology, here’s the Unlimited Hangout article again on Covid 19—Mass Formation or Mass Atrocity? The most important questions we should be asking are ‘has this been done to us?’ and ‘who did it?’ The candidates are China, the City of London, and the US Deep State but I think that all roads lead to Rothschilds. So I recommend Chris Hedges’ excellent piece on Israel and the Rise of Jewish Fascism. And on thinking for yourself, Air Lift Underground has a little ditty on Sugar-Coated Half Truths and Be Your Own Savior that I hear will be set to music. Here’s the convo with Esther and Yuval:

To follow up from my videos, here’s the other one I made from Maria’s referral: Down Under Torn Asunder:

Battleground Melbourne is a documentary by Topher Field on the lockdowns and police crackdowns in Australia. It tells the story through interviews of a dozen courageous people and video clips of police interactions. It won Best Documentary at the Berlin Indie Film Festival. I talk about their stories and only break down once, which is better than I did watching it. I also discuss Cafe Locked out and Margaret Anna Alice's Down Under Edition of Through the Looking Glass. And I end by talking about spirituality and bungee jumping to find the courage we didn't know we had.

and this is Yuval Harari & the Metawealth Miniverse:

The controversy continues over Russell Brand & YNH: was Russell fooled or is he part of the plot? I analyze an interview Yuval did with Daniel Soylesisi on superfluous people, medicine as body upgrades, drugs and computer games for the masses, the degradation of family and happiness, and the market as a replacement for "the intimate community." I have to wonder if Yuval is a 'truth double agent' because his warning is so clear. I end with a plan to send the oligarchs into space in Elon Musk's 'cockrocket' so they can get their food from a lab and live forever while all us superfluous people can live our short, brutish lives on the land.