Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

CHILDREN OF THE KIBBUTZ 351
members of the kibbutz. But even those intellectual occupations condoned
by the collective, and pursued in a man's own time, always leave
behind a faint sense of guilt. One man told Spiro that he found it
impossible to develop his poetic gift because he could not help thinking
of his comrades, capable only of manual labour, who, as children, had sat
next to him in the latrine (his own words). There is a feeling of guilt,
such as we saw in Chapter 15 in the Genevan doctor, Paul Tournier, and
some of his friends. This sense of guilt felt by the gifted, intellectually
active man who is able to do comparatively agreeable work is, however,
nothing other than the idea of the supposed envy in others of his own
special position. 8
If we pass under review envy's ubiquitous social control of kibbutz
members, and see to what revulsion, mockery, resentment and suspicion
anyone is exposed who seems to be even slightly different, a little more
inventive, creative, gifted, wide-awake or imaginative than the others,
one thing becomes clear: the Iqbbutz culture, prototype of the socialist
community and 'signpost for the future of mankind,' reflects many
aspects of the society of primitive peoples. Displayed, as in a laboratory,
we see the degree of the pressure exerted by egalitarianism, the fear of
mutual envy, upon the potential inventor, creator or innovator. The ideal
of absolute equality, the eschewing of all authority and superior status,
of all economic advantage, and the concern for the survival of this system
of equality, once established, cannot admit of any individual's success in
introducing unforeseen innovations, since he would then, by definition,
no longer be an equal, even were his invention immediately and unselfishly
placed at the disposal of the collective.
The problem is not, in fact, so much actual rejection of innovation by
the kibbutz community as the fear inculcated from childhood onwards
into the individual that he might somehow stop being equal, might show
some sign of superiority or in some way become conspicuous. Spiro,
who studied the kibbutz with very real sympathy, describes the inhibitions
of children born and brought up on the kibbutz. 9 More recently,
difficulties have arisen from the conflict between the propertyless
kibbutzim and the inheritance laws of the state of Israel. 10 A further
8 Op. cit., p. 398.
9 Op. cit., pp. 367-71,453.
10 'Erbschaftsprobleme in Israel,' in Neue Zurcher Zeitung, December 13,1962.