The question that looms in my mind is can two opposite extremes exist together whether on an individual scale up to a societal scale?
Can anyone be extremely rich and extremely happy?
Can anyone have extreme protection with feeling extremely safe?
The same questions extend to societies.
Can a society have extreme economic inequality and extreme political equality?
The questions may sound simple, but great differences exist in their answers.
Extremes of having wealth and happiness
Research is full of contradictory results. There is a general agreement that income up to a certain limit increases happiness. However, excessive richness lowers happiness.
I believe excessiveness invited negative feelings such as fear of losing money. It creates doubts in the rich that people approach them in seek of their pockets and not their hearts. Doubt deteriorates human relationships.
Overprotection and Feeling safe
Excessiveness produces counter effects. Excessive protection among kids leads to anxiety and less resilience. These in turn take away the feeling of safety.
Overthinking leads to thinking paralysis. Overthinking, safety leads to drain of the feelings of safety.
Our VUCA world with its Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity is prone to make complete safety impossible. The advancement of artificial intelligence has fueled such a conclusion. Demanding excessive safety is unattainable and shall bring fear and anxiety. We end up more fearful and feeling unsafe than when we started.
We talk a lot about far-from-equilibrium balance that throws us on the edge of chaos. Now, expecting to have the extremes of both safety and feeling safe may send us to two edges of chaos at the same time. This makes life far too complex to enjoy it.
Extreme richness in families and societies
Imagine a family with one member very rich and another one extremely poor.
Can we have then such two extremes and yet keep the family coherence?
Extend the same question on which few people have extreme wealth while the majority of people suffer from extreme poverty. Two opposite extremes exist simultaneously.
The University of Minnesota shared a great post on this issue showing how one inequality generates other inequalities. Inequality stifles growth, increases the crime rate, decreases health, increases political inequality, and decreases education.
The generated ill effects of wealth distribution inequality are far reaching.
Our words in producing more extremes. More extremes mean more being on the edge of chaos with all the challenges it brings to our lives.
