Humansim continued- pt.2
Jan. 13th, 2026 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mcbratEveryone on the earth, all animals included should have access openly to the most comfortable beds. I envision a world where nobody is sleeping on concrete or metro station floors, no one is sleeping on spring mattresses on the floor with no bedding- and furthermore where no one is using even inferior quality sheets to simulate a human comfort placed outside of their tax bracket. We must recognize our shared humanity to the extent where comfort as an end in itself matters.
Coziness, swaddling and nesting matters- warmth, safety, ease, and calm above the bare minimum are necessary for human development and adjustment. From a neurobiological perspective as well as an evolutionary one, the sustained states of safety of the human organism result in much different outcomes than unsafe, inadequate or neglectful ones. From a developmental standpoint there is now oodles of science on the effect of trauma in childhood and early adolescent years. Resulting in blocked or stunted social connection and cohesion, mental illness (as a direct result of the internalization of trauma), as well as perpetuation of these pathologies into future generations of humans brought into a world where fear is a baseline state of existence. Human beings were not wired to undergo fear as incessantly and pervasively, in the forms of modern day structures of slavery and state violence that we experience today. And yet we find ourselves in an era where comfort, safety, a nest, or even a soft healthy bed is sold to us as a luxury.
We know that no one can survive and thrive on a minimum wage- so we need a living wage. We know that no one can have comfort, safety, cleanliness and ease without a bed- without a sheet- without softness. So we need universal comfort and care. Of course I believe in universal basic income, healthcare, social care, elder care, childcare, voluntary work structures, support of the arts and free access to them– and we should take it a step further BECAUSE WE CAN! By we I mean the communities who have the collection of power to touch and reach each other. To recognize our comrades and keep our brothers, sisters and siblings safe. Yes we must seize the wealth of the ones hoarding wealth and inflicting systemic suffering and violence on everyone else. But furthermore we must with this wealth and collective power guarantee a high standard of living. With this collective establishment there is no reason why we could not all live in not just subsistence but comfort.
This was one of the (many) reasons the soviet regime is so hated. Because they guaranteed their citizens safety, shelter, comfort and life- but the ones deciding that standard of life and upholding/enforcing its care either a) at the time did not have the resources (think early/pre revolution) b) saw other human beings (its citizens) as a commodity to work and indenture; in exchange for a pittance of guaranteed basic needs (think Ukrainian farmers, industrialization of russia in later years resulting in modern near self sustainability) c) decided on hierarchies being enforced regardless of the narrative of equality; silently or openly harboring the belief that there should be a felt and material distance between the othered classes of “labor” and their own comfort. The benefits of a class of society consistently deprived, sometimes just so, of their most human yearning for safety and abundance is a tool of state violence we see in modern iterations of history as well. Consider the US welfare system and humiliation rituals families, mothers, children and all demographics must go through in the petition of the very government that is supposed to guarantee their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (think eviction and condemnation notices posted on doors, queues before government offices where ICE agents are patrolling for immigrants).
A main point I am trying to make is that under the current systems of what is truly unbridled late stage capitalist plutocracy- the “minimum wage”, “the minimum standard of life”, the “liveable conditions” are not what we should be fighting for. Over the degradation of the systems responsible for creating the very definitions of “liveable” “sustainable” and “standard” we have lost our autonomy in defining a baseline for life resembling our actual imperative for nurturing and being nurtured. If we are going to fight- and fight we will; then we must go for the fullest extent of freedom and happiness that feasibly, literally, materially and spiritually can be attained. The resources are present, the food and nourishment is present- and we the people are most unequivocally present. And this is where it starts and ends- with us. Not in the hands of those who have been making decisions the last 100 years- not in the hands of those who have hoarded the wealth and kept the homes vacant while we have slept on the street- but in the hands and hearts and bodies of those who outnumber the rest billions : one.
Coziness, swaddling and nesting matters- warmth, safety, ease, and calm above the bare minimum are necessary for human development and adjustment. From a neurobiological perspective as well as an evolutionary one, the sustained states of safety of the human organism result in much different outcomes than unsafe, inadequate or neglectful ones. From a developmental standpoint there is now oodles of science on the effect of trauma in childhood and early adolescent years. Resulting in blocked or stunted social connection and cohesion, mental illness (as a direct result of the internalization of trauma), as well as perpetuation of these pathologies into future generations of humans brought into a world where fear is a baseline state of existence. Human beings were not wired to undergo fear as incessantly and pervasively, in the forms of modern day structures of slavery and state violence that we experience today. And yet we find ourselves in an era where comfort, safety, a nest, or even a soft healthy bed is sold to us as a luxury.
We know that no one can survive and thrive on a minimum wage- so we need a living wage. We know that no one can have comfort, safety, cleanliness and ease without a bed- without a sheet- without softness. So we need universal comfort and care. Of course I believe in universal basic income, healthcare, social care, elder care, childcare, voluntary work structures, support of the arts and free access to them– and we should take it a step further BECAUSE WE CAN! By we I mean the communities who have the collection of power to touch and reach each other. To recognize our comrades and keep our brothers, sisters and siblings safe. Yes we must seize the wealth of the ones hoarding wealth and inflicting systemic suffering and violence on everyone else. But furthermore we must with this wealth and collective power guarantee a high standard of living. With this collective establishment there is no reason why we could not all live in not just subsistence but comfort.
This was one of the (many) reasons the soviet regime is so hated. Because they guaranteed their citizens safety, shelter, comfort and life- but the ones deciding that standard of life and upholding/enforcing its care either a) at the time did not have the resources (think early/pre revolution) b) saw other human beings (its citizens) as a commodity to work and indenture; in exchange for a pittance of guaranteed basic needs (think Ukrainian farmers, industrialization of russia in later years resulting in modern near self sustainability) c) decided on hierarchies being enforced regardless of the narrative of equality; silently or openly harboring the belief that there should be a felt and material distance between the othered classes of “labor” and their own comfort. The benefits of a class of society consistently deprived, sometimes just so, of their most human yearning for safety and abundance is a tool of state violence we see in modern iterations of history as well. Consider the US welfare system and humiliation rituals families, mothers, children and all demographics must go through in the petition of the very government that is supposed to guarantee their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (think eviction and condemnation notices posted on doors, queues before government offices where ICE agents are patrolling for immigrants).
A main point I am trying to make is that under the current systems of what is truly unbridled late stage capitalist plutocracy- the “minimum wage”, “the minimum standard of life”, the “liveable conditions” are not what we should be fighting for. Over the degradation of the systems responsible for creating the very definitions of “liveable” “sustainable” and “standard” we have lost our autonomy in defining a baseline for life resembling our actual imperative for nurturing and being nurtured. If we are going to fight- and fight we will; then we must go for the fullest extent of freedom and happiness that feasibly, literally, materially and spiritually can be attained. The resources are present, the food and nourishment is present- and we the people are most unequivocally present. And this is where it starts and ends- with us. Not in the hands of those who have been making decisions the last 100 years- not in the hands of those who have hoarded the wealth and kept the homes vacant while we have slept on the street- but in the hands and hearts and bodies of those who outnumber the rest billions : one.
