Stop It, Lazy Selfish Greedy Bastards!
"I love humanity. It's people I hate."
- Edna St. Vincent Millay, American poet and playwright (1892-1950) [also quoted in the Peanuts comic strip]
Farmers learn stuff that's down to earth. As I immerse myself in the deeply troublesome and awkward project of converting a lifelong city boy to struggling survival farmer (small variety, 8 acres), that has become my favourite saying--the "down to earth" one.
Before I continue with this article I must convey an important life lesson. There are two types of people: those who always put their own best interests first and those who frequently and comfortably put the best interests of others, individuals or groups or whole communities or societies, ahead of their own.
That may be the most important life lesson I have ever learned. It explains a huge amount about human behaviour. Personally, as a member of the latter group, it means that I can disregard any ideas of friendship or overtures of relationship of any kind with members of the former group.
Is that classification too harsh? Perhaps I can make it easier to understand by suggesting the behaviour of house cats as representative of what I will call the selfish group. If you have carefully observed the behaviour of cats, bells should begin to ring in your head now. Cats are the ultimate self-interested pets. Nature has programmed them to be survivors by putting themselves first.
That's not to say that cat owners are selfish or self-interested. On the contrary, they tend to be more altruistic kind of people. Dogs, on the other hand, better represent the altruistic group--again, that's not necessarily true of their owners. Dogs in the wild survive as individuals in an interdependent relationship with the pack. As the saying goes, dogs have owners while cats have staff.
People tend to behave much like one or the other of these two groups. No, I don't mean that they eat with their faces in bowls, let's leave that now.
Where I live, in eastern Canada, people with European heritage have lived for hundreds of years (First Nations people for over 3000 years in the oldest continuously occupied community in the New World). Only in recent decades has garbage been collected. Before that people took their trash to a dump, burned it or left it in a remote area of a field. Today I removed the last remnants of a burn barrel where previous (and oh so primitive) humanoids had tossed stuff that could never possibly burn.
Why would they put non-burnables in a burn barrel? Because they expected to move before they would have to deal with the consequences of their laziness. Much the same reasoning some people use when they toss beer bottles or cans out the windows of their cars as they drive down a road late at night rather than returning them to a recycling depot (the get their deposit back) at some later time.
My wife and I want to create a small farm that grows vegetables. You could call it a hobby farm except we don't plan to sell our veggies. We want to donate them to local foodbanks and shelters. Farming requires machines, ours needed a tractor with a plow. Lacking funding from a generous government or chemical manufacturer, we bought a used tractor, a classic model made in 1948. It worked beautifully, except the clutch would not disengage, which is decidedly awkward if you want to change gears.
For weeks I asked around but nobody knew how to adjust that clutch--"Take it to Bremner's (a local tractor dealer with an excellent reputation), they can fix any tractor problem." One day recently a man who usually functions with an oxygen hose at his nose (he didn't even get out of his car) stopped by our house as his wife left a fish her husband caught in one of his healthier moments. Even at our first meeting when it came out about my not being able to adjust the tractor clutch he offered to do it for me.
A few days later, without the oxygen, he hauled his 350 pound frame under the tractor, thrashed around for about an hour and came out with the clutch adjusted, something others had been unable to do. Despite needing his oxygen again, he stayed for tea then made his way home for pure O2. He wouldn't hear of taking a penny for his trouble. He was happy to help.
Everywhere you look you will find what some call the givers and the takers. Both may be easy enough to like until you need something, at which time the takers will vanish. Their lives are driven by self-interest, which is to say, greed.
The selfish ones are so easy to see around us that without evaluating life carefully you might get the impression that almost everyone is greedy and selfish. They aren't. The generous and altruistic people don't advertise themselves. They just are. The selfish ones make the news.
Believe it or not, despite the huge media efforts by industries to make us all into selfish, accumulative, consumer workaholics, more people today than ever before in history are giving to others, thinking of others, putting the best interests of others and the world ahead of their own. That's how civilization grows. That's how humanity progresses. That's how our planet will survive. We can't expect industries or the selfish to think of the welfare of everyone else.
Humanity could do with more selfless ones among us. People can change. What might help is if you are an altruistic person who is happy make this known to a selfish person who is unhappy. Selfish people are all basically unhappy, they seek thrills and gratification as substitutes for real happiness. It never makes them happy because they can never get enough. Greed is addictive.
Spread the word. Happiness is addictive as well. The more you give to the happiness and welfare of others, the happier you are. No one knows why. It seems, somehow, to be built into our genetic code to have the ability to be selfless while we retain the basic instinct to be greedy.
If we really want to beat nature, we can do it by helping each other. No other animal on the planet has the potential to do that the way we do. Birds and mammals are known to be nurturing and some are altruistic, but none can rise above what nature provided the way people can.
That's the only kind of defeating of nature that is win-win. That's the real potential of humanity.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want their children to grow healthy and strong in all developmental streams, not just a limited few.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
Showing posts with label wealth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wealth. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Value of Power
The Value of Power
While that may seem like a strange title, think about it. What is power? When people seek power or have power, what is it they seek or have?
How do we know if we have or lack power?
I believe I have distilled the concept down to something manageable. Power is a potential.
Power is the potential to hurt others of our own kind. Wealth, in itself, does not bestow power directly. Yet we all know and reluctantly accept that those with money can commit crimes--can hurt others in some way--and buy their way out of punishment.
Sometimes that potential is realized. Hitler had power that he used. He killed, maimed and otherwise harmed millions of people. For that Hitler will forever be considered one of the most vile devils humankind has produced.
To have power as potential and not use it is one thing. To have power you use is quite another. Using power is socially unacceptable. Having power you don't use might get you anything you desire.
Does a president or prime minister of a country have power? Perhaps just the mention of the name George W. Bush would be sufficient to answer that question. The man started a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives (many from his own military) and destroyed untold numbers of families based on a lie. The war itself has even harmed American citizens who never left their own country, whether they believed the lie or not. If nothing else, they will pay taxes for the rest of their lives to cover loans made to pay for the war. And the quality of their health care will be reduced because the money will not be there to pay for something better from the public purse.
Power is the potential to be physical. It's not really intellectual in nature. It's the potential for sheer, overwhelming might.
Those with power can never be intellectually satisfied. They can never be satisfied in any way.
What could Hitler do, for example, after he had exercised his power over so many of his own people and the people of countries he conquered, other than to keep going? Once power is exercised, it may not be stopped.
President Bush (the second) was stopped only because the US constitution insists that one person may only hold the top job in the country for two terms. We might wonder what he might have done if his term had not ended. Iran would almost certainly be next on his attack agenda. Then North Korea?
Those who are intellectually satisfied have no need for power. Intellectual satisfaction itself is a form of potential. Those who are intellectually satisfied have the potential to move on to greater and more challenging thoughts, projects and ventures.
Does Donald Trump have power or is he intellectually satisfied? I suspect he would say he is intellectually satisfied because he can accomplish new business ventures repeatedly. I would maintain that Donald Trump has power, but not intellectual satisfaction. He has the money to buy his way out of trouble, but success in business should not be equated with intellectual satisfaction. Trump, like Hitler, is driven to continue his business conquests. Donald Trump is a warrior with power, even though he doesn't use guns.
I am reminded of a program currently on television, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? I know there are children in grade five who are intellectually more satisfied than Donald Trump. Not that they are smarter than Trump. They have more intellectual potential than Trump, thus can be excited and enthusiastic about life.
As life objectives, we can strive for power--with its potential to hurt others physically-- or we can strive for intellectual satisfaction--with its potential to benefit humankind and give the users satisfaction unimaginable to those with power.
While the better choice may seem obvious to you, an intelligent reader, I submit that as societies we tend to put greater emphasis on power than on intellectual prowess. "Get a good education so you can get a good job" is the mantra chanted by so many parents to their children.
And it's working. Children are getting education that will make them good employees, good followers of prescribed business and human resources plans. Much evidence suggests that children are not gaining intellectual satisfaction in school or in the jobs they hold as adults. In fact, away from their jobs, where they have considerable expertise, many adults are stupid, so much so that a grade ten dropout may have a more rounded education in life experiences. Donald Trump likely pays someone to change a washer in a leaky tap, something a grade ten dropout could do.
Those who do not strive for either power or intellectual satisfaction become human puppets. They dangle on strings pulled by others. When no one pulls their strings, they hang limp and useless. When they get laid off from a job, for example, they seek another employer to tell them what to do and pay them to do it. Few attempt to use their intellect to become self employed entrepreneurs. Ironically, the post modern world is primed and ready for entrepreneurs, but they can't be found.
We don't teach children the value of independence, of entrepreneurship, of intellectual satisfaction. As a result, we don't find many adults with these values.
We make our choices, as parents, as teachers, as neighbours and as citizens, and we live with the consequences. We should not wonder, then, that people follow those with power, even if those people have evil intent.
We get as adults what we teach to children. If we teach the value of power, we get followers and power seekers.
We don't really know yet what we might get if we taught the values of intellectual satisfaction. A few schools teach this, but they are rare, they are considered "different," out of the mainstream.
These few schools tend to produce children who become adult geniuses. The kids are not necessarily born with genius, they have intellectual opportunities offered to them constantly as they respond with delight at their own intellectual satisfaction. They grow intellectually without feeling the need for power, the need for potential to hurt others.
Our children are not our future, as such. They are our potential for the future we would like our societies, our countries, our communities and our families to have. The potential becomes reality only based on what we teach our children.
Teach right. Teach good. Teach peace. Teach often.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers, parents, anyone who wants to know when and what to teach children so that they grow to become independent and well balanced adults who have the ability to achieve intellectual satisfaction.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
While that may seem like a strange title, think about it. What is power? When people seek power or have power, what is it they seek or have?
How do we know if we have or lack power?
I believe I have distilled the concept down to something manageable. Power is a potential.
Power is the potential to hurt others of our own kind. Wealth, in itself, does not bestow power directly. Yet we all know and reluctantly accept that those with money can commit crimes--can hurt others in some way--and buy their way out of punishment.
Sometimes that potential is realized. Hitler had power that he used. He killed, maimed and otherwise harmed millions of people. For that Hitler will forever be considered one of the most vile devils humankind has produced.
To have power as potential and not use it is one thing. To have power you use is quite another. Using power is socially unacceptable. Having power you don't use might get you anything you desire.
Does a president or prime minister of a country have power? Perhaps just the mention of the name George W. Bush would be sufficient to answer that question. The man started a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives (many from his own military) and destroyed untold numbers of families based on a lie. The war itself has even harmed American citizens who never left their own country, whether they believed the lie or not. If nothing else, they will pay taxes for the rest of their lives to cover loans made to pay for the war. And the quality of their health care will be reduced because the money will not be there to pay for something better from the public purse.
Power is the potential to be physical. It's not really intellectual in nature. It's the potential for sheer, overwhelming might.
Those with power can never be intellectually satisfied. They can never be satisfied in any way.
What could Hitler do, for example, after he had exercised his power over so many of his own people and the people of countries he conquered, other than to keep going? Once power is exercised, it may not be stopped.
President Bush (the second) was stopped only because the US constitution insists that one person may only hold the top job in the country for two terms. We might wonder what he might have done if his term had not ended. Iran would almost certainly be next on his attack agenda. Then North Korea?
Those who are intellectually satisfied have no need for power. Intellectual satisfaction itself is a form of potential. Those who are intellectually satisfied have the potential to move on to greater and more challenging thoughts, projects and ventures.
Does Donald Trump have power or is he intellectually satisfied? I suspect he would say he is intellectually satisfied because he can accomplish new business ventures repeatedly. I would maintain that Donald Trump has power, but not intellectual satisfaction. He has the money to buy his way out of trouble, but success in business should not be equated with intellectual satisfaction. Trump, like Hitler, is driven to continue his business conquests. Donald Trump is a warrior with power, even though he doesn't use guns.
I am reminded of a program currently on television, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? I know there are children in grade five who are intellectually more satisfied than Donald Trump. Not that they are smarter than Trump. They have more intellectual potential than Trump, thus can be excited and enthusiastic about life.
As life objectives, we can strive for power--with its potential to hurt others physically-- or we can strive for intellectual satisfaction--with its potential to benefit humankind and give the users satisfaction unimaginable to those with power.
While the better choice may seem obvious to you, an intelligent reader, I submit that as societies we tend to put greater emphasis on power than on intellectual prowess. "Get a good education so you can get a good job" is the mantra chanted by so many parents to their children.
And it's working. Children are getting education that will make them good employees, good followers of prescribed business and human resources plans. Much evidence suggests that children are not gaining intellectual satisfaction in school or in the jobs they hold as adults. In fact, away from their jobs, where they have considerable expertise, many adults are stupid, so much so that a grade ten dropout may have a more rounded education in life experiences. Donald Trump likely pays someone to change a washer in a leaky tap, something a grade ten dropout could do.
Those who do not strive for either power or intellectual satisfaction become human puppets. They dangle on strings pulled by others. When no one pulls their strings, they hang limp and useless. When they get laid off from a job, for example, they seek another employer to tell them what to do and pay them to do it. Few attempt to use their intellect to become self employed entrepreneurs. Ironically, the post modern world is primed and ready for entrepreneurs, but they can't be found.
We don't teach children the value of independence, of entrepreneurship, of intellectual satisfaction. As a result, we don't find many adults with these values.
We make our choices, as parents, as teachers, as neighbours and as citizens, and we live with the consequences. We should not wonder, then, that people follow those with power, even if those people have evil intent.
We get as adults what we teach to children. If we teach the value of power, we get followers and power seekers.
We don't really know yet what we might get if we taught the values of intellectual satisfaction. A few schools teach this, but they are rare, they are considered "different," out of the mainstream.
These few schools tend to produce children who become adult geniuses. The kids are not necessarily born with genius, they have intellectual opportunities offered to them constantly as they respond with delight at their own intellectual satisfaction. They grow intellectually without feeling the need for power, the need for potential to hurt others.
Our children are not our future, as such. They are our potential for the future we would like our societies, our countries, our communities and our families to have. The potential becomes reality only based on what we teach our children.
Teach right. Teach good. Teach peace. Teach often.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers, parents, anyone who wants to know when and what to teach children so that they grow to become independent and well balanced adults who have the ability to achieve intellectual satisfaction.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Stuff You Should Know About Money
Stuff You Should Know About Money
First of all, money does not have and was never intended to have any intrinsic value. Anyone who values money for its own sake ("The king is in his counting house counting out his money") has a mental illness.
Money was invented (some form of it dates back 5000 years) as a convenient way to equalize exchanges, such as payment for work done or to balance out a barter exchange.
The gathering of people into villages and towns created the first need (after defence of the tribe) for public services, which meant taxes. Egypt and Mesopotamia exacted taxes in the form of goods and labour five millennia ago. By 2500 BCE they had begun to accept silver and gold bars as currency--the pyramids were not built by those who could afford to buy their way out of service to the pharaoh.
Religious temples were the first banks. Currency made theft easier, more convenient. Temples were the biggest and most secure structures in the ancient world, so they became the places to store money and other valuables.
Temple priests were the first bankers, ensuring their personal security by 1750 BCE by making loans to followers who needed cash for a short term. Mortgages, especially of the sub-prime variety, were still a long way in the future.
The world's oldest surviving bank, the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, was founded as a pawn shop in Italy, in 1472.
Paper money goes back much further, at least in China. The emperors issued paper currency in China as early as 910 CE, three centuries before Marco Polo arrived.
Though suitably impressed with the concept of paper currency, Marco was alarmed at how much of it the emperor of the day, Kublai Khan, was printing. The Khan, trying to generate enough wealth to pay for an invasion of Japan (and eventually to conquer all of the eastern world), caused inflation to soar.
Of the tens of thousands of boats he sent to Japan, almost every one sank in a typhoon, never reaching the shores of Japan, because they were built in a cheaper style of a kind suitable for travelling on rivers, not seas. His power and influence in China never recovered.
China ended its first attempt at paper currency in the 15th century as the country exhausted itself through inflation caused by printing too much money. China, the most powerful and innovative country in the world, with explorations to every part of the globe and trading partners in all popular ports, ended its exploratory and trading ventures around the world (crippling the shipping industry) after the Kublai Khan debacle.
The U.S. learned how convenient it was to print money for Civil War costs when it created the "greenback" in July, 1861. After the war, the value of the U.S. dollar had decreased, but the Confederate dollar was worthless.
The U.S. today has about $829 billion in coin and paper money in general circulation. Two-thirds of it is held in other countries.
A study of paper money around the world revealed in 2008 that U.S. cash had more cocaine residue on it than the currency of any other country. Also found on paper money were staphylococcus bacteria and fecal residue. (Don't ask. Don't tell.)
Around 1916, a U.S. citizen could carry his cash to Washington, D.C. and have it washed, ironed and reissued. I wonder why...oh, right.
The old saying that money doesn't grow on trees is correct. U.S. bills are 75 percent cotton, 25 percent linen. Some countries use at least some man-made fibres. Expect some plastic to appear in "paper" money soon.
As counterfeiting has been a booming enterprise since money was invented (some of us are old enough to remember having to bite some coins to ensure they weren't counterfeits loaded with lead), mints have to continually invent new ways to counteract it. The latest U.S. five dollar bill has more than 650,000 tiny glass domes that create an optical illusion the government hopes will be impossible (or at least economically unfeasible) to duplicate.
Poor Frank X. McNamara. Back in 1949 he took friends out to dinner in New York City, then realized to his shock that he had forgotten his cash when it came time to pay up. He promised himself to never find himself in a position like that again. He invented the first credit card, Diner's Club.
The first Diner's Club card wasn't plastic, but cardboard. It listed the 14 restaurants who were prepared to accept the card on the back. It had an annual fee of three dollars.
John Shepherd-Barron, a Scottish inventor, gets the credit for inventing the first true ATM. He created it in 1967 for Barclay's Bank in North London. His concept was based on the same technology as chocolate bar dispensers.
Since plastic cards had still not appeared, Shepherd-Barron's machine accepted only specialized cheques that were dotted with identifying traces of radioactive carbon-14.
Um, radioactive? Yup. Shepherd-Barron claimed that users of the Barclay's cheques "would have to eat 136,000" of them to have any dangerous effects.
Once a specialized Barclay's cheque was entered into his ATM, the user would key in a four digit PIN to confirm identification.
And so began the age of having to remember passwords.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to address the developmental needs of their children at the right time, not too late as often happens.Learn more at http://billallin.com
[Primary source: Discover, April 2009]
First of all, money does not have and was never intended to have any intrinsic value. Anyone who values money for its own sake ("The king is in his counting house counting out his money") has a mental illness.
Money was invented (some form of it dates back 5000 years) as a convenient way to equalize exchanges, such as payment for work done or to balance out a barter exchange.
The gathering of people into villages and towns created the first need (after defence of the tribe) for public services, which meant taxes. Egypt and Mesopotamia exacted taxes in the form of goods and labour five millennia ago. By 2500 BCE they had begun to accept silver and gold bars as currency--the pyramids were not built by those who could afford to buy their way out of service to the pharaoh.
Religious temples were the first banks. Currency made theft easier, more convenient. Temples were the biggest and most secure structures in the ancient world, so they became the places to store money and other valuables.
Temple priests were the first bankers, ensuring their personal security by 1750 BCE by making loans to followers who needed cash for a short term. Mortgages, especially of the sub-prime variety, were still a long way in the future.
The world's oldest surviving bank, the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, was founded as a pawn shop in Italy, in 1472.
Paper money goes back much further, at least in China. The emperors issued paper currency in China as early as 910 CE, three centuries before Marco Polo arrived.
Though suitably impressed with the concept of paper currency, Marco was alarmed at how much of it the emperor of the day, Kublai Khan, was printing. The Khan, trying to generate enough wealth to pay for an invasion of Japan (and eventually to conquer all of the eastern world), caused inflation to soar.
Of the tens of thousands of boats he sent to Japan, almost every one sank in a typhoon, never reaching the shores of Japan, because they were built in a cheaper style of a kind suitable for travelling on rivers, not seas. His power and influence in China never recovered.
China ended its first attempt at paper currency in the 15th century as the country exhausted itself through inflation caused by printing too much money. China, the most powerful and innovative country in the world, with explorations to every part of the globe and trading partners in all popular ports, ended its exploratory and trading ventures around the world (crippling the shipping industry) after the Kublai Khan debacle.
The U.S. learned how convenient it was to print money for Civil War costs when it created the "greenback" in July, 1861. After the war, the value of the U.S. dollar had decreased, but the Confederate dollar was worthless.
The U.S. today has about $829 billion in coin and paper money in general circulation. Two-thirds of it is held in other countries.
A study of paper money around the world revealed in 2008 that U.S. cash had more cocaine residue on it than the currency of any other country. Also found on paper money were staphylococcus bacteria and fecal residue. (Don't ask. Don't tell.)
Around 1916, a U.S. citizen could carry his cash to Washington, D.C. and have it washed, ironed and reissued. I wonder why...oh, right.
The old saying that money doesn't grow on trees is correct. U.S. bills are 75 percent cotton, 25 percent linen. Some countries use at least some man-made fibres. Expect some plastic to appear in "paper" money soon.
As counterfeiting has been a booming enterprise since money was invented (some of us are old enough to remember having to bite some coins to ensure they weren't counterfeits loaded with lead), mints have to continually invent new ways to counteract it. The latest U.S. five dollar bill has more than 650,000 tiny glass domes that create an optical illusion the government hopes will be impossible (or at least economically unfeasible) to duplicate.
Poor Frank X. McNamara. Back in 1949 he took friends out to dinner in New York City, then realized to his shock that he had forgotten his cash when it came time to pay up. He promised himself to never find himself in a position like that again. He invented the first credit card, Diner's Club.
The first Diner's Club card wasn't plastic, but cardboard. It listed the 14 restaurants who were prepared to accept the card on the back. It had an annual fee of three dollars.
John Shepherd-Barron, a Scottish inventor, gets the credit for inventing the first true ATM. He created it in 1967 for Barclay's Bank in North London. His concept was based on the same technology as chocolate bar dispensers.
Since plastic cards had still not appeared, Shepherd-Barron's machine accepted only specialized cheques that were dotted with identifying traces of radioactive carbon-14.
Um, radioactive? Yup. Shepherd-Barron claimed that users of the Barclay's cheques "would have to eat 136,000" of them to have any dangerous effects.
Once a specialized Barclay's cheque was entered into his ATM, the user would key in a four digit PIN to confirm identification.
And so began the age of having to remember passwords.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to address the developmental needs of their children at the right time, not too late as often happens.Learn more at http://billallin.com
[Primary source: Discover, April 2009]
Saturday, August 23, 2008
What If You Couldn't Live Another Week?
Much misconstruction and bitterness are spared to him who thinksnaturally upon what he owes to others, rather than on what he oughtto expect from them.
- Elizabeth de Meulan Guizot, French author (1773-1827)
My first thought upon reading this quote was about how many people severe the primary relationship of their life because their partner isn't giving them what they want or need, without considering what they could do for themselves. That is, the partner may disappoint with what he or she gives, but do the disappointed ones do enough for themselves and do they do as much of what they should for the other partner that disappoints?
Before we think about how others disappoint us, let's consider how much we may fail ourselves and how much we may neglect to give to the others.
What should we give to others? What do we owe to others, especially to those to whom we are not committed?
There's the hitch. There is no reason why we should not be committed to every other person on the planet, to every other animal on the planet, to everything on the planet. If we do not commit to them, why would they take any interest in committing anything of themselves to us?
So we breathe the air they pollute. We drink the fresh water they poison. We read of how they kill each other, how they enslave each other, how they abuse each other in inhumane ways.
We can't do anything about that, can we? After all, they don't care about us, so why should we care about them?
We don't care about them. Only about what they do. Yet we don't give a fig about what they may think of what we do.
What do we do? Do we starve, as possibly 20 percent of the humans on the earth are doing today? Or at least their health is destroyed through malnutrition, a problem over which they have no control.
By what measure of ethics or morals is it correct that we allow anyone on this planet to starve or to be starved when more food exists than the world population can eat?
A study was done in the UK recently that showed that 25 percent of the starving people of the world could be saved and made fairly healthy on the nutrition in the food the British throw away as garbage. Every bit of food that is not consumed by customers in restaurants, for example, must be thrown into the garbage, by law.
We have no reason to believe that the amount of nutrition thrown away as garbage by the people of the United States, as another example, would be any different by percent than that in the UK. If the numbers for the US match those from the UK, then starvation could end on this planet if all the nutrition thrown away by Americans were fed to the starving people of the world. The United States is that big and has that amount of wealth that its people can throw away food that would save the lives of every starving person.
In some villages in Africa, almost no adults remain alive because they have all died of AIDS, leaving the remaining children to fend for themselves. Do those children deserve to die because their parents contracted AIDS and had the effrontery to die?
Do the people of Darfur deserve to starve to death (those that are not raped and killed by militias) because the government of Sudan is corrupt and keeps food aid from its own people? Decades ago we put men on the moon, can we not find ways to air drop food to those starving people?
Using a headset or VOIP phone I can speak to anyone anywhere on the planet that is connected by some telecommunications system. In the parts of the world with the fewest numbers of people with internet capability (excepting at the poles, on mountains and in deserts), at least some of their neighbours are starving. Lack of internet capability or minimal capability equals poverty beyond what most of us can imagine. Poverty always means that someone is starving. Always.
Our television networks, news services and NGOs tell us about places where people are starving and where medical assistance is impossible because they have no supplies. We Tsk! Tsk! and wonder why no one does anything to help them.
If there is one sin that every religion would agree on, it's letting people starve to death when there is more food on the planet than would be needed to feed everyone. The world's greatest and most widely agreed upon sin.
But those starving people do nothing to help us. They just selfishly keep on starving and dying.
What would you do if you had gone for over two weeks without a bite to eat? If that were true also of your neighbours and the rest of your community, would it turn quickly into something resembling Darfur? It would unless police kept control and others in your country felt compassion for you and your community, enough so to send food to save you. Remember how little police could help in the aftermath of Katrina, in New Orleans?
No matter what you may think that others owe to you, they may feel that they owe nothing or very little. If they are well fed and healthy, they may think that your starvation or extreme illness or disease means little to them unless you can do something for them. Those people include well fed and healthy elected politicians.
If you were starving or dying from some effect of malnutrition, what could you do for those who had the ability to save you?
Well, you aren't starving or dying. What are you prepared to do see that the people who are get what they need?
If you have what you need, but do not help others, you commit the world's greatest sin.
To expect those who are starving to save themselves and to reorganize their communities is unreasonable because you could not do it yourself. They may not be able to help themselves.
You can.
Figure out how.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who care as much about what they can give to others as what they can acquire from them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Elizabeth de Meulan Guizot, French author (1773-1827)
My first thought upon reading this quote was about how many people severe the primary relationship of their life because their partner isn't giving them what they want or need, without considering what they could do for themselves. That is, the partner may disappoint with what he or she gives, but do the disappointed ones do enough for themselves and do they do as much of what they should for the other partner that disappoints?
Before we think about how others disappoint us, let's consider how much we may fail ourselves and how much we may neglect to give to the others.
What should we give to others? What do we owe to others, especially to those to whom we are not committed?
There's the hitch. There is no reason why we should not be committed to every other person on the planet, to every other animal on the planet, to everything on the planet. If we do not commit to them, why would they take any interest in committing anything of themselves to us?
So we breathe the air they pollute. We drink the fresh water they poison. We read of how they kill each other, how they enslave each other, how they abuse each other in inhumane ways.
We can't do anything about that, can we? After all, they don't care about us, so why should we care about them?
We don't care about them. Only about what they do. Yet we don't give a fig about what they may think of what we do.
What do we do? Do we starve, as possibly 20 percent of the humans on the earth are doing today? Or at least their health is destroyed through malnutrition, a problem over which they have no control.
By what measure of ethics or morals is it correct that we allow anyone on this planet to starve or to be starved when more food exists than the world population can eat?
A study was done in the UK recently that showed that 25 percent of the starving people of the world could be saved and made fairly healthy on the nutrition in the food the British throw away as garbage. Every bit of food that is not consumed by customers in restaurants, for example, must be thrown into the garbage, by law.
We have no reason to believe that the amount of nutrition thrown away as garbage by the people of the United States, as another example, would be any different by percent than that in the UK. If the numbers for the US match those from the UK, then starvation could end on this planet if all the nutrition thrown away by Americans were fed to the starving people of the world. The United States is that big and has that amount of wealth that its people can throw away food that would save the lives of every starving person.
In some villages in Africa, almost no adults remain alive because they have all died of AIDS, leaving the remaining children to fend for themselves. Do those children deserve to die because their parents contracted AIDS and had the effrontery to die?
Do the people of Darfur deserve to starve to death (those that are not raped and killed by militias) because the government of Sudan is corrupt and keeps food aid from its own people? Decades ago we put men on the moon, can we not find ways to air drop food to those starving people?
Using a headset or VOIP phone I can speak to anyone anywhere on the planet that is connected by some telecommunications system. In the parts of the world with the fewest numbers of people with internet capability (excepting at the poles, on mountains and in deserts), at least some of their neighbours are starving. Lack of internet capability or minimal capability equals poverty beyond what most of us can imagine. Poverty always means that someone is starving. Always.
Our television networks, news services and NGOs tell us about places where people are starving and where medical assistance is impossible because they have no supplies. We Tsk! Tsk! and wonder why no one does anything to help them.
If there is one sin that every religion would agree on, it's letting people starve to death when there is more food on the planet than would be needed to feed everyone. The world's greatest and most widely agreed upon sin.
But those starving people do nothing to help us. They just selfishly keep on starving and dying.
What would you do if you had gone for over two weeks without a bite to eat? If that were true also of your neighbours and the rest of your community, would it turn quickly into something resembling Darfur? It would unless police kept control and others in your country felt compassion for you and your community, enough so to send food to save you. Remember how little police could help in the aftermath of Katrina, in New Orleans?
No matter what you may think that others owe to you, they may feel that they owe nothing or very little. If they are well fed and healthy, they may think that your starvation or extreme illness or disease means little to them unless you can do something for them. Those people include well fed and healthy elected politicians.
If you were starving or dying from some effect of malnutrition, what could you do for those who had the ability to save you?
Well, you aren't starving or dying. What are you prepared to do see that the people who are get what they need?
If you have what you need, but do not help others, you commit the world's greatest sin.
To expect those who are starving to save themselves and to reorganize their communities is unreasonable because you could not do it yourself. They may not be able to help themselves.
You can.
Figure out how.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who care as much about what they can give to others as what they can acquire from them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The Secret Law of Abundance
The secret of the law of abundance is this: In order to receive and appreciate the good things of life, you must first give.
- Norman Vincent Peale, inspirational writer and speaker (1898-1993)
I confess that I have never heard of the "law of abundance" other than in this quote. The number of citations on Google is so great I conclude that many authors and speakers have used it for their own particular objectives, to lend greater credence to their arguments. The fact that Dr. Peale calls this law "secret" is nothing more than hyperbole.
However, the weakening of the first part of the quote takes nothing away from the second and more significant part. " In order to receive and appreciate the good things of life, you must first give."
This sounds counterproductive to anyone who was raised in a strongly capitalist society, where "Pay yourself first" is the prime rule for entrepreneurs and "Take as much as you can get" is the general rule for both business and personal lives.
Surely it doesn't make sense to give away what you have earned in order to get more of "the good things of life." That's true. At least it's true if you believe that the most important things in life--the "good things"--are either money or what can be bought with money.
Can money buy happiness? This debate has been ongoing for so long that it bores most people. No, many people say, but I'd like to suffer with more of that kind of unhappiness.
Does tickling a child make that kid happy? Does laughter alone give evidence of happiness? The feeling we get when someone tickles us comes from the same source as pain, from the same nerves, along the same pathways. Tickling and pain are essentially the same sensation, only pain is felt with greater intensity. If tickling and pain come from the same source, then the laughter from tickling by someone cannot be misconstrued as happiness. Happiness and pain/tickling must be different.
The joy people have from getting money, from keeping money and from spending money are all like tickling. They are all transient, all insubstantial, all subject to change in a flash. As with the sensation from tickling, the joy of money stops in a flash when the motivation stops.
A close friend expressed grief to me recently, explaining how much his "nest egg" investments in the stock markets had dropped so much in value as a result of the recession in the US. Not a single other factor in his life has changed except for the current value of his investments, but he has lost sleep over it. The fact that history shows that stock markets always recover and move to greater values means nothing to him because the value of his stocks today is much lower than it was a year ago. The tickle he felt a year ago has become his pain of today.
That's not happiness. Nor should it rightly be considered worthy of unhappiness, pain or grief.
Money is no more one of the good things in life than the shirt you are wearing right now. You might miss your shirt if you lost it or it wore out, but you know that you can get another. You can always make arrangements to get more money as well, though it might take longer than buying a new shirt.
Dr. Peale said that "you must first give." That involves at least one person other than yourself. Giving to yourself is like emotional masturbation. You must give to others in order to receive and appreciate the good things of life. We even enjoy sex more when we work to make it more enjoyable for the other person. That benefit takes thought and effort, but it shouldn't cost money.
No one understands why the "law of abundance" works this way--give in order to receive more in return. It likely has something to do with our fundamental nature as social creatures. We must need each other and depend on each other to feel secure, even though logically it would seem that someone who doesn't need anyone else should be more secure. Those who feel the most secure need at least one other person, depend on at least one other person and strive to meet the needs of at least one other person.
They are happy when others around them are happy, have been made happy by something they have done themselves. That happiness returns to them, with interest.
The more we work to make others happy--not with money or what it will buy, but with love and effort--the more happy the others will be and the happier we will be in return.
The Christian Bible says "Give and ye shall receive." Now you know why. Though places of worship want money, what the Bible wants you to give is love. Give love and you will receive love in return.
No, you can't count that kind of love. But you don't have to pay tax on it either. It has no real value in monetary terms.
Have you given love in the past, but not had it return to you by the one you loved? It's highly likely that the other person was so steeped in the value of money that he or she couldn't understand the value of love. That's not your fault. Find someone else who does value the love and the happiness you have to give.
For those who believe in the value of money as the value of life, every relationship is a business relationship. Business relationships come and go based on the value that each party offers constantly and uninterruptedly to the other. That's the core of the throwaway economy.
Love should not be thrown away. True love cannot be thrown away, but business love is disposable.
Find someone who can appreciate and enjoy what you have to give of yourself. You will find it comes back to you. Over time, that joy and appreciation will increase if both parties understand and work at what Dr. Peale calls the law of abundance.
Love thy neighbour as thyself. Sound familiar? Christians will recognize it as the prime commandment of Jesus. But the same advice exists in every religion, even if the words differ slightly.
Give and you will receive. But you must give first and you must give freely, not depending on what you will receive in return. If you are looking for return, you are basing your love on the business model of love. The easy come, easy go, disposable kind.
Real love makes you feel superhuman. The best the business kind of love can make you feel is powerful. Real love helps you to understand why so many people in every culture of the world believe that there is more to existence than these body vessels we inhabit during our lifetimes. The business kind of lovers will never understand, never appreciate, never enjoy the real good things of life, either here or in some future existence.
But they may appreciate a good tickle.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can understand and appreciate the real good things of life, not just what they learn in school.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Norman Vincent Peale, inspirational writer and speaker (1898-1993)
I confess that I have never heard of the "law of abundance" other than in this quote. The number of citations on Google is so great I conclude that many authors and speakers have used it for their own particular objectives, to lend greater credence to their arguments. The fact that Dr. Peale calls this law "secret" is nothing more than hyperbole.
However, the weakening of the first part of the quote takes nothing away from the second and more significant part. " In order to receive and appreciate the good things of life, you must first give."
This sounds counterproductive to anyone who was raised in a strongly capitalist society, where "Pay yourself first" is the prime rule for entrepreneurs and "Take as much as you can get" is the general rule for both business and personal lives.
Surely it doesn't make sense to give away what you have earned in order to get more of "the good things of life." That's true. At least it's true if you believe that the most important things in life--the "good things"--are either money or what can be bought with money.
Can money buy happiness? This debate has been ongoing for so long that it bores most people. No, many people say, but I'd like to suffer with more of that kind of unhappiness.
Does tickling a child make that kid happy? Does laughter alone give evidence of happiness? The feeling we get when someone tickles us comes from the same source as pain, from the same nerves, along the same pathways. Tickling and pain are essentially the same sensation, only pain is felt with greater intensity. If tickling and pain come from the same source, then the laughter from tickling by someone cannot be misconstrued as happiness. Happiness and pain/tickling must be different.
The joy people have from getting money, from keeping money and from spending money are all like tickling. They are all transient, all insubstantial, all subject to change in a flash. As with the sensation from tickling, the joy of money stops in a flash when the motivation stops.
A close friend expressed grief to me recently, explaining how much his "nest egg" investments in the stock markets had dropped so much in value as a result of the recession in the US. Not a single other factor in his life has changed except for the current value of his investments, but he has lost sleep over it. The fact that history shows that stock markets always recover and move to greater values means nothing to him because the value of his stocks today is much lower than it was a year ago. The tickle he felt a year ago has become his pain of today.
That's not happiness. Nor should it rightly be considered worthy of unhappiness, pain or grief.
Money is no more one of the good things in life than the shirt you are wearing right now. You might miss your shirt if you lost it or it wore out, but you know that you can get another. You can always make arrangements to get more money as well, though it might take longer than buying a new shirt.
Dr. Peale said that "you must first give." That involves at least one person other than yourself. Giving to yourself is like emotional masturbation. You must give to others in order to receive and appreciate the good things of life. We even enjoy sex more when we work to make it more enjoyable for the other person. That benefit takes thought and effort, but it shouldn't cost money.
No one understands why the "law of abundance" works this way--give in order to receive more in return. It likely has something to do with our fundamental nature as social creatures. We must need each other and depend on each other to feel secure, even though logically it would seem that someone who doesn't need anyone else should be more secure. Those who feel the most secure need at least one other person, depend on at least one other person and strive to meet the needs of at least one other person.
They are happy when others around them are happy, have been made happy by something they have done themselves. That happiness returns to them, with interest.
The more we work to make others happy--not with money or what it will buy, but with love and effort--the more happy the others will be and the happier we will be in return.
The Christian Bible says "Give and ye shall receive." Now you know why. Though places of worship want money, what the Bible wants you to give is love. Give love and you will receive love in return.
No, you can't count that kind of love. But you don't have to pay tax on it either. It has no real value in monetary terms.
Have you given love in the past, but not had it return to you by the one you loved? It's highly likely that the other person was so steeped in the value of money that he or she couldn't understand the value of love. That's not your fault. Find someone else who does value the love and the happiness you have to give.
For those who believe in the value of money as the value of life, every relationship is a business relationship. Business relationships come and go based on the value that each party offers constantly and uninterruptedly to the other. That's the core of the throwaway economy.
Love should not be thrown away. True love cannot be thrown away, but business love is disposable.
Find someone who can appreciate and enjoy what you have to give of yourself. You will find it comes back to you. Over time, that joy and appreciation will increase if both parties understand and work at what Dr. Peale calls the law of abundance.
Love thy neighbour as thyself. Sound familiar? Christians will recognize it as the prime commandment of Jesus. But the same advice exists in every religion, even if the words differ slightly.
Give and you will receive. But you must give first and you must give freely, not depending on what you will receive in return. If you are looking for return, you are basing your love on the business model of love. The easy come, easy go, disposable kind.
Real love makes you feel superhuman. The best the business kind of love can make you feel is powerful. Real love helps you to understand why so many people in every culture of the world believe that there is more to existence than these body vessels we inhabit during our lifetimes. The business kind of lovers will never understand, never appreciate, never enjoy the real good things of life, either here or in some future existence.
But they may appreciate a good tickle.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can understand and appreciate the real good things of life, not just what they learn in school.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Uncontrolled Capitalism Failed Us
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
And yet we do. In general, the economic system practised in western countries follows the thinking of Adam Smith.
Smith said that the free market system where the wealthy are allowed to invest and make money to their hearts' content was the best system of capitalism. As the rich got richer, the poor would benefit because they would be needed to participate in a system that needed everyone to function. Tax moneys would be available for those who couldn't function comfortably.
Though no one was expected to compete on an equal footing with the rich, there would be equality among the general population because everyone would believe in the values of the system.
Happiness would be a natural benefit of Adam's economy because everyone would have enough money to do whatever they wanted. The pursuit of happiness was, in effect, the pursuit of money.
Unfettered capitalism has at its core the exploitation of greed. The greedier people are, the greater the chance that they will work hard to earn the money they want to make themselves happy by buying what they need and what they want. Those whose lives are less captured by greed would work less but still have enough to meet their more limited needs.
So how have we done? We don't have equality, as Smith promised, as most members of minorities will attest. That includes inequality for women who have to fight in many workplaces for equal pay for equal work.
People have the opportunity to work to earn a living. But some cannot work or cannot find work because they have problems that were created in the rush to get children brainwashed with the industrial curriculum that preaches that hard work and intellectual adaptation are the means to success in the working world. They "fell through the cracks."
We have come to accept that the homeless will always be with us, even in cities where nighttime temperatures go far below the freezing mark in winter and the homeless can't get social assistance because they do not have a permanent address. The homeless are the most obvious signs of the failure of the system.
Everyone still seeks happiness, but so many do without it that they are no longer certain what happiness is. They seek it in thrills and prescribed and illegal substances as well as other forms of activities that can become addictive. Happiness has not visited capitalist societies, let alone come to stay.
The gap between the rich and the poor has widened so that the two sides no longer recognize each other. The once mighty middle class dwindles as it separates into the two options as some get richer and others lose their jobs, their families, their self respect and their grasp on life.
But the rich are delighted at what capitalism has given them. They are richer than any previous generation, they control the advertising that teaches everything from morality to fashion, governments pass laws that make their fondest business wishes come true and children consider few other options than conforming to the dictates of industry as to how a society should be run.
Even our societal morality is that of industry, not of religion as in the past.
It is not the purpose of this article to offer up a solution that will be open to criticism by those whose fondest wish is to kowtow to industry. Rather it is to point out that the out of control capitalist system continues to function and gain more power because school curricula teach exactly what industry wants kids to know to become industrial workers within a few years.
The first step is not to think about how to change. The first step is to accept that change is needed.
The process of change can only begin what it will be most effective, in the teaching of children. Those children will within a few years be leaders of industry or followers of its demands.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show not just the degree of decay in western society but to offer solutions that are workable and will not cause revolution in any country.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
And yet we do. In general, the economic system practised in western countries follows the thinking of Adam Smith.
Smith said that the free market system where the wealthy are allowed to invest and make money to their hearts' content was the best system of capitalism. As the rich got richer, the poor would benefit because they would be needed to participate in a system that needed everyone to function. Tax moneys would be available for those who couldn't function comfortably.
Though no one was expected to compete on an equal footing with the rich, there would be equality among the general population because everyone would believe in the values of the system.
Happiness would be a natural benefit of Adam's economy because everyone would have enough money to do whatever they wanted. The pursuit of happiness was, in effect, the pursuit of money.
Unfettered capitalism has at its core the exploitation of greed. The greedier people are, the greater the chance that they will work hard to earn the money they want to make themselves happy by buying what they need and what they want. Those whose lives are less captured by greed would work less but still have enough to meet their more limited needs.
So how have we done? We don't have equality, as Smith promised, as most members of minorities will attest. That includes inequality for women who have to fight in many workplaces for equal pay for equal work.
People have the opportunity to work to earn a living. But some cannot work or cannot find work because they have problems that were created in the rush to get children brainwashed with the industrial curriculum that preaches that hard work and intellectual adaptation are the means to success in the working world. They "fell through the cracks."
We have come to accept that the homeless will always be with us, even in cities where nighttime temperatures go far below the freezing mark in winter and the homeless can't get social assistance because they do not have a permanent address. The homeless are the most obvious signs of the failure of the system.
Everyone still seeks happiness, but so many do without it that they are no longer certain what happiness is. They seek it in thrills and prescribed and illegal substances as well as other forms of activities that can become addictive. Happiness has not visited capitalist societies, let alone come to stay.
The gap between the rich and the poor has widened so that the two sides no longer recognize each other. The once mighty middle class dwindles as it separates into the two options as some get richer and others lose their jobs, their families, their self respect and their grasp on life.
But the rich are delighted at what capitalism has given them. They are richer than any previous generation, they control the advertising that teaches everything from morality to fashion, governments pass laws that make their fondest business wishes come true and children consider few other options than conforming to the dictates of industry as to how a society should be run.
Even our societal morality is that of industry, not of religion as in the past.
It is not the purpose of this article to offer up a solution that will be open to criticism by those whose fondest wish is to kowtow to industry. Rather it is to point out that the out of control capitalist system continues to function and gain more power because school curricula teach exactly what industry wants kids to know to become industrial workers within a few years.
The first step is not to think about how to change. The first step is to accept that change is needed.
The process of change can only begin what it will be most effective, in the teaching of children. Those children will within a few years be leaders of industry or followers of its demands.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show not just the degree of decay in western society but to offer solutions that are workable and will not cause revolution in any country.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, February 12, 2007
What Did Thoreau Know About Happiness?
"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."
- Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher (1817–1862)
Thoreau was never a rich man. Rich people and those who aspire to be rich believe that any amount of sacrifice of life is worth the investment to gain wealth. That includes their time, their work, their families, their values, their relaxation.
As western society ages, more and more people believe that wealth is the measure of a person, worth any exchange of what Thoreau called life. Not wealth itself, exactly, but what wealth can buy so that the wealthy person can show it off to others and what influence wealth can exercise over others who admire it greatly.
Not everyone in the world subscribes to that way of thinking. As much as Americans want to believe that the people the US calls terrorists only envy the wealth that US citizens have, very few (if any) of them do. They and many of their people consider western obsession with wealth to be a perversion of the purpose of why we are on this planet.
We in the west live our lives to earn enough money to buy the products that advertisers brainwash us into believing that we need so that we can be satisfied and happy.
Look how happy we are. The manufacturers, our politicians and our social leaders tell us that we must be happy, that everyone who does not live in a rich country must be unhappy.
If those important people tell us that we are happy, then we must be happy. After all, we reward them well for telling us the purpose of life. If we pay them so much to tell us what life is all about, then we might as well believe them.
Thoreau was poor, what would he know about happiness?
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to put it all into perspective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher (1817–1862)
Thoreau was never a rich man. Rich people and those who aspire to be rich believe that any amount of sacrifice of life is worth the investment to gain wealth. That includes their time, their work, their families, their values, their relaxation.
As western society ages, more and more people believe that wealth is the measure of a person, worth any exchange of what Thoreau called life. Not wealth itself, exactly, but what wealth can buy so that the wealthy person can show it off to others and what influence wealth can exercise over others who admire it greatly.
Not everyone in the world subscribes to that way of thinking. As much as Americans want to believe that the people the US calls terrorists only envy the wealth that US citizens have, very few (if any) of them do. They and many of their people consider western obsession with wealth to be a perversion of the purpose of why we are on this planet.
We in the west live our lives to earn enough money to buy the products that advertisers brainwash us into believing that we need so that we can be satisfied and happy.
Look how happy we are. The manufacturers, our politicians and our social leaders tell us that we must be happy, that everyone who does not live in a rich country must be unhappy.
If those important people tell us that we are happy, then we must be happy. After all, we reward them well for telling us the purpose of life. If we pay them so much to tell us what life is all about, then we might as well believe them.
Thoreau was poor, what would he know about happiness?
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to put it all into perspective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
The Harm Does Not Interest Them
"Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them."
- TS Eliot, American-born British critic and poet (1888-1965)
This is a different take on the motivation of people who seek power. Eliot implies that power seekers are fundamentally insecure, thus seek ways to make themselves feel important.
I would put it slightly differently. I would say that these insecure people seek power to make themselves feel important in the eyes of others, so that others will see them as important. If they can't feel important within themselves, then receiving the respect that power accords will satisfy them.
This is a stretch when we think of people such as presidents of the USA or CEOs of powerful corporations. But then, those people are consumate professionals who have the skills to disguise what they don't want others to know and display what they do want them to see.
Let's move away from power and focus on ostentacious purchases. Why must Hollywood movie stars live in homes that are many times larger than our own? Do they require more space to run around before bed? They might say it's for entertaining, but that can be done easier (and porbably cheaper) when the star uses the facilities of a major hotel that is set up to handle such events. No, they just feel they want something grandiose to show off. The adulation of others makes them feel more secure.
Does an expensive Mercedes Benz drive or ride or park any better than a much less expensive Italian or American car? Maybe not, but their owners believe they are better because they get more notice from others by owning them.
Everyone who reaches a postion of power and many who own expensive possessions have caused some harm to others along the way. They don't care about the others because they consider their defeat or their subsequent poverty to be the consequence of the way that business is operated. Only the winners count.
When everyone in parliament or Congress is healthy and most are fairly wealthy, health care suffers more than any other part of government because sick people are losers to the politicians. President Bush plans to balance the US budget within five years by cutting back on health care funding. The poor health of his own people doesn't matter so long as his military has the money to kill or maim as many of "the enemy" as possible.
As Eliot said, the harm they do does not interest them. Feeling important is what matters.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make sense of the rat race so we can fix what is broken before it is destroyed totally.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- TS Eliot, American-born British critic and poet (1888-1965)
This is a different take on the motivation of people who seek power. Eliot implies that power seekers are fundamentally insecure, thus seek ways to make themselves feel important.
I would put it slightly differently. I would say that these insecure people seek power to make themselves feel important in the eyes of others, so that others will see them as important. If they can't feel important within themselves, then receiving the respect that power accords will satisfy them.
This is a stretch when we think of people such as presidents of the USA or CEOs of powerful corporations. But then, those people are consumate professionals who have the skills to disguise what they don't want others to know and display what they do want them to see.
Let's move away from power and focus on ostentacious purchases. Why must Hollywood movie stars live in homes that are many times larger than our own? Do they require more space to run around before bed? They might say it's for entertaining, but that can be done easier (and porbably cheaper) when the star uses the facilities of a major hotel that is set up to handle such events. No, they just feel they want something grandiose to show off. The adulation of others makes them feel more secure.
Does an expensive Mercedes Benz drive or ride or park any better than a much less expensive Italian or American car? Maybe not, but their owners believe they are better because they get more notice from others by owning them.
Everyone who reaches a postion of power and many who own expensive possessions have caused some harm to others along the way. They don't care about the others because they consider their defeat or their subsequent poverty to be the consequence of the way that business is operated. Only the winners count.
When everyone in parliament or Congress is healthy and most are fairly wealthy, health care suffers more than any other part of government because sick people are losers to the politicians. President Bush plans to balance the US budget within five years by cutting back on health care funding. The poor health of his own people doesn't matter so long as his military has the money to kill or maim as many of "the enemy" as possible.
As Eliot said, the harm they do does not interest them. Feeling important is what matters.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make sense of the rat race so we can fix what is broken before it is destroyed totally.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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