On Greed and Selfishness
I was talking to my doctor the other day and the issue of human greed came up. Are humans inherently greedy? I personally believe the answer to the question is “No.” My doctor tried to used the example of how the world is today but what my doctor was forgetting is that the sample population being looked at was only 1% of all humans who ever lived on this planet. It is my argument that it’s the way it currently is in the world is because of how we teach people to be. That greed and selfishness isn’t human nature as society likes to preach.
The problem in society is based in the foundation. That foundation is capitalism. Capitalism teaches us to be greedy and selfish. The winners in capitalism are those who exploit, legally rob, and cheat the most people. Success isn’t measured by how many smiles you bring into the world but by how much money one makes.
Things have only been “this way” for the last 10,000 years. Before that, humans and the planet were getting along just fine. The problem started when man decided that the earth belong to him instead of the fact that man belongs to the earth. I am not saying civilization is inherently bad – the Greeks and the Romans did just fine without causing the destruction on the planet we are now. Man needs to learn to have the damage done to the planet and the planet’s ability to replenish itself in sync.
I argue if we were to have a system based on community, sharing, and brotherhood – we would have a different world. If parents didn’t raise their children to put “me” first. If we taught that treating others with respect, compassion, and kindness instead of being taught that everything is a commodity.
Even the way we relate to people in retail and service reflects how capitalism has brainwashed society. We do not see the salespeople as humans who have a family at home and their own problems. If we did, people wouldn’t get half as mean, nasty, or upset. We’re so conditioned that we don’t even see having the right to chose what to eat, where to shop, and what to wear as having a privilege. Most retail stores remove all human aspects from their presentation – with each store, no matter where you are in the world – having the exact same service and the exact same product. Cookie cutter products for cookie cutter people who like to believe they are “unique.” It’s all a lie.
A few stores, like Costco have policies that none of their products can come from sweatshop labor. But, we as consumers are so far removed from the way things are produced that we allow inhumane treatment for our mass produce goods. Most of the time, people’s clothes are more well traveled than the wearer. Most people don’t even think about the person who made it – how they have families, problems, and poverty. We need to focus on having a human community were everyone gets their share. Global wealth created global poverty.
I think this is one of the harder concepts I have to get people to wrap their heads around. For every action, there is a reaction. The reaction of having rich is that we have the poor. In other countries, there is a limit to how much a CEO can earn. It makes the gap between the rich and poor less so people are more level. Not that there isn’t rich and poor, but really, how many yachts do you need? And how many children die of hunger a day? Think about it.
One of the main problems is that we are conditioned to not think about it and accept the motto, “This is the way things have always been.” This is false. We can change the world and make it a beautiful place for everyone if we just cared a little and put some thought into what we consume.
Copenhagen was a bust.
Okay, so I try to ignore the news. Rather, I try not to pay attention to what I can’t do much about to change. I like to act locally and think globally. But some things I can’t really ignore. Like the current state of our world and the impending doom of the human race. It bothers me. There’s a plaque at the Natural History Museum in New York City on the ground right before the room with the giant big blue whale. It has a list of the different extinction periods and their probable cause. It reads that we are currently in the middle of the 6th mass extinction that our planet has seen – all caused by humans. It’s because of the world myth we believe: Man rules the Earth. That this beautiful planet is being turned into a cesspool.
I am in the middle of reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. So far, it’s been a really good book. It’s laying out the facts as things are which people are in denial of hearing. Like last night, I read about how increase in food supply leads to increase in population. I know this isn’t a huge revelation – but we keep sending food aid to countries. By sending food aid, they reproduce, and create more mouths to feed. The end result is a never ending cycle of producing more food, to feed the new hungry mouths, while there’s an increase destruction of our planet. The end result if things keep going this way is that we’ll destroy ourselves. We’ll homogenize the planet to only be human food and what feeds it and the diversity of life will be eliminated but we’ll never keep up with the demands. I don’t know what to do about this. False aid to create more hungry and poverty is not the way to go. We should focus on sending birth control and work on population control to keep the cycle from repeating.
Another human myth is that humans are except from the forces of nature. We too, are vulnerable to famine, which it’s a fake famine to begin with because we produce enough food for everyone to eat. It is all economics. We need to dismantle the whole oppressive system we have in place in order to feed the people of the world. It should be about people, not cash. We need to revamp our entire economy so it won’t crash if we give people bread. We should feed the people we have and let food be a right – not a privilege and focus on population control. We can put an end to this with birth control and reforming our economy.
Right now, with the way we are heading and how many species are becoming extinct – we are heading for our own extinction because we are defying a fundamental laws of nature – who humans like to believe doesn’t apply to them but it does. The laws are: The world was not made for any one species. The world needs competition and diversity to survive. It was not meant to be homogenized. Take what you need but leave the rest for the other species. Man has decided that everything is his and when we act like lord and master of the planet – look at the destruction it caused. We need to change how we relate to the world in order for our own survival.
