As I witness the myriad grotesqueries inflicted upon my fellow man, I see a common thread that binds them all to the same failing structure.
The profit motive is seen by many to be the only real way to get a person to “contribute to society.” We find it easy to classify people into “bums” and “pillars of society” based on how much economic value they generate for themselves and others. In fact, incredible wealth is something that we are told to aspire to, to seek out and hold on tight to the reigns of financial success, even at the cost of personal happiness and even long term health. We tell our children that they can one day be among the wealthiest of the population, that all they have to do is work hard and be educated. And even if they don’t make it to the stature of a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, they can still live out their lives in comfort and prosperity.
No on ever really explains to children that their happiness and prosperity comes at the price of untold suffering and death of many people out of our collective sight. Very rarely do they learn of the abject horrors inflicted on people domestically and abroad that allow them to aspire and attain these financial goals. Of course, who wants to be the one to admit to little Johnny that his dreams of becoming a millionaire require him to be ignorant of or indifferent to the suffocating facts of slavery and subjugation of millions if not billions of others. And if this is something that parents don’t understand, then the honest and well meaning transmittal of these goals to the child often do not carry with it the necessary understandings and truths that these hopes rest upon.
Very often instead, we subvert our own premises with this idea of religion. Sure, you should go make lots of money, but don’t forget that there is a god that is scrutinizing you, to whom you should pay respect, favor and tithes. Also, this god may or may not have very specific yet somehow vague rules that should never be violated, unless we are in a region or culture that conveniently ignores and/or re-interprets that rule in a different way, especially if that rule gets in the way of our enjoyment/peace of mind/ability to make money or any other arbitrary reason that we see fit to make exemptions for. Also, our particular view of religion is the only right one, and you’ll burn in hell if you don’t follow it. But we love you no matter what. Unless we don’t. But god still does! Unless you’ve done something very very bad. Which is still open to interpretation. The point is, you should claim to believe what we tell you because it helps you make money. And go to paradise/heaven/nirvana when you die. But dying is bad, so try not to do that. But other people dying is ok, as long as they’re poor and unimportant. Especially if they don’t believe like we do. And they more than likely don’t, because god would have saved them if he wanted to. But he didn’t, so you don’t have to worry about it. Just pay some extra tithes to make you feel better. You’ll get 10 times the investment back. Trust us. Oh yeah, god says to care about other people. Try and do that.
It’s kind of confusing to a person to hold in their head the idea that they should get money at all costs, and to care about other people as much as you care about yourself. It becomes a billion times more confusing when the underpinnings of money and the inherent suffering and fraud that it perpetuates are not understood. A person can very easily turn to any number of destructive behaviors as a response to such fundamentally different and antithetical ideas trying to live in one person’s head. It no longer shocks me to see people willfully allow themselves and their children to descend into a hellish place in their life where there appears to be no escape. No amount of prayer or money or good intentions will ever overcome a basic understanding of the truth and its power to illuminate the darkest corners of reality. No person can ever be healthy living in this world given such diametrically opposed views and no context in which to view them. This is why I believe that the profit motive is the most inherently destructive motive in the history of mankind.
Continued in future posts.
