yes, greed is relative

by firsty

Posted to Utterances on 2004-01-27 06:31:00

Parent message is 589663
and i definitely dont look at the greed that puts SUVs in poor people’s driveways as the kind of greed that would make them do whatever it takes (harm others) in order to get that SUV. i was looking at greed as more of a condition, exemplified by poor spending choices, that causes people not to harm others but rather to neglect caring for others. to neglect charities or donating time to charitable efforts.

two things: i dont think that any system could EVER, for any sustainable length of time, convince a society that there are enough mangos to go around. and i dont think that any society can base itself upon the premise that everyone can have what they need to survive. because we will constantly redefine what we need to survive, as well as constantly redefine “survival.” and basing a system upon that concept will also, inevitably, due to the human trait that desires leadership, lead to a method of distributing survival needs, which will lead to an agency in charge of distributing survival needs, which, due to even a low level of “greed” in the human beings making up said agency, result in injustices of varying degrees.

the background of my argument is that as long as “we” as a society, in all its tangental philosophical sociological pseudo-intellectual forms, continues to try to find a “better” society in which to live, we are going to continue to suffer the pains of an unjust world. and it struck me funny that the anarchist movement was being used to promote the concept of community-focused living, which, by implication, is being harmed by our current society. when in fact that issue has nothing to do with the system we’re in. it has to do with the people we are. my point is that as a society, in whatever system we are born into, we need to be focused on living just lives. living a just life means caring for community, and that isnt going to be solved by changing the system. and, further, all this talk about changing the system is distracting people from the real issues, therefore making all those jerks with sociology degrees not only useless but harmful.

🙂

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