{ reblog, via kvasir } “If human vices such as greed or envy are systematically cultivated, the inevitable result is nothing less than a collapse of intelligence. A man driven by greed or envy loses the power of seeing things as they really are, of seeing things in their roundness and wholeness, and his very successes become failures. If whole societies become infected by these vices, they may indeed achieve astonishing things but they become increasingly incapable of solving the most elementary problems of everyday existence.”
Small is Beautiful — E.F. Schumacher, 1973: p.18

Worse than that, I would think the evidence is here before us: A society driven by greed and envy. (Marx, I keep tellin’ you, Marx, people. There must certainly be a better way than this. To distribute in such staggeringly wide array the end of discomfort and suffering—yet to do so upon the backs of other people? Hello?)

Incapable of solving the most elementary problems of the everyday existence of Others. The others that by and large make possible your lazy life as a foodie, say. Or pick something low rent, it hardly matters. The fact is, whilst providing us with an insane-making variety of sneakers, Capitalism must constantly manufacture envy and greed to fill the absence of scarcity or need, thereby pitting citizen against citizen and, frankly worse, numbing the Haves against the reality of Having Not. Turning people into Objects, which can be much more easily dismissed from mind—but people are not objects, so the first step is to dehumanize them.

Who’s dehumanized? Look around you. Look at the images used in ads—them’s the Objects, folks. You are encouraged to desire them, desire what, through their youth and gorgeousness, they Have and you Do Not. It’s all so fucked. The poor are invisible and will remain so unless and until they become the majority—and hey, Goldman-Sachs, you’ll be the first to know.

Everyone figures they’re exempt, get your slice o the pie and get out. No one does good. No one gives a fig about doing good anymore; even the nuns are getting a load of crap from the Pope, who knows his brand is in trouble.

… Such a lovely Sunday. I can’t think what the cure is, today, except to turn, as I usually do, to the light (and the light here by the bay is spectacular, have I said this too many times before—every molecule of air carries its bead of moisture, hence the afternoon sparkles long and hard). To the kitties, the grandchildren. The weeds and flowers in the yard. Hell, if I must, to the inner workings of my own self, that pestering book of history. I write.)

{ fin }

Tags: baldur barneson, capitalism, the underclass, wealth

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