People act as if the world is as each of them sees it.
Nobody does anything unless they are convinced that there is some merit in ‘that’ particular something being put into practice. Otherwise put, nobody starts doing anything before believing that the thing being started is well worth the effort.
In fact, doing – anything, in a voluntary manner – is an act of faith.
‘OK, I can live with that. But which faith? Cause there are many…’
This is the moment when I’ll start commenting on the difference between creed and faith. Creed is very specific. Personal creed, Christian creed, Islamic creed, even professional creed… Faith, on the other hand, is more general. The concept itself encompasses creed and goes a lot further.
Personal faith is both the conviction which drives each of us to do something and the specifics about how we implement that something. Those of us who are faithful Christians derive their energy from their faith and the particulars of their action from their Christian creed. Those of us who are faithful Muslims derive their energy from their faith and the particulars of their action from their Islamic creed. Those of us who are agnostics – or atheists, derive their energy from their faith and the particulars of their action from their specific creed. In this sense, faith is more like a state of mind – shared by all faithful people, while creed is specific to each category of people. Down to each individual.
Am aflat de pe FB că Iulia Marin – o ziaristă de 32 de ani, nu mai este printre noi. Goagal și… ajung la un articol care descrie cariera ei de jurnalist. Pasiunea cu care își făcea meseria. Pasiunea cu care încerca să aducă informații relevante la cunoștinta cititorilor. A ‘consumatorilor de presă’. Și lupta Iuliei cu depresia.
La finalul articolului am fost îndemnat să continui. Să citesc în continuare. Să mă informez despre celelalte subiecte importante ale zilei.
Simt cum mă apucă depresia! Și un fel de furie pasiv-agresivă. Oare oamenii aștia nu-și dau seama că își taie singuri craca de sub picioare? OK, deocamdată au reușit să ne fure nouă valiza… și se fâțâie mândri cu ea prin oraș… Dar cât o să mai dureze chestia asta? Poate că om fi noi mulți dar proști… numai că foamea e cel mai bun profesor.
De la un moment dat încolo tot o să ne dăm seama că om fi noi proști… dar suntem mulți!
“And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Matthew, 17:20
Apparently, the quote above doesn’t make much sense. No matter how much faith one has, telling a mountain to ‘remove to yonder place’ will yield nothing more than a wasted breath.
On the other hand… 2000 years is a lot. Erosion has moved many a mountains in this time… After all, Jesus didn’t say anything about how fast will the mountain remove itself after it had been told to…
OK, jokes aside, nowadays it’s a lot easier for us to remove a (smallish) mountain than it was in those times. We currently use cranes and lorries instead of mere words … but we still wouldn’t start before convincing ourselves that it’s possible. That our goal is within our grasp. At least notionally.
The truth of the matter being that we live now in a better world.
According to our benchmarks. We live longer and have it a lot easier!
But is our world really better? According to other benchmarks… Biodiversity loss, spoiled environment, continued human exploitation…
Let me put it differently. What was the thing which had set apart the abrahamic faith from all other religions? The notion that all people had been made in the image of the creator god. As a consequence of how they’ve been made, they – the people – are not only equal – cast in the same mould, but also harboring a divine spark. The image they share being that of a god, not an ordinary one…
What difference does this make? Democracy, capitalism, free market… all things we consider to be capital to our well being are based on the notion that all people are equal and have to be treated as such. Otherwise why bother with what the other has to say about anything?
I’ll repeat the question. Is our world really better?
Forget about biodiversity, pollution and quality of life. Do we continue to consider our brethren to be equal to us? Do we really hear them out when they speak to us?
How are we to achieve our goal – whatever that might be, if we don’t coordinate our faith? If we don’t hear out what the others have to say about anything?
My previous post was about reification. About the fact that each of us acts according to their faith. According to their belief that the world is as each of us sees it. |How are we going to coordinate our efforts towards a common goal – a better place for all of us to live in, if we don’t hear what each of us has to say about where we’re going?
Allow me to put it bluntly. To cut the .. c…orner. -;).
People act as if the world is as they see it!
Would you get up in the morning if there was no tomorrow?!? So, in reality, it’s faith which keeps the world spinning!
Our world… Earth spins on its own! But our world, the one we live in, is kept together by our faith! By our own conviction that we’ll get up from bed tomorrow. That there’s something worthwhile getting up for.
If you read carefully Marx’s communist manifesto, you’ll realize that it doesn’t. Work. Not even on paper! According to Marx, communism will come to be when enough people formerly belonging to the middle class will have become poor. As a consequence of their wealth having been siphoned away from them. Becoming poor will make those former middle class people open to communist ideas. And will convince them to follow the already ‘enlightened communists’ into revolution. For a while – again, according to Marx, the society will have to be led by the successful revolutionaries. In a dictatorial manner, because not all people will have risen to the communists’ level of understanding. So. ‘Communism’ will be instated by some disgruntled people using dictatorial methods. How auspicious is this? Let me go even further.
Why were those people disgruntled in the first place? Because capitalism! Not so fast. The Adam Smith kind of capitalism worked just fine. Only after it had been warped by greed it had started to sputter. Specially after Milton Freedman had enshrined greed… This being the moment when I need to remind you that Adam Smith’s first book on this subject was “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”…
‘Those’ people had become disgruntled after too many in that society had been convinced, at least for a while, that ‘greed was good’. And what was Marx’s proposed solution for that disgruntlement? That all ‘means of production’ – meaning all property/wealth, to be taken away from individual people. And entrusted to ‘the people’. Since ‘the people’ were going to be led by the “communists”, in practice the communist revolution meant that all wealth was going to be confiscated from those who happened to own it and entrusted to a very small number of people. Who happened to own the secular power in that moment. As the main consequence of the communist revolution. Apud Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto…
Let me revisit now Milton Friedman’s words. ‘Greed is good’. According to this line of thinking, wealth becoming as concentrated as possible is a good thing. Since greed is already good, concentrated wealth is but a logical consequence…
Then Marx’s Communist Manifesto was nothing but an avant-la-lettre short-cut for an easier implementation of Milton Friedman’s greed hailing ideology!
See what I mean?
Karl Marx communism did not and cannot work. Because it leads into a vicious circle. It creates a monopolistic situation which cannot be avoided. Time and time again, history has proven that ‘this time is different’ is nothing but wishful thinking. Whenever too much decision power is concentrated in a too small number of hands, the situation becomes untenable. The more concentrated the decision power, the faster – and more dramatic – the eventual collapse.
How about a ‘different’ kind of communism? The only sustainable kind of anything – ‘social arrangements’ included, had been ‘natural’. Had appeared in an evolutionary manner. In contrast, all revolutionary developments have produced counter-revolutions. In many instances even more destructive than the revolutions themselves. What will come after democratic capitalism? I don’t know! But it better be better than what we have now.
And come in quietly!
Otherwise…
How about a return to bona fide democratic capitalism? To Adam Smith’s kind of capitalism? The one whose entrepreneurs used to put ‘moral sentiments’ above greed!
Wishful thinking? Maybe! But is there any other way to achieve anything? Other than to start by wishing that something? And since Smith’s brand of capitalism did work, communism always failed and a viable alternative has yet to appear…
Holidays are very good opportunities to reconsider, And to learn new things.
These days I learned that while having nothing makes you feel ‘uncomfortable’, having too much can be very limiting.
If you have just enough, you can go forward. Explore new venues. Learn new things. Enjoy life!
If you have too much, you spend too much time and energy protecting what you already have. Trying to get more… The venues open for you to explore are suddenly reduced to one! Only one… You become the guardian of your fortune! Can you enjoy such a life? Are you sure? Have you examined the alternatives? In earnest?
‘Are you implying that all wealthy people are unhappy? Unable to enjoy their lives?!?’
On the contrary, my dear Watson! I’m only saying that being wealthy is complicated. “Just enough” is a matter of individual ability to cope. That enjoying wealth needs a lot of skill. And that being wealthy comes with a lot of responsibility! Towards yourself in the first place!
And towards your kids, family and the rest of the gang…
Evreii nu-s catolici? Nu. Păi atunci de ce sărbatoresc Paștele în același timp cu catolicii? Evreii sărbătoresc altceva. Ieșirea din Egipt. Momentul când Moise i-a condus către libertate. Din sclavia egipteană către libertatea pe care aveau s-o găsească în Palestina. Ce sărbătoresc ei nu are nici o legătură cu Christos. Păi Christos nu a fost evreu?!? Ba da. Doar că pentru marea majoritate a contemporanilor lui, evrei, Christos a fost un sectant. Un răzvrătit. Cât de multe lucruri nu știu…
Din păcate, discuția s-a întrerupt aici. Prietenul meu a ajuns la casă – făcea cumpărături pentru Paște, și a trebuit să ‘închidă’.
Nu l-am mai sunat înapoi… Cum să-i dai cuiva telefon și să-i spui:
Tu ești cel mai creștin om pe care îl știu. Nu judeci pe nimeni. Ne tratezi pe toți la fel. Cu la fel de mult respect. Femei, bărbați, copii, negri, verzi, albi, turci, români… Nu te-am văzut vreodată să-ți bați joc de cineva! Nu te duci la biserică? N-ai citit Biblia? Ce nevoie ai să faci ceva din toate astea? Atâta vreme cât te comporți cât se poate de creștinește. În adevăratul sens al Cuvântului!
„Nu oricine-Mi zice: «Doamne, Doamne!» va intra în Împărăţia Cerurilor, ci doar acela care face voia Tatălui Meu, Care este în ceruri. Mulţi Îmi vor zice în ziua aceea: «Doamne, Doamne, n-am profeţit noi în Numele Tău? N-am scos noi demoni în Numele Tău? N-am făcut noi multe minuni în Numele Tău?» Atunci le voi spune limpede: «Niciodată nu v-am cunoscut! Plecaţi de la Mine, voi, cei ce săvârşiţi fărădelegea!»” Matei 7:21-23
Basically, reasoning is nothing more than a ‘dialogue with myself’. When I ‘consider a thing’ in my mind, consciously, I practically put my brain to work. I order my memory to summon up all the data it has on the subject and I ask my frontal lobe to process that data and to reach a conclusion. In theory… In the real world, my amygdala – the piece of the brain where emotions are processed – already has an opinion about everything which crosses my mind. The more familiar the thing, the stronger the opinion. The more often my mind – meaning I, had expressed itself regarding a subject, and the more recently, the stronger the opinion my amygdala already has about the matter. If the matter is considered for the first time, and has no connection with anything else I had already ‘conclusioned’ about, only then my amygdala might keep its opinion for itself. The key word here being ‘might’…
Since this is nothing more than a blog post, I’m not going to prove my opinion. To discuss the importance of the fight-flight mechanism and to mention that this mechanism had done more – evolutionary wise, than reason for our survival. For us having the opportunity to develop this vaunted capacity for reason…
I’ll just end it abruptly. Mentioning that our individual consciousnesses use reason as a tool. To arrange facts in such a manner as to confirm the already reached conclusionary opinions put forward by our amydalae. “To win arguments”, if you will, including when debating with ourselves. Only when the facts – the harsh reality, contradict in a flagrant manner the already held convictions we might change our minds. The more immediate the danger we put ourselves into by sticking to our convictions, the more likely we are to cave in to the facts.
To the facts as we perceive them… Which is yet another story!
“Tough times create tough men. Tough men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create tough times.“ American proverb “Wealth lasts only for three generations: one to make it, one to keep it, one to squander it“ Chinese proverb “If you raise your children, you get to spoil your grandchildren. If you spoil your children, you get to raise your grandchildren.“ Popular word of mouth
There’s no denying that, on average, each generation fares better than its predecessor.
Then why some people end up worse than their parents? Is it a social thing? Is it in their upbringing? Is it the consequence of bad personal choices?
The easy way out would be to consider that legislation, material status, the culture one was born into and even the upbringing offered by the parents are nothing but circumstances. And, ultimately, it’s the individual who makes the call. And bears the consequences… But the above mentioned individual doesn’t rise from and into a complete void… so I need to go deeper!
An equally true but somewhat more useful observation would be that we’re dealing here with something more important than mere wealth.
‘There’s no such thing! Nothing is more important than Wealth!’
Yeah, right… Individual people keep squandering the personal wealth accumulated by their forefathers, the humankind keeps going forward and you tell me personal wealth is the most important thing here…
But you do make a good point. Your insistence, obsessive even, about wealth being the crux of everything is very relevant. Since I agree with you that wealth is important, indeed, then maybe it’s the ‘insistence’ which is causing the problem…
First of all, allow me to make a simple distinction.
There is wealth – structured opportunity, I’ll discuss this notion in another post, and there is personal wealth. Opportunity which belongs to somebody. When an individual squanders the wealth inherited from their parents – or even that which they had managed to put together themselves, the wealth itself – the accrued opportunity – doesn’t disappear from the face of the earth. It just passes from one hand to another. Most of it, anyway. For the simple reason that most of today’s wealth is expressed in money. Which is fungible.
‘OK. So individual people squandering their inherited wealth do not represent such a big problem. The total wealth already present ‘on the face of the Earth’ remains (more or less) the same, no matter who owns it. And since new wealth is created everyday, the humankind, on aggregate, goes forward.’
That’s how things used to be. That’s how things had evolved for the last ten millennia or so. Ever since our forefathers had invented agriculture. Agriculture and money… Land and money cannot be destroyed. Buildings and almost everything else which carries value can. Be destroyed. Land and money also, actually, but it’s a lot harder to do it.
But there’s a catch here.
For wealth to do its trick – to function as an opportunity, people have to have access to it. That’s why, for example, people do not keep their money under the mattress. When deposited in a bank, money will end up being used. The bank will lend them to somebody who needs it and that somebody will put that money to work, In no matter what shape or form. Kept under a mattress, money becomes mostly useless. At least for the time being… And this is where ‘insistence’ – our obsessive insistence – that money is the only worthwhile goal for any respectable person becomes counterproductive.
‘Are you a communist?!?’
On the contrary, my dear Watson!
In fact, Marx had been just as infatuated with money as Milton Friedman was going to be a century later. With more or less similar results… Friedman taught us that greed is good. Profit uber alles. That getting money trumps everything else. That getting money is not only good for the individual itself but also commendable. That everybody should make it their goal to become rich! Marx, on the other hand – please remember that the ‘other’ hand is nothing but similar to its twin – advocated for all wealth to be stripped from its rightful owners. See what I mean? Both Marx and Friedman had been thinking only about ownership. Who owns that wealth!
On average, we deal with the same situation. According to Friedman – pushing his advice to the very limit, there’s no problem if someone owns all the money in the world. If it so happened, so be it. According to Marx, nobody should own anything. On average, the wealth corresponding to each living human in both situations would be the same.
We already know the consequences of Marx’s teachings. When all the wealth present in one country is managed by a very small number of people, the whole situation goes south. Fast. Very fast! We also know what happens when the market is cornered. Becomes suffocated by a monopoly. The whole situation goes south. That’s why we cherish the freedom of the market!
Doesn’t make much sense? To insist that the market must be free and simultaneously maintain that ‘greed is good’?
Yep! My point exactly…
The vaunted human capacity for reason may have more to do with winning arguments than with thinking straight. Illustration by Gérard DuBois Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. By Elizabeth Kolbert February 19, 2017 https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert
For some reason, there still exists a considerable number of people not yet convinced that what had been experienced in the Soviet Union was “a true socialist/communist form of government”
The sad reality is that the Russian Revolution did establish a true socialist form of government! As per Marx’s teachings. The communists had been in charge of things, and the things failed to become better. In fact, they had become worse. Eventually, the Soviet Union – along with all other socialist attempts, had crumbled under their own weight.
Those who want to find better alternatives to democratic capitalism – good luck with that – need to find another word but socialism to describe their goal. Or wait a few generations before attempting to give it a new meaning. The current one had been wasted by the likes of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ceausescu…
nicichiarasa 