"He who is ashamed of simple food and clothing is not yet ready to have a say"
Confucius
From what I can tell so far the discussion on this site is by far not radical enough to be up to the self assigned task. When I muse about where we (mankind) are right now from an outside (pale blue dot style) perspective, I think we might be a species that is going through a mental evolution - and has been slowly doing so during the last perhaps 3000 years. Let's say the species with the self granted name Homo Sapiens has been around for 50.000 or 100.000 years, and then, suddenly, a few thousand years ago, civilizations sprang up, agriculture, commerce, writing, technology, architecture and a great philosophical and spiritual quest. There was much development (I hesitate to say progress) in terms of commerce and technology and architecture. The progress on the "spiritual and philosophical" front still is somewhat limited.
By and large humans are mentally unstable. The intellectual abilities of humans across all ethnic groups span a range that is bordering on the unbelievable for a single species. It is hard to quantify, but probably it is safe to say that we talk about orders of magnitude. Yet even among the most gifted and intelligent it is hard to come to an agreement on complex issues that simply cannot be solved analytically. And even when the facts are clear there are those issues that are unsolvable. Ethics. Moral. To have, or to be?
To summarize in a placative way: We find highly ethical, friendly and helpful simpletons and extremely intelligent high IQ narcissists and psychopaths at the extreme ends of the spectrum. The latter unfortunately may have (and have had) a significant impact on the fate of mankind. Also a wide spread desire for and adoration of strong leadership and material success probably favors the rise of such characters hierarchies. History abounds with countless examples. Then there is weakness. Not evil, but merely weakness. Want. Desire to have, to be respected, to be something, someone - at the lowest to not be less than the neighbors, often expressed as not HAVING less than the neighbors. Entire cultures at their deep core revolve around showing off, around accumulating possessions, and so does the very system that runs our globalized economy (which is in no way behaving economically).
Religions have sprung up that preach humility, that teach methods of prayer and meditation to help overcome the greedy and unstable animal inside of us. Confucius suggested that he who is ashamed of simple food and clothing is not yet ready to have a say. Buddha's entire teaching revolves around overcoming unhealthy desires - let them go. Close the door behind them. We all know the story of King Midas who starves to death because his entire world is turned into Gold. Even back then money was not edible. Jesus prophesized that the meek will inherit the Earth, Sun Tsu understood that only who doesn't fight can be truly victorious. There are countless examples resounding through three millenniums of philosophy, art and literature that have at their core the warning against greed, the warning against that final trap that dark side of our nature, that is likely to kill us. The tale of Erysichthon who dared to take wood from the holy grove of Demeter being one of the most extreme, he perpetrator being struck by an eternal hunger that eventually lead him to consume his own flesh. Goethe's Faust is more subtle, more intricate, but it does express the very same warnings. Faust himself in the end remains unhappy despite owning almost everything - but not quite everything. The little bit that's missing remains a sting in his tortured soul. As Goethe writes:
Faust (Startled.):
"Accursed
ringing! Wounding me
With shame: a treacherous blow:
My realm's laid out there, endlessly,
But, at my back, this vexes so,
Proclaiming, with its jealous sound:
My great estate is less than fine,
The old hut, all the trees around,
The crumbling chapel, are not mine.
And even if I wished to rest there,
A strange shadow makes me shudder,
It's a thorn in my eye, and deeper:
Oh! Would I were somewhere other!
His greed
was entirely out of control:
"That's the worst suffering can bring,
Being rich, to feel we lack something."
Mephisto, the great tempter, is the inventor of virtual money, the bill of temptation. And he states elsewhere in the play:
The ocean's
freedom frees the mind
There all thought is left behind!
You only need a handy grip,
You catch a fish, or take a ship,
And once you are the lord of three,
The fourth
one's tackled easily:
The fifth one's in an evil plight,
You have the might, and so the right.
You wonder what, and never how.
I know a little of navigation:
War, trade, and piracy, allow,
Are three in one, no separation."
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