"Crawl and lick the footprints of the rich"

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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A few years ago I read a paragraph written by George Sand. While these words were written in 1832, in my view, she eloquently expresses the reality of today.

" … there is a lack of hands to work the land but every profession has a host of aspirants; where human beings, hideously massed together around palaces, crawl and lick the footprints of the rich; where enormous capital, accumulated in accordance with the laws of social wealth … in a few men’s hands, is the prize in a never ending lottery of avarice, immorality, and ineptness … in this country of lewdness and misery, of vice and desolation, in this civilization, rotten to its very roots, you want me to be a loyal citizen? You want me sacrifice my will, desires, imagination to its needs, being either its dupe or its victim, so the penny I might toss to a beggar will end up in a millionaire’s coffers?"

Feudalism is not dead! … it has simply ‘morphed’ into capitalism. Feudalism in its’ day was transparent … feudalism today exists as an ‘illusion of freedom’ … a grand deception indeed!

The essence of capitalism is ‘winners and losers’ … the pinnacle of capitalism is ‘one winner’! Globalization and modern technology has set the stage for the ‘winner’ to percolate to the top and emerge.

The rich and powerful will likely never surrender their grip on power and control … who will clean their toilets?

The sad reality … really sad reality … is the the only way the rich and powerful can maintain their grip on power and control is through the willing cooperation and support of the masses.

Today this is achieved primarily through … “the iron law of wages” … author unknown. The rich and powerful give the masses the ‘crumbs’ from their table and a false hope that some day they may be able to sit at the table themselves.

Karl Marx expressed this phenomenon eloquently …

“The “free” labourer, thanks to the development of capitalistic production, agrees, i.e., is compelled by social conditions, to sell the whole of his active life, his very capacity for work, for the price of the necessaries of life, his birthright for a mess of pottage.”

So what can we do? …

Thanks to people like John Lennon, Fidel Castro and more recently Chavez … there is a growing awareness of this reality … a growing ‘awakening’. A growing realization that another ‘way forward’ for mankind may exist.

Some refer to this phenomenon as a “collective consciousness” and in my view, when this ‘collective consciousness’ grows to a ‘critical mass’ it will transform itself into a ‘collective will’ … and watch the sparks fly!!

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Well you’re an idealist I’ll give you that. Whilst I don’t disagree with the sentiment I would add the following.
The problems of man’s avarice and greed, the law of the jungle, go deep down into his soul. Capitalism is simply a very apparent and clear example. Real civilisation, real humanism seem to be idealistic and totally unattainable concepts in any really meaningful sense, this is the case as much now as it was a millennium ago.

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Thank you for your candid comments.

Wayne … your participation in this forum suggests you have had glimpses of a life ‘beyond the jungle’ … beyond our innate primate behaviour.

‘Seems countless people have had these ‘glimpses’ … in all geographies … in all cultures … in all times. This rather substantial body of increasingly compelling evidence may suggest that an expectation … a hope … a wish … exists somewhere in the universe … that all of mankind will make this giant leap forward.

In my view, the question that begs to be asked … is the gestation period infinite?

Should the gestation period be finite … there are only three possibilities at the termination of the gestation period … a healthy birth … a still birth … or death in the womb.

One might argue that mankind is late in the third trimester.
:laughing:

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I concede, pilgrim, that my comments are cynical. As you say people have over countless ages had an insight into a different way of life, and as yet life on the planet continues as it always has.
You say ‘we’ are in the third trimester of a gestation period.
What brings you to this conclusion, why do you believe change is immanent now? And what is this change you believe may come about?

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How do you know what was going on a millenium ago for the majority of humanity?
You don’t. You assume. You could be wrong.

Where does this “humanism” come from. Did it originate with Rawls?
I think not. Infants will share without prompting, they must be taught to be selfish.

I think this avarice and greedy law of the jungle is a fairly new concept for humanity. Why else do so many recoil from it as a natural reaction?

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Such concepts are only human nature are they not? the persuit of power, wealth and control allong with the desire for a better future for you and your lovedones. To say this was to change would be to say that human nature would change within a heartbeat.

That cannot happen, atleast not quickly, if human nature is to change towards social concoiusness it will be over a long corse of time and great amounts of effort, unfortunatly you will likely be long since dead by that time.

To break from the strings of capitalism is not diffacult if you are willing to put forward the effort, but humanity will remain as it is, changing slighitly from generation to generation.

these are just some things I have come to accept, plaese be patiant.

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Wayne … I subscribe to the school of thought attributed to Socrates … I know nothing!

Like all persons, my thoughts and opinions are the ‘fruit’ of my unique life journey.

In my view, our self-portrait is painted by our unique and ever-growing repository of thoughts, decisions, actions and experiences. If we do not take time regularly to seriously reflect on our ‘self-portrait’ as it is unfolding we may never know who we really are.

Any attempt to persuade another that my take on life or the future is ‘truth’ would be futile … in my view, it is this that propagates confusion and deception.

Yet … to meet another person who has arrived at essentially the same place, by a completely different path, would be exhilarating … like wandering in the wilderness alone for many years and finally encountering another friendly and open human being.

For me … the expression “collective consciousness” attempts to define such an experience … the complete opposite of the conventional teacher - student paradigm.

I wrote the following article a couple of years ago …

The ‘egg’ as a symbol of new life

‘an egg is just an egg until it hatches’.

Since then my daily reflections often went back to the image of a chicken ‘egg’ … and what it may symbolize. The metaphor of ‘new life’ was often part of my contemplation … my mind went to the ‘incubation’ period … the time between the chicken egg coming into our physical world and the chicks’ exit from the egg shell.

My mind made a connection between this ‘incubation period’ of the chicken egg and the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ by St John of the Cross.

Seems there are many parallels:

We have no idea what is happening inside the egg … the ‘darkness’ … the transformation of what we know as egg white and egg yoke into a living breathing walking yellow chick.

We have no way of participating in the ‘transformation’ … nor the mother hen … all she can do is sit on the eggs … keep them warm and protect them from harm.

The ‘transformation’ requires nothing ‘external’ … nothing from our physical world … aside from the ‘warmth’ and protection provided by the mother hen.

Also, the ‘transformation’ of egg white and egg yoke into a living ‘chick’ can not be ‘hurried’ along … any attempt to expedite the process is fatal for the developing chick.

Much is written about spiritual transformation … growth … awakening … conversion etc etc … all words used to describe something we don’t fully understand. Seems to me that people who suddenly find themselves wanting to head in this direction have already ‘traveled’ a long way … ie the egg developed in their ‘inner being’ without any conscious awareness … the conscious awareness(the desire for spiritual growth) may be viewed as the the equivalent of the chicken egg showing up in the nest … still a long way from ‘hatching’ … Nonetheless, all that is required now exists.

As mentioned above, nothing ‘external’ is required for further progress … only warmth and protection from harm.

Warmth and protection from harm with life in today’s world is most difficult to find. The ‘egg’(the metaphor) is most often constantly subjected to ‘cold’ and aggressive hostility … why?? Yet the individual must be prepared to ‘crawl inside the egg so to speak’ … into the darkness … the unknown … and wait patiently and humbly.

T.E. Lawrence(Lawrence of Arabia) called it “Life by Competition”. The word competition infers winners and losers, struggle, aggression, insensitivity … the antithesis of ‘warmth’ and ‘tenderness’.

Living in society is like walking in the rain … without an umbrella … you get wet … you get soaked!! Likewise for the person on a spiritual journey … the soul is constantly contaminated simply living day to day life. Retreating from the world doesn’t seem to be the answer … abusing our body or mind in an attempt to maintain a ‘spiritual state’ doesn’t seem appropriate … what then??

Most people on a ‘spritual path’ are either destroyed by the ‘cold and abrasive’ nature of todays’ society or become impatient … the image I received the other day was … someone standing on top of the egg with a sledge hammer … trying to break the egg open … saying " hatch" … it’s time! … I know it’s time! … hatch! … eventually the ‘egg’ breaks and instead of a living chick all we get is egg white and egg yoke spilling out all over the place … we can not hurry the process!

I read the following paragraph in the Jerusalem Post during a visit to Israel several years ago. At the time these words struck me as quite interesting …and still today.

“Great events in our national existence cannot be understood and decisions that will shape our people’s future cannot be made in the ‘Yishaq mode.’ In order to perceive the direction and orientation that must be assumed, to come to terms with the steps that must be taken, and to possess the self-assuredness simply to know when something is right, and to be therefore willing to lead the way -for all these, something more than rigid loyalty to tradition is required.”

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Well pilgrim…what you say is very intresting, and the imagery you use quite enchanting. I will need to think on what you have said so that I might make a properly constructed reply.
I wonder have you read much of Zen teaching? I am no expert but know enough to recognise the resonace of your philosophy of no action.

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We do of course have history…whilst I don’t wish to assert that history is with out it’s errors, it is the best impirical evidence of human behavoir for the last few millenium.
This history does suggest that human nature has remained fundamentally unchanged over the period that it records, let’s say the last five thousand years or so. War, greed, power plays, deception, cruelty, ignorance, exploitation have always been part of that history.( the history we know that is)

I would say that both infants and older children display at least as much greed, cruelty and malice as love and kindness, in fact probably a lot more. So if you want to talk about the inate nature of man and suggest that it is kind, giving and sharing…that is not the what I observe.

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History is written by conquerors.

Agressive behavior can be learned or taught at a very young age and some youngsters are just agressive anyway, but not all by any means.

People do not live through fear and agression alone. The vast majority of human interaction is cooperative in nature. If it wasn’t we would still be living in caves.

“Its Human nature.” That’s what my friend Franky used to say all the time. He survived Aushwitz and that was the only way he could come to terms with what he lived through there.

Anyway, this whole “it is human nature to be agressive and greedy and cruel thing”, where does it get us?
All it does is give justification to otherwise unjustifiable behavior.