I couldn't agree more, Ray. Perhaps that makes me a major hypocrite, given
that my job is selling business degrees, but we live in a society that has
lost its soul. And, yes, we ignore the lessons of history and the
fundamental truths in great works of art because their study is
contra-indicated by the economic rationalist prescription. In this lies
the seeds of future calamity.
I would take your argument further here, Ray. I believe we in the West
suffer from a power-elite whose rapaciousness is unparalleled, with a few
historical exceptions. In many ways, I perceive the people who run my
country, Australia, as behaving much like the Russian aristocracy and
captains of industry prior to 1905. Short-term thinking, the "bean
counter's" view of the universe, reigns supreme. On an above-median salary
myself, I should add that I by no means absolve myself in this respect,
though I am certainly no millionaire.
I should add further that I do not blame individuals. As you say, the huge
salaries are a symptom of underlying insecurity. It is my belief that this
insecurity transcends the simple economic sphere. To me, this "always a
bit more" (at the expense of the post-industrial peasantry) mentality is
symptomatic of a more essential emptiness. The prevailing religious
paradigms have failed utterly. We have religious leaders running around
supporting pathetically unsustainable, ecologically catastrophic, moral
strictures and a medieval anthropomorphic apprehension of Higher
Intelligence that would actually be hilariously funny were its consequences
so tragic.
Hence we have a power elite who walk through life, like Charles Foster Kate
in Orson Welles classic movie, feeling desperately empty amidst their
riches and seeking, through hedonism, to ease the deep underlying
meaninglessness of their existence. And yes, the still-born replacement
religion in which the "great God Science" held the key to our future died,
in utero, when some of the horrendous byproducts of these advances became
manifest.
That's my $0.02 worth, anyway.
Brad
At 12:23 PM 3/14/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Not a new scenario. Just read the Greeks. But we have killed
>our eyes and ears by shutting down the memory that the great
>works of art teach us. Reduced to a profession for the purpose
>of "making" a living, a job, we have lost our souls. That is the
>root of the evil. Some will say, REH's at it again. And I am,
>these people are by and large Americans who have overcome their
>fear of security with huge salaries and now worry about losing it.
>
>None of them have the courage to do much more than whine.
>Religion has failed, science is a gun but the soul comes from
>true sight, connection through love, an intelligent heart and knowing
>the great gifts of the past well enough to project forward to the
>seventh generation. The only thing I can see that Europe has
>given us is their great art, otherwise its genocide and funeral
>industries.
>
>REH
>
