Earlier today...
Me: "For example: suppose I have a Snickers and a Twix. You have 50 cents, and want a candy bar. I make three offers: you can buy the Snickers for 50 cents, the Twix for 50 cents, or both for 50 cents. Which one do you buy?"
Tom: "Obviously both."
M: "Why obviously?"
T: "Because it's the best deal."
M: "Will you eat both?"
T: "Sure. I like them both."
M: "What if it makes you sick to eat both of them?"
T: "I'll save one for later."
M: "No, not both at the same time. What if it's bad for you to eat both of them, full stop? How do you even know it's alright for you to eat one of them?"
T: "Fine, I'll buy both, eat one, and sell the other for at least 50 cents. Then I profit, because my net monetary gain was zero, and my net wealth gain was a candy bar."
M: "What will you do with the extra money you receive as a result of buying both? For sake of argument, let's assume this economy consists almost entirely of candy bars."
T: "...that's weird."
M: "Run with it."
T: "Well, I suppose I'd buy another candy bar later."
M: "Here's my point: examine why you feel the need so heavily to not miss out on the possible profit of buying two candy bars for the price of one, when in reality the gains from it are marginal and may even be harmful to you."
T: "That sounds like too much for me. Why am I your friend again?"
M: "You're not, Tom. You're just a figment of my imagination. This conversation never even happened."
T: "(chuckles) Sure, Jon. Whatever you say."
Existential questions of literary characters aside: why does Tom feel the need to capitalize on this transaction?
Let's talk Marxism (it's only a reasonably easy-to-read paragraph summary, Caleb; chill out).
Karl Marx wrote that one day (soon) people would get fed up with the oppression inherit in Capitalism and there would be a great Socialist revolution (the Communist revolution would come later). He wrote this in 1848 - 164 years later, and there has yet to be some massive worldwide revolution. Marxists spent most of the 20th Century trying to figure this out, and they came to a remarkable conclusion: rather than violence or coercion, the Capitalist leaders were using culture itself as a means of oppression by changing people's thinking, especially in terms of values. For example, by making it seem "normal" to "look out for number one", not only will people start to act life selfish greedy bastards, they'll actively encourage it. Sounds crazy, right?
...
Let's talk "human nature".
We've all heard it said (especially in churches) that human nature tends towards evil. Or, for the slightly less pessimistic, human nature tends towards "survival" as set down by evolution/nature. We look at animals and see that they do whatever it takes to ensure their own personal survival, and we reason that by every animal doing this the species as a whole survives and has a successful future. Great.
But...do animals ever act selflessly? Are there any signs that nature features such concepts as "sacrifice" embedded in the dna of animals, telling them to do something selfless for another member of their species? Mothers caring for their young is the obvious example, but that's still tied to "survival" and genetic lines and all that. So humans must only ever act selflessly in the face of protection of their children, we reason.
There's never any reason to act totally unselfishly, we reason.
The implications of believing that the culture was forcing us to believe this, even by way of the church, are pretty massive. I mean, capitalism is based on the notion that people will always act in their own best self-interest, right? We've all been taught that this is the natural, healthy thing to do. To break apart this idea would unravel the concept itself, by revealing a fatal flaw in the base of the superstructure. If those in power want to stay there, their best bet is to try an quell any ideas which go against this notion of a selfish human nature.
...
Let's talk history.
What would happen if we were to look at history with an imperfect (and frankly essentialist) understanding of human beings? There's some neato vocabulary word describing the fallacy of prescribing modern-day schools of thought onto old works, but I can't remember it. The point being, it's considered a fallacy: you wouldn't judge Dr. Frankenstein by his inability to adhere to the rigorous scientific models for experimentation and publication now in place, would you? Nor would you criticize the character of Don Quixote for not acting out against the servitude and slavery around him in the countryside, about which he is entirely indifferent and never even mentions. You can't impose modern understandings of the world on ancient peoples any more than people of the future can impose their understandings on you: in a way, it's unfair to the people of that time period.
So say that we are constantly imposing an errant perspective that people are fundamentally selfish across all of literature and history across all of time. How does this shape our understanding of those works and people? We usually will end up reading into the motivations of characters, and explaining away their ambiguous actions as the writer's prerogative to withhold information. Or we'll meta-criticize, and point out the ways in which the writer was esteeming him/herself in their work. Or we'll rationalize some extraordinary person into oblivion and neuter their thoughts by "discovering" how they were working for themselves, fundamentally.
...
Let's talk Jesus.
You knew this was coming - besides several other people in history, Jesus stands as one of the prime examples of "not acting selfishly". But isn't it odd that churches still preach it as being healthy to consider all things in light of yourself? They won't word it that way (certainly), but the concept is there, and subtle, and deeply manipulative. Why are you a Christian? It betters your life, and your afterlife. Why do you give to the poor? It enriches your spiritual health, it makes you feel good, it does God's work and so He will look at you and say "Well done my good and faithful servant".
It gets even more subtle. Why do you tithe? Because God says so, right there in the Bible, His word. Why should you obey God? Out of love for Him. Why should you love Him? Because of all that He's done for you. You're in eternal debt to Him. You can't pay it off, they say, but you still obey Him out of love out of gratitude out of desire to be in His favor.
Why did Jesus help the poor? It wasn't to improve his relationship with God (obviously). It wasn't to change his perspective on the world. It wasn't to make him feel good. It was to help somebody.
When the church participates in the culture selfishness machine, we start to propagate this understanding that the highest consideration in any given action should be what will happen to us as a result. What was the greatest commandment?
"Ensure your own well-being, that you might help others."?
"Look out for number one, as if everyone does we will all lead well lives."?
"Do all things considering your reward in heaven, and what the Lord God will do for you after life."?
Nope.
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. And the second," (not lesser, just next) "is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."
Christianity filtered through Capitalism is meaningless. It's why the "church" in the United States is dying. It is why it has been plagued with in-authenticity for the better part of 100 years. It continually makes promises of a life based around you, when that's missing the entire point.
Let's envision a world wherein every Christian (at least) is not considering, first and foremost, their own self-interest. Where everyone considers before them God and others. What would happen?
I think Capitalism would break down. Sorry for getting all political on you guys, but I believe it: we live in a self-perpetuating culture/world which overemphasizes selfishness so much that without it everything would just crumble. People would become valuable, not just commodities of which we can take advantage. Transactions would become based on gratitude, and selflessness, and not on "getting the best deal". Everyone would treat everyone else better than fairly: they would treat them as Jesus treated everyone, with dignity and respect.
Now the really funny thing is that I know Christians who would tell me that this vision of the world does not square with their Christianity. People are evil, and living like that isn't practical in a world where we want to protect ourselves or our children or our interest or whatever.
My response: you're in the wrong ballgame, pal.
Jesus didn't tell you to make judgment calls on what you need to do as opposed to what you should do. The book of James even tells us that it is not our place to judge our fellow man. Over and over again this theme is reiterated: live selflessly, for others' sake above your own. We're not called to live practically. We're called to be smart (wise as serpents innocent as doves etc. etc.), but we're not called to take advantage of other human beings in the interest of being smart. Selfishness does not equal wisdom.
I'm not saying you have to be perfect either. As illustration, here are some of the ways I suck at doing this:
- I get irrationally pissed off when I feel people are insulting me.
- I take perverse pleasure out of manipulating others to fit my own needs.
- I overestimate my own abilities (pride), and then get all entitled when the results of my actions don't match my expectations (the fall).
- I often make "exceptions" in my head to the rules above, thinking "Yeah, God, I know I'm supposed to love them, but that guy is really just a total dick, and I think you'd agree that he deserves some punishment. Heck, it'll probably help him in the long run, right?"
- I get far too easily frustrated with people for what I perceive as lack of intelligence.
- I am apathetic/lazy when it comes to doing work I am not personally interested in.
Etc. etc. etc. Now that you are (hopefully) thoroughly convinced I am a horrible person, I hope to get this counter-argument out of the way: "Yeah, but you can't live that way!". You're right. I absolutely cannot, without the grace of God. And even then, I'll never get to be that perfect. But that doesn't stop me from trying! I know I'm an idealist, but to me we should be: we should always consider and act as though we're in the world God wants to exist, and we want to exist. A world where people help people.
Etc. etc. etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment