Money vs. Empathy; Greed vs. Grief

POSTED BY: HKCavalier
UPDATED: Saturday, September 9, 2006 21:08
VIEWED: 1503
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HKCAVALIER

Tuesday, September 5, 2006 10:23 PM

I've been thinking lately that money, in large enough quantities, functions pretty much like an anesthetic.

Everyone has problems in thier lives, but the more money you have, the more of these problems you can simply throw money at until they go away. So many of the day to day crises of poor people everywhere would simply cease to be problems if they could reach into their pockets and pull out a wad of cash.

So, the more money you have, the less you experience the day to day struggle of other people. People born to great wealth may not even be able to imagine what lower-income people have to deal with. Add to this the popular notion that poverty is the result of some personal failing of poor people and you have a potent recipe for a ruling elite that has no concept of, and no interest in, the needs of others.

But then there's a terrorist attack. No amount of money thrown at that problem will make it go away. The haves and the haves more, suddenly face a problem that has to be dealt with directly, but they've lost the capacity to deal with problems directly. Problem solving? That's for accountants! So we get the short-sighted, absurd "solutions" of the past 5 years. Not because the current regime is more evil than previous administrations, but because great wealth and privilege have made them moral idiots.

Another thought I've had recently was on the subject of greed. People see it as a very aggressive, and therefore sexy/rebelious/cool aspect of our, oooooh, "dark side." People who coucel against greed are marginalized as goody-two-shoes types or hopeless idealists and commies; they might as well be preaching prohibition.

But just as serial rapists and killers are really hiding their profound feelings of inadequacy as men, as sexual beings; so, I think, the mystique of greed hides a far less glamourous purpose.

More and more I'm coming to feel that our drive for comfort is a real danger to us as individuals and as a species, certainly as Americans. Right now in this country, raw comfort is far more important to a lot of people than any of the rarified rights of man set down by our founding fathers. We the comfortable, have no need to fear wiretaps and illegal search and detention, we the comfortable know that only "those people" will suffer when our government simply does what it must to secure and maintain our comfort.

So greed is not so much the result of some insatiable hunger for wealth, but a greater and greater personal insecurity and need for the comfort that wealth promises. Greed is a cover for our fear of loss. Greed is the antidote to unresolved grief.

A man buys a yacht because it represents a level of ease and affluence that promises a comfortable life. But when a man buys his first yacht, he's had to leverage his personal wealth, may well have gone into some debt, certainly taken a risk. All of that takes the comfort he saught out of the equasion. He becomes more and more aware of the possibility of losing the yacht. "To be thus is nothing. But to be safely thus."

So what does he do? He makes more money so he can buy another yacht. Now with two yachts, the risk of losing one yacht is not so omenous and the likelihood of losing both yachts is further off. Of course, if that fear discomfits him, he can seek to buy a third yacht, etc. In this model, greed is not the characteristic of a powerful, manly mover-and-shaker, but the consequence of never being able to find simple peace of mind.

Any thoughts?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

RUE

Wednesday, September 6, 2006 12:38 AM

HKCavalier,

You put a lot out there for me to think about.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, September 6, 2006 1:59 AM

HK

Interesting thesis, probably true, but I think you're underestimating the degree to which these people are evil. Bush and co *are* the terrorists, and it's not that they don't understand the plight of the common man, they don't *care*.

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, September 6, 2006 11:55 PM

Yep, that's prettymuch how it is.

Our so-called society doesn't help much either.

Who, in our society is respected, glorified, held up as an ideal or role model ?

The greedy, the sociopathic, the wicked and insane, cause they're the "cool" folk these days, don't ya see ?

And what about the altruistic, the moral and the caring ? shown as laughingstocks and failures, one and all.

I noticed this trend back in 1980, and hated it, railed against it, and for twenty five years, have watched it's impact on things, and here we are today.

Our "society" glorifies and rewards sociopathic behavior, rewarding it with fame, fortune and success - while penalizing altruistic or moral behavior severely.

So in essence, we've built a social engine guaranteed to cause and perpetuate the problem, by crushing all the decency out of our kids and turning them into malicious, warped copies of what's held up by this society as an ideal.

Is it any wonder things are so F**ked up ?

-Frem

KANEMAN

Thursday, September 7, 2006 12:08 AM

Bill Gates is giving away how much? Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller...How much? And to whom? Jessie Jackson steals how much? From who? Reread what I just wrote....Well, it's true........

RUE

Thursday, September 7, 2006 2:32 AM

Quote:
I've been thinking lately that money, in large enough quantities, functions pretty much like an anesthetic.

That may be true. I tend to see it as a fun-house mirror, distorting the nature of their perceived reality. Does Paris have the mental framework to even gauge sadness?

Quote:
Everyone has problems in their lives, but the more money you have, the more of these problems you can simply throw money at until they go away.

I believe this is true.

Quote:
So, the more money you have, the less you experience the day to day struggle of other people. People born to great wealth may not even be able to imagine what lower-income people have to deal with.

I think that's true as far as it goes. And I have the impression that not only do the very rich have little empathy for the 'plight' of the average person, they don't even recognize us as human.
But it sparked a whole train of questions for which I have no answers.
From whence comes empathy? I believe it's an inborn trait in most (not all) people - there are neurological rewards for harmony, trust and cooperation. But people have also been shown to have very little empathy for people who do not 'look like' the people they grew up with. So empathy - relating to a person's shared humanity with yourself - is something that can be maximized, or conversely extinguished, through experience.

Quote:
Add to this the popular notion that poverty is the result of some personal failing of poor people and you have a potent recipe for a ruling elite that has no concept of, and no interest in, the needs of others.

With that I agree completely.

Quote:
But then there's a terrorist attack. No amount of money thrown at that problem will make it go away. The haves and the haves more, suddenly face a problem that has to be dealt with directly, but they've lost the capacity to deal with problems directly.

I didn't follow this. So I thought about global warming, (or other commonly shared problems like environmental brain /hormone disruptors.)
Does dubya have children? You bet! Will global warming affect them? Of course! Will they be able to spend their way to a normal life? Heck no! Does that bother dubya? Of course not! (Sorry for this brief Rumsfeldian interlude.) Do they not see the problem? Do they mistake its real power over them? Or do they just not care?

Quote:
So we get the short-sighted, absurd "solutions" of the past 5 years. Not because the current regime is more evil than previous administrations, but because great wealth and privilege have made them moral idiots.

I think they ARE more evil. Bush is one of those congenitally evil people. The Cheney's don't have a background of wealth and power to explain their amoral outlook. Lynn fancies herself righteous. Dick is, well, a dick largely of his own making. The same is true of Don Rumsfeld - nothing in his background explains his lack of empathy. The ONLY thing that unites them all is they are republicans - the party of the vicious and selfish which has effectively winnowed those people out of the population.

Quote:
Another thought I've had recently was on the subject of greed. People see it as a very aggressive, and therefore sexy/rebelious/cool aspect of our, oooooh, "dark side." People who council against greed are marginalized as goody-two-shoes types or hopeless idealists and commies; they might as well be preaching prohibition.

And THAT I believe is a product of serious but deliberately propagated cultural delusions - a belief in social Darwinism, that the US is a meritocracy, that freedomandcapitalism are one word, that being ignorant is being in a state of grace, and others.

Quote:
But just as serial rapists and killers are really hiding their profound feelings of inadequacy as men, as sexual beings; so, I think, the mystique of greed hides a far less glamourous purpose.

More and more I'm coming to feel that our drive for comfort is a real danger to us as individuals and as

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DREAMTROVE

Thursday, September 7, 2006 4:58 AM

I never thought I would type these words, but...

Kaneman has a point.

RUE

Thursday, September 7, 2006 4:11 PM

DT,

No, Kanemean doesn't really have a point. Now I realize this will be a long, factual reply, which doesn't have the same resonance as short, sound-bite style lies. So I hope you'll bear with learning some actual truth.

Where did Bill Gates get his money?
Well, he started out with multi-millionaire parents. His mother - an IBM executive - got him the IBM contract to develop an OS. He bought an OS for $5000, and kept it rather than use it to fulfill his IBM contract. It was that OS he sold as his 'own'. Then he created a monopoly by illegal practices (according to the DOJ who found him guilty.) These ILLEGAL practices garnered him his billions, and constituted a theft from consumers AND from those who DIDN'T buy his products ('the Microsoft tax'). He used illegal hiring practices and changed labor law as court rulings went against him. Bill Gates got his money through unfair and illegal means.
In the past Bill Gates used to 'give away' software to non-profits like schools at an inflated price to garner good press, create a captive consumer base and to get maximum tax advantage. He also used his 'give aways' to pay for fines and penalties levied against him, scoring a quadruple-play advantage (pays fines, gets press, expands base AND gets a tax write-off all at the same time.)
His current 'charities' are more of the same financial finagling. He is 'giving away' his illegally gained money to support pharmas he is invested in AND secure a tax breaks at the same time. And good press as well.
Does it work? Look at you. You LIKE to think you're in the know, but the minute someone spouts cum you WANT to believe, you swallow it all. YUM!

As for Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller, I hope you're not so ignorant or dishonest as to claim you don't remember how they got their money. In case you claim to have forgotten, just google on (enter name here) strike troops. You'll find plenty of accounts of troops called out by (enter name here) firing on camps of women and children and strikers, who wanted nothing more than better than subhuman treatment. And to not be killed on the job as a routine business practice. These men stole BILLIONS back in the day when that amount of money meant something. They intentionally killed by the scores, even hundreds, to maintain their power and wealth. And they killed tens of thousands who died in their jobs just to increase their profit margins.

DT, do you REALLY want to put yourself in the company of lying ass-wipes like Kaneman?

CHRISISALL

Thursday, September 7, 2006 4:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
I've been thinking lately that money, in large enough quantities, functions pretty much like an anesthetic.

Problem is, there's a price, not in dollars, to be paid for waking up from that anesthetic- often twisted and sick personality disorders.
Remember Senator Calvin Baynard from The Last Boyscout? Whipping tied girls to get his kicks because wealth and power were old...

Beware the idle rich, for they sometimes are not as idle as they seem Chrisisall

HKCAVALIER

Thursday, September 7, 2006 5:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I tend to see it as a fun-house mirror, distorting the nature of their perceived reality.

But the distortion seems to have a trend, a particular valence and that is away from a direct encounter with problems and other people, toward entitlement and solipsism. If it's a fun-house mirror it's one that you can manipulate to flatter yourself if you have enough money to do it.

Quote:
And I have the impression that not only do the very rich have little empathy for the 'plight' of the average person, they don't even recognize us as human.

Have you read The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison? Extraordinary book. What is invisible in that book is the human. Technology and consumerism, the result of an entire culture built upon affluence and immense wealth, insulate us from a direct encounter with reality--at the grossest level, with extremes of the weather, for instance. The ultimate goal of our comfort obsessed culture is the universal non-event, when all unwanted occurences happen to people we pay, preferably as far away from us as possible--Third World sweat-shops might do the trick.

Quote:
From whence comes empathy? I believe it's an inborn trait in most (not all) people - there are neurological rewards for harmony, trust and cooperation.

But in a world where neurological rewards can be manufactured and induced by other artificial means, what is to keep folks coming back to empathy, particularly when one of the central experiences of empathy is sharing pain?

Quote:
But people have also been shown to have very little empathy for people who do not 'look like' the people they grew up with. So empathy - relating to a person's shared humanity with yourself - is something that can be maximized, or conversely extinguished, through experience.

The old saw is that compassion is impossible without suffering. One must allow the pain of one's life to penetrate one's consiousness deeply and thoroughly before one is prepared to let the suffering of another in.

Quote:
Quote:
But then there's a terrorist attack. No amount of money thrown at that problem will make it go away. The haves and the haves more, suddenly face a problem that has to be dealt with directly, but they've lost the capacity to deal with problems directly.
I didn't follow this.

What's emerging is that all this throwing money at problems, is ultimately throwing other people at problems. The problems don't disappear, they are simply handled by "the help." So conventional war is fine, because the wealthy can throw more and more other people's children into the meat-grinder and eventually the war is over. A terrorist attack represents a reality that cannot be buffered with money or surrogates (much as they try). It is the embodiment of those things we will never be perfectly prepared for and therefore will never control.

Quote:
So I thought about global warming, (or other commonly shared problems like environmental brain /hormone disruptors.)
Does dubya have children? You bet! Will global warming affect them? Of course! Will they be able to spend their way to a normal life? Heck no! Does that bother dubya? Of course not! (Sorry for this brief Rumsfeldian interlude.) Do they not see the problem? Do they mistake its real power over them? Or do they just not care?

I don't think they see it at all, Rue. They have AC for that. Comfort lulls us into the illusion that the future will be just like today. There are no trends to watch or far-flung future dangers to prepare for. Just throw money and people at your problems. Besides, nobody likes winter, so global warming might be nice for a change. Double-plus good that!

Quote:
I think they ARE more evil. Bush is one of those congenitally evil people. The Cheney's don't have a background of wealth and power to explain their amoral outlook. Lynn fancies herself righteous. Dick is, well, a dick largely of his own making. The same is true of Don Rumsfeld - nothing i

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