Article 19
The Freedom and Responsibility to be Human - Part 4
by Wendell Krossa
(From the series "Creating A Horizontal God", Copyright, W. Krossa)

Defining Human Success

 

In regard to the mad lemming-like rush of consumerism in western and other societies, it was interesting to note the following insightful comment in an article on the growing movement of people escaping from materialism to enjoy an alternative lifestyle. The article stated, "We tend to identify those who are satisfied with their circumstances as 'lacking' in ambition, as though the individual who arrives at a state of fulfillment represents failure. What we often value as an energetic go-getter, is really a person who is perpetually unsatisfied. I see this as a social disease" (41). The writer is arguing that the real failures in life may be those people constantly grasping for more resources and goods- the very people that contemporary society labels as successes. That is a refreshing reversal of conventional thinking and it more accurately reflects the human reality we should all be striving to understand and live.

 

True humanity must come before economic values. We are first and foremost human beings and we are responsible to create human societies. In the midst of the contemporary rush to succeed as controllers of wealth and consumer goods, it may be useful to remember that the greatest advances made by humanity are not technological, economic, medical, or even intellectual. The greatest advances made by emerging humanity are advances of the human spirit. These are advances in love, caring, forgiveness, toleration, sharing, and cooperation. These are the essence of true humanity and they reflect truly successful human existence. They are also advances that every person can equally be a part of as they are human feelings and behaviors accessible to every person.

 

It is possible for people to be very economically advanced and militarily powerful and yet very socially backward in terms of true humanity. The contemporary fascination with technological advances should never cloud our understanding that what really matters is our caring for and sharing with each other. This is what makes us advanced human beings or advanced societies.

 

It is also important to remember that certain forms of technological advance, such as those feeding unlimited materialism, may even represent social and human failure. There is nothing successful about greed. It represents a total failure of the human spirit.

 

Reinhold Niebuhr has said that "The preoccupation of a technical civilization with the external securities of life is due partly to a natural tendency of every culture to extol its unique achievements. Modern man has been remarkably successful in technics and is naturally prone to overestimate the significance of his success in this enterprise for the total problem of human existence. But there is a deeper religious issue in this idolatry. The frantic pursuit of the immediate goals of life is partly occasioned by an uneasy awareness that this pursuit has not resulted in its promised happiness and by a consequent final and desperate effort to reach the illusive goal of happiness by a more consistent application of principles of efficiency" (in Poverty And Economic Justice, p. 95).

 

It is becoming increasingly difficult to remember what true human success means under the relentless barrage from contemporary economic values. The overwhelming dominance of market values such as individual competition and material success have usurped traditional values oriented to sharing, caring, and equality in community. This has been a tragic detour for humanity. It has also led to horrific environmental degradation since industrialization began over some two centuries ago.

 

The claims that industrialization is a great success and advance for the human race sometimes ring hollow. With the accompanying disintegration of community and common interest we tend to see the past two centuries as notable for a significant failure of the human spirit. While industrialization has brought some notable benefits to human existence, industrialization's economic values have appealed to the basest drives in human beings- greed, possessiveness, aggressive competition and consequent domination.

 

 

Even Soros, our ultimate capitalist friend, has stated that "The cult of (material) success has replaced a belief in principles... There has been an ongoing conflict between market values and other more traditional value systems (responsibility to others in community)... As the market mechanism has extended its sway, the (economic) fiction that people act on the basis of a given set of nonmarket values has become more difficult to maintain. Advertising, marketing, even packaging, aim at shaping people's preferences rather than, as laissez-faire theory holds, merely responding to them. Unsure of what they stand for, people increasingly rely on money as the criterion of value. What is more expensive is considered better... People deserve respect and admiration because they are rich..." (1997. "The Capitalist Threat" in Atlantic Monthly, Feb., p.48-50). Walter Rauschenbusch stated the same in saying, "Money is stronger than life, character, and personality" (in Poverty and Economic Justice, p.71).

 

Soros said further that "The cult of success can become a source of instability in an open society, because it can undermine our sense of right and wrong...Our sense of right and wrong is endangered by our preoccupation with success, as measured by money... (money) has usurped the place of fundamental values... being successful is not identical with being right" (Soros, The Capitalist Threat, p.48-50).

 

He further notes that the usurping of fundamental values, such as responsibility to others and to the common good, has become embedded in state policy and even state law. States now pursue self-interest to the detriment of the common interest around the world. Adam Smith's pursuit of self-interest has now become enshrined in state policies in the form of national self-interest.

 

True human success is to love in relationships, it is community oriented. This success is available equally to all people. The common practice today of defining success in material or monetary terms through the use of selfish competition actually undermines true human success. To gain the goods necessary to be defined as successful in contemporary societies, often requires people to neglect personal/family relationships and community responsibility. People become workaholics in their pursuit of such material success. But what we have been told to admire as successful people are often total failures in terms to true humanity. Some of our societies so-called greatest successes are actually the worst failures.

 

Consequently, in restoring community control it will also be necessary to rebuild a stronger sense of shared community and true community relationships. Community responsibility must come before the unrestrained pursuit of self-interest. We are relational creatures. Relationships are the essence of life. We can only be truly human in relationship with others. But true human relationships involve responsibility to others. They involve loving and sharing with others as genuine equals. Selfish competition has little if anything to do with such community relationships.

 

Did We Really Earn It ?

Often the response of wealthy people to the call for sharing in community with others is that they worked hard for their wealth and therefore it is theirs alone to control and use. Combined with stereotypical views of poor people as ignorant and lazy (blame the victim), these wealthy people fashion a strong argument against too radical sharing. But we need to seriously question if any of us (especially in the Western or Northern World) have really earned our wealth and privilege or may our good fortune be due in part to the fact that we are the lucky beneficiaries of corrupt systems of the past which have given us an unfair advantage in controlling earth's resources.

 

In this regard I want to point out that some have suggested that the history of the world can be viewed as the shifting of wealth from one part of the world to other parts by powerful groups using force to control wealth. During the colonial period we have just emerged from, there were many examples of such expropriation of wealth by force. For example, the Dutch paid their national debt by forcing Indonesians to grow export crops the Dutch could then sell. The Indonesians suffered much setback under their forced servitude which was of great benefit to the Dutch. The British controlling the textile trade in India and forcing the sale of opium in China are other examples of corrupt systems put in place by force to take control of resources and wealth for the benefit of people in other countries, often northern European countries.

 

As John Warnock says of the colonial powers, "The best land (in subjugated colonies) was often stolen and granted to corporations or white settlers. The plantation system brought slavery... peasants were shipped all over the globe to labor and die... In order to pay their colonial taxes, peasants were forced to grow cash crops for export, most of which had no value as food... Tariffs and other protectionist measures directed trade to the mother country. Natural trading relationships, both internal and regional were disrupted. European firms were given monopoly rights and concessions... The poor in the (so-called) Third World are not able to feed themselves because they do not have access to their own resources" (The Politics of Hunger, p.84, 52).

 

And what about the forced takeover of resource rich areas like North and South America by European peoples? What about the widespread use of slave labor to build European and North American economies? We today are the beneficiaries of such corrupt systems as colonialism and it has given us an unfair advantage over other world citizens in the creation and control of wealth. Much of the wealth and opportunity available in our contemporary economic systems in Western nations can be explained in terms of the aggressive greed of our recent colonial forefathers.

 

As Warnock clearly details, the European conquerors slaughtered and enslaved local peoples, destroyed their cultures and artifacts, seized their lands and forced them to grow products for export, and also forced them to buy manufactured products from their colonial masters. This cruel invasion and aggression toward other countries enriched the European nations and enabled them to gain an unfair advantage in developing their own economic systems, while decimating and destroying the economic systems of those they dominated (The Politics of Hunger, p.89-103).

 

Rees says the same in stating, "Much of the industrial countries' wealth came from the exploitation (liquidation) of natural capital, not only within their own territories, but also within their former southern colonies... this appropriation of extra-territorial carrying capacity continues today in the form of commercial trade... what used to require territorial occupation is now achieved through commerce" (Bill Rees, Appropriated Carrying Capacity: Measuring The Natural Capital Requirements Of The Human Economy, p.9).

 

Also in this regard, it is interesting to note that even though the Chinese had invented gunpowder long before the Europeans, it was the Europeans who turned gunpowder to use in weaponry and then went out to conquer other nations. An African writer was right in saying that Africans were not the 'savages' of the colonial era as labeled by Europeans, but rather the conquering Europeans were the real savages for pillaging the resources of other less aggressive nations.

 

We realize that other areas of the world have their own history of aggression toward each other and we do not want to pick only on the European nations, but we are all still suffering the devastating impacts of the colonial period that we are just emerging from. Many of the advantageous relationships that were set up by colonial powers, still operate today for the benefit of wealthy northern or western nations. "The continued poverty of the underdeveloped countries is due to the legacy of colonialism and the unequal patterns of trade that persist to this day" (Ibid, p.50).

 

Our forefathers were driven by animal greed often masked in the will of God. They often claimed to be driven by a mission to convert 'pagans', but in reality they were simply acting like brute beasts trying to validate their savage greed with reference to the sacred. In light of such recent colonial abuses we would do well to watch contemporary American claims of a felt need to introduce American values to the rest of the world, especially when those values center around aggressive individual competition to dominate resources to the neglect of community cooperation and sharing.

 

It should also be noted in regard to human relating that the colonial period brought a new intense focus on racism. It was a time when the domination of some over others was more intensely based on skin color. We are still suffering the effects of this racism.

 

Racism, based on ethnic differences, has its roots in Egyptian and Greek beliefs about the 'barbarians'. These were people of different ethnicity and therefore different physical appearance. These other people were considered as potential slaves and therefore inferior peoples. It was also widely believed by many of the dominating societies that they were the chosen ones of the gods.

 

Aristotle argued that the inferiority of some was natural or predestined. He said, "from birth the barbarians are of a more servile nature than the Greeks" ("The Historical Roots" in Dogmas of inequality of men and races throughout history, UNESCO document, United Nations). They were therefore to be treated like animals or plants. The Chinese of the ancient past, among many other societies, also held similar beliefs about the inferiority of others, especially those who lived at greater distances from them.

 

However, during the colonial period racism intensified. "The picture only begins to change with the opening of the period of colonial expansion by the European peoples, when it becomes necessary to excuse violence and oppression by decreeing the inferiority of those enslaved or robbed of their own land and denying the title of men to the cheated peoples. Differences in customs and the physical stigma of color made the task an easy one" ("Race, Prejudice and Myth" in UNESCO document).

 

The same author notes the feeling was inculcated in colonial populations that they were irremediably inferior to the colonizers. This devastating belief in the inferiority/superiority of different peoples is simply a value judgment with no objective basis, says Michael Leiris. "Far from being in the order of things or innate in human nature, it is one of the myths whose origin is much more propaganda by special interests than the tradition of centuries" (Ibid).

 

Within the Christian tradition there emerged the racist idea that the sons of Noah were the fathers of modern races and one of these sons was of a darker skin color and inferior to the other sons. Modern Aryan nation types espouse this teaching.

 

Modern research on human origins has blown the foundations out from under racism in showing that all present human beings are descendants of a common mother ("Eve") in the East Africa region. While there are also multiple origin theories, the East African origin theory seems to consistently emerge as the most credible explanation of human origins. Some of us paler versions of those black African ancestors, lost our skin melanin through millennia of living in European areas of less sunlight. Maybe that is why we spend so much time tanning, trying to regain something lost and considered a sign of health- color. But, be certain of this, we are only paler versions of our black African ancestors. So much for the Aryan argument for racial purity.

 

Others have said that too much is made of racial distinctions. Someone said the modern pronounced classification of people into different races with so-called racial characteristics, arose with Darwin and the new science of classifying species. This led to an intensified racial differentiation. In this regard, we remember the basic biological principle that any species that can interbreed is one and the same species.

 

An anthropologist (Chris Morgan) has stated, that genetically, there is no difference between the so-called races. The genes that distinguish for so-called racial characteristics (i.e. melanin levels in a person's skin) are peripheral, while the genes that determine for basic humanity are far more important and they are similar. If you were to pick at random any person from an African country and another random person from a European country, you would just as likely find more genetic similarity between these two than if you were to compare similar people within each group.

 

Whatever the final conclusions are regarding the human origin and racial differentiation arguments, there is no biological, cultural, intellectual, or genetic basis to support the superiority of anyone person over any other person (Albert Memmi, "Us and Them", in UNESCO document). Racism is simply another way some people try to dominate and control others.

 

The Mushy Stuff- Sharing

Leaders of the G-7 meet and can not come up with solutions for the problems of poverty, disparity, and unemployment. It is hard to believe that the problem is really that complex and unsolvable.

 

Several years ago in a class on underdevelopment, the professor was discussing the problems of poverty in economically depressed areas of the globe. Out of obvious concern, one of the students blurted out, "Why can't the wealthy nations just share with poorer ones?" It seemed so naively simple. Except for the powerful animal drive of greed and the complex structures and institutions oriented to validating and supporting that greed. Entire cultures, worldviews, and states are built around the competitive, aggressive struggle to control more resources. These ideologies and structures will not likely turn generous and loving overnight.

 

The tragedy is that in competitively pursuing a unrestrained consumer lifestyle we are not only destroying our planet, but also violating the essence of the human self as loving, sharing, and community oriented.

 

Giving and sharing seem clear enough solutions to poverty for the average person conscious of what it means to be human. But in a world dominated by ideologies of competition and control of resources, such sharing is often considered nonsense and even suicidal unless it can serve as some sort of peripheral palliative for the uneasy consciences of gluttonous elites and well-to-do nations.

 

However, in criticizing free enterprise capitalism, do not let anyone assume we are automatically promoting some form of communism as an alternative. Let us be clear that no one is arguing for a return to traditional forms of community or for some renewed form of communism or collectivism with its forced and distorted egalitarianism. Nor is anyone arguing for the banning of private property. The genie is out of the bottle for good. Fortunately, life is a bit more complex than the simple bipolarism of capitalism/communism and humans have the ability and responsibility to create fresh unique alternatives to archaic and dying ideologies that no longer serve human well-being or human community.

 

A Bottomup Revolution

One of the critical factors in avoiding ongoing conflict over decreasing resources in an increasingly crowded world will be the restoration of genuine control over basic resources to people at the bottom. More importantly, people at the bottom need to initiate the process of demanding more control for themselves over the resources and opportunities necessary for their own livelihood and well-being. As Langer stated, people must not just be given control as though it were an object to be given and taken back, but they must learn to take personal control as a growing process of learning personal decision making.

 

Government handouts to appease disenfranchised populations are not a truly human answer. Free enterprise welfare states no longer offer credible answers with their degrading handout policies for less fortunate people and only token participation for powerless majorities. Most citizens of these modern nation states have little if any control over the resources of their communities. The welfare state with its token handouts does not deal properly with the problems of powerlessness and control which destroy human responsibility, dignity, and development.

 

Personal control and responsibility are the most essential elements of true freedom and true development as a human. In societies where the few control the bulk of the resources and the institutions allocating these resources, there is little freedom for the average citizen to gain dignity as a true human by exercising the personal control and responsibility essential for their own well-being.

 

Genuinely human solutions to poverty are not to be found in giving, as important as that may be in emergency situations, but rather, truly human solutions are to be found in people themselves gaining control of the resources they need for livelihood and well-being. Ways of guaranteeing access and control to all members of society depending on such resources simply must be found if we are ever to alleviate the growing sense of grassroots frustration and anger now noted in societies all over the earth. You will never have true freedom without some measure of equal control by all people over basic resources, benefits, and decision making processes.

 

To continue in the present course of unrestrained and individualistic greed will only lead to more struggle and war among desperate peoples. Greed simply does not have a long-term future in a human world. It destroys the freedom of others to have control over their own lives or to enjoy the dignity and well-being that comes with such personal responsibility.

 

There is one fundamental solution to the problem of environmental degradation, poverty, and conflict over land, resources, and wealth. That solution involves all of us- especially those of us in wealthier areas of the world- consuming far less and sharing far more. This is a direct blow to animal greed but there is no other way to deal fundamentally with poverty, conflict, and human dignity.

 

God and Greed

Tragically, there has often been effort to validate greed by using the ideology of a God who grants prosperity to those who submit totally to him. This is often expressed in teaching on God blessing people with material things. It is not uncommon to hear people state that God has blessed them by giving them material success. But what kind of God would inhumanely ignore billions of suffering people to grant favor to only a select few?

 

No, never. Material wealth has nothing to do with God. And using God to validate such selfish consumerism is simply an attempt to validate greed with the sacred. It is shameless inhumanity to pervert ideas of God and drag them into the effort to validate greed and callousness to the poverty of others. No- we are each personally responsible for selfishly hoarding more than we need for comfortable survival and therefore denying others the opportunity for that same sense of dignity. We can not drag God into our greed in an effort to validate it. If God is really active in granting material wealth, then it would be in giving and sharing wealth equally with all others just as Jesus did so magnificently.

 

Ellul also decries the use of God to validate greed and power. He states that "There is never any imperial triumph. No head of state is inspired by the Holy Spirit. No capitalist achieves success by the Holy Spirit" (42).

 

This teaching about God blessing with material wealth is a total denial of all that the human God represents. If Jesus is the expression of the human God, then we have an example of someone who radically opposed all forms of selfishness and greed as not just shameful and unjust, but blatantly evil. If Jesus stands for anything, it is the radical denial of self interest in order to share everything with others. The essence of the idea of God as expressed in Jesus is radical giving, not just of material good, but also of power, control, and of all other life enhancing opportunities.

 

The problem with Jesus is that he had experienced the intensely humanizing feeling of love and was carried away with it. He was overwhelmed with the liberating sense of humanity he found in giving all and especially in giving himself to others to listen and to encourage. It felt so good and liberating to sacrifice, share, and help others that it made him appear to be somewhat impractical and even insane in the eyes of his contemporaries. Some even said he was demon possessed. The liberation Jesus experienced was freedom from the debasing animal drives of greed, selfishness and competitiveness.

 

The denial of animal greed and the free giving to others is the essence of the example of Jesus. It is also the essence of the idea of God. This is where the idea of God most graphically inspires us to move beyond animal-like self-concern in order to live and act as humans for the greater good of all. This is also where the human God departs most radically from the old animal-like God of power and control.

 

The Fear of Love

Everywhere and almost exclusively there is talk of love as an emotion- how people should feel toward others. But while love does indeed contain a powerful emotional dimension and is, in fact, the most humanizing of all emotions, love is never devoid of responsibility toward others. The essence of love is radical giving and sacrificial sharing.

 

Just the thought of such sacrificial sharing of material goods or power or other life enhancing opportunities evokes sheer terror in many people. It touches the deepest insecurities we have about loss and possible dependency. This is because we root our sense of security almost entirely in the amount of personal financial reserves we can obtain or in the control we can obtain over material resources. Any suggestion of weakening that carefully crafted sense of security in any way sets in motion convoluted processes of excuse making as to why we are not responsible for others, except in peripheral ways that enhance our taxation standing.

 

In fact, complex ideologies have been created to help explain away our essential responsibility for others. None have been more devastating to a sense of community responsibility than those ideologies arguing for competitive self-interest instead of interest in the greater good of communities or others.

 

William Ryan has said that modern consumers reject any 'extreme' solutions of radical social change since these solutions may threaten their own well-being. "A more equitable distribution of income might mean that (affluent consumers) would have less, a smaller house, with fewer rows or rhododendrons in the yard, a less enjoyable job, or, at the least, a somewhat smaller salary... They can not bring themselves to attack the system that has been so good to them" (in Poverty And Economic Justice, p.187).

 

Interesting in this regard is the comment of Albert Nolan that "A much lower standard of living need not mean a lower quality of life, in fact it might improve the quality of our lives" (Jesus Before Christianity, p.6). In terms of fatty diet and lack of exercise, and the damaging effect of these two on Western lifestyles, a lower standard of living would most certainly improve quality of life for most of us. My years of living in an upland tribal situation in Southeast Asia, fetching water by hand from sources up to a kilometer away and endless walking to get or do things, were the healthiest and happiest in my life. While living in so-called poverty and underdevelopment, I found quality of life to be very high. Again, this is not to glamorize poverty or excuse our responsibility to share with others, but simply to note that living on less is not always loss.

 

Blaise Salmon has suggested that it would not even require much sacrifice from the affluent to solve the problem of poverty in the world. The UN has estimated that it would cost some $40 billion to eradicate extreme poverty- that of the 1.3 billion people at the bottom who earn less than a dollar a day. This money would supply primary schooling, basic healthcare and nutrition, family planning, and clean water and sanitation. The top 200 billionaires have a total wealth of $1.3 trillion. Just a mere 3% of their assets could eliminate extreme poverty. Their wealth grew by more than 30% last year alone. If the top 400 billionaires chipped in, it would take less than 2% of their assets to eliminate extreme poverty. While an interesting proposal, it does not deal with the issue of personal control, empowerment, and responsibility- all necessary for human well-being and development.

 

Think of what all the one billion people on earth who are in the affluent category could do if they were to donate just 2 or 3 percent of their income to sharing with others. If this percentage were to increase among the wealthier people in this category, then there would be no poverty or need on earth.

 

The concern for the enhancement of one's own position and benefits is a natural and powerful drive. But it should never have become the predominant value of life as it has become in the current world economic system. In fact, self-interest is now viewed in many scientific disciplines and even in some religious systems as the essential nature of human beings. The selfish gene theory pushes this animal-like view of humanity. An entire world culture is also emerging and intensifying in the direction of self-interest and its contemporary expression in unlimited personal gain and control of resources and wealth.

 

But self-interest is at heart an expression of the base animal drive to dominate that has essentially destroyed true human relating and community. Such self-interest to the point of neglect of community is not an essential element of true humanity or of the emerging human self.

 

There is often initially a great fear of taking personal loss for the benefit of the greater good. It is easy to excuse oneself from doing so when all others appear to be only looking out for their own good. We all naturally want to protect our own lives first. It will take great bravery to act differently, but it is the genuinely human thing to do.

 

Surprisingly and fortunately, brave acts for the greater good often inspire similar responses in others. Others are inspired to live more humanly. It may be that the humanity of such behavior resonates deeply with the humanity in all of us. The growth of a movement in this direction of radical sharing is one of the only hopes left for a better future free of conflict and war.

 

To encourage people to act in the interests of the greater community good, communities will have to restore the security of community relationships where people will be responsibly looked after in terms of employment, retirement, and other important life benefits. Only with such security will people find courage to start living in terms of the good of their community above selfish interests. There must also be supporting structures to help maintain such relationships in the wider world community.

 

In this regard George Bennello has said that "Where community is lacking, people are impelled to seek maximum economic gain- well beyond what is necessary to lead a decent life- in part as a form of substitution for needs which are not met... The Ontong Javanese call a person poor, not when he is lacking in material goods, but when he is lacking in the resources of shared living... Recent English research has caused renewed interest in this definition of poverty. Where psychic poverty (the loss of community support and security) exists, the effort is to substitute material goods. This in turn gives rise to the market ideology where selfish interest prevails" (1989. "Economic Behavior And Self-Management: Some Governing Principles" in Building Sustainable Communities, p.83).

 

This insight regarding psychic poverty helps to understand how the move away from community responsibility and support, toward individual self-interest and achievement, has led to each person striving to get as many personal resources as possible. It is clear how this leads inevitably to few winners, many losers, and a devastated environment.

 

The Curse of Giving

In regard to the responsibility to be more human, one final comment should be made regarding giving. In a grotesquely inequitable world, giving is a common reality for the survival of many people.

 

But giving always creates a superior/inferior relationship between the giver and the receiver. One person is the dominant powerholder who controls a resource to be donated to another person who has less or none of that resource. The lesser person in the relationship is often forced to behave in a manner to be worthy to attract the resource of the giver.

 

This may be why Jesus urged anonymity in giving. He urged that we not let our right hand know what our left hand was doing (43). He wanted us to give and then forget what we had done and let no one else know about it. Our presence as givers grants us power over others, even though our giving may be benevolent.

 

The domination inherent in a giver/receiver relationship is always humiliating and dehumanizing for the receiver. While such relationships may make the giver feel great, especially if their act of giving is publicly known, it creates bitterness, shame, frustration, anger, and an enslaving sense of obligation on the part of the receiver. The receiver suffers the humiliation of not being personally responsible to properly care for themselves. It is a dehumanizing and destructive sense of loss of control and personal choice. Receivers are also subject to grossly inaccurate stereotypes of receivers as lazy, failures, and less useful or intelligent members of society.

 

The giver/receiver relationship also reveals what Leviatan meant when he said that those higher up in hierarchical status have more opportunities for life satisfactions and therefore have higher levels of well-being, while those lower in hierarchical status suffer mentally, emotionally, and physically due to lack of opportunities for need fulfillment.

 

Also, in relation to the giver/receiver relationship, it must be remembered that it is not possible to love up or down to others. All unequal relationships destroy any possibility for genuine expressions of love.

 

We can eliminate many superior/inferior relationships engendered by the giving/receiving relationship by granting people more equal access to and genuine control over basic resources necessary for their livelihood and well-being. But this will require sacrificial giving on the part of members of society who control more than they need for survival and well-being.

 

Turnbull has argued that states should "allow private wealth in the form of income-producing assets to replace public welfare. Sufficient private assets would be provided to all adults so that they would obtain a minimum income or 'social dividend' as a birthright" (Shann Turnbull, "Social Capitalism As The Road To Community Self-Management" in Building Sustainable Communities, p.76).

 

It is only by truly empowering people to control the resources they need for their existence that we can truly offer love to others. By granting power to people to become personally responsible for their own lives, we are granting true freedom to them to become true equals and fully human. This alone is true love. Anything less is destructive to love and to the humanity of people. Certainly, continued giving, such as through state institutions and other charity organizations, is a practice that is destructive to true love and does not contribute to the development of true humanity in people.

 

This is why we argue that free enterprise capitalism can not properly deal with issues of human freedom, equality, dignity and therefore can not deal with issues of human development and progress. Capitalism is a system which is oriented to and encourages self-interest. This has historically resulted in the tendency to concentrate wealth in the hands of the aggressive few and this has inevitably led to the disenfranchising of a growing majority. This loss of control over basic resources necessary for livelihood, has destroyed the freedom, equality, and development of responsibility essential for encouraging true humanity in the lower class majority.

 

We remind you once again that even in the United States with its professed ideals of freedom and equality, the top one percent of the population now owns 33 percent of the entire wealth of the country. In response to this obvious imperfection in the system, states have responded with programs to redistribute some wealth so the basic needs of all are met. But these redistribution programs- welfare and other- are under state control and do not deal with the essential needs of human well-being and development which must include personal control over resources and decision making processes. Such personal control is essential to develop the sense of personal responsibility, freedom, and equality necessary for truly human development.

 

Schumacher was right in saying that any system based on selfishness as a basic operating principle is corrupt at heart and destined to fail. It simply violates the essential nature of humanity.

 

We as human beings are not designed to selfishly compete with each other, confronting each other as enemies, and dominating each other by controlling more resources than we need for comfortable survival. We are not designed to act like animals or treat each other as animals.

 

We as human beings should act much better and rise above the animal-like competition and domination of systems like capitalism. If we continue to create systems that destroy our humanity, discourage our development as human, and undermine our well-being, then we will all suffer and these enslaving systems will inevitably fail.

 

Jesus, with amazingly prescient insight promoted a new vision of human society as oriented to cooperating and sharing. He urged people to share all their possessions and not to be possessive at all. He urged people to serve one another, not to dominate each other. He knew that only a society that was, in such a manner, truly human, could meet the deepest needs of human beings.

 

In thinking further of the destructiveness of the giver/receiver relationship, I am reminded of the story of the priest and the nun who had spent their lives giving to the poor through a charity institution. On his dying bed the priest told the nun, "Sister, we must ask God to help them (those they had given to) to forgive us". This seems contrary to the gratitude one would expect from receivers. But the priest understood well the humiliating bitterness engendered by being a powerless and subservient receiver.

 

This is what is so degrading and dehumanizing about poverty- the loss of personal control. People in poverty are unable to care for themselves and their families and are instead at the often fickle mercy of others. Charity or giving simply can not assuage the deep feelings of loss of humanity and human dignity that personal control grant.

 

The authors of Poverty And Economic Justice have made some insightful comments on giving and ownership of resources or wealth. They state that both Judaism and Christianity insist upon an obligation to the poor. Running through both traditions is an emphasis on stewardship where it is taught that God gives people the earth to use in a way in which people remain responsible to God. "Humans are not given an absolute right to the things they own and use" (p.65). People are urged to open their hands to the needy and poor. Landowners are told to leave a portion of their crops to be gathered by the poor. The Old Testament teaching is that "all such gifts are the property of the poor and, as such, can not be withheld from them by the owner. Nor can the latter select the recipients since all the poor have the right to share them" ( Ibid, p.65).

 

"The Jewish teaching does not consider these goods as 'charity' in the modern sense of handouts that depend sheerly upon the good will of the giver. The Hebrew word for charity is Zedakkah, and its primary meaning is 'justice', underscoring the fact that giving to the needy is a duty and not merely a matter of personal feeling or disposition. The donor is to look upon the recipient as having the same flesh- the same hungers, thirsts, and nakedness- as oneself. Anonymous gifts are the most suitable, for then the dignity of the poor is protected. Even the harvester, in dropping grain for the poor, is not to look back, and the true benefactor will remove all his workers from the field before sundown so that the poor have time to gather unobserved... The original intent of the Jewish law was far from legalistic. It was to duplicate on the human level the likeness of God" (Ibid, p.66).

 

We have focused on the above issues in order to stress that the most important things in life- love and humanity- are equally available to every human in any situation. It is true that the best things in life are free. The story of Jesus illustrates the truth that the most marginalized, the poorest and the most common of people can become the greatest of human beings.

 

While there are limits to what can be attained in wealth, power or fame, there is no limit to what can be attained in love and becoming fully human. We have yet to see the heights to which humans can climb in becoming more truly human.

 

It should also be noted that the effort to be truly human is the pathway to true happiness. Recent research on happiness has concluded that the struggle for wealth and amassing material goods does not lead to happiness. After basic needs are met, subsequent gains in material goods do not grant additional levels of happiness.

 

True happiness is found in such things as more control over decisions in the workplace, and in family and community relationships. It is also found in giving oneself to help others. The liberating truth that emerges from this research is that true happiness is available equally to all people. If it is to be found in relationships, in loving, giving, and sharing- in helping others, then it is not a rare and elite benefit to be enjoyed only by the powerful and wealthy. Happiness is vitally related to the development of common humanity, to being human. It is freely available to all people.

 

We are often made to feel that because we do not travel a lot or do exciting things or buy certain goods, then we are missing out on life and happiness. No, that is often just more consumer mythology and pressure to spend. All that is important in life is within the ability and experience of every human being. Remember, the ultimate source of happiness is found in the God who is here now, freely available to every person.

 

Borg makes the following insightful comment about human happiness or satisfaction and conventional values centered on material reality. He says that "Our culture's secular wisdom does not affirm the reality of the Spirit. The only reality about which it is certain is the visible world of our ordinary experience. Accordingly, it looks to the material world for satisfaction and meaning. Its dominant values are what I call the three A's- achievement, affluence, and appearance. We live our lives in accord with these values, with both our self-worth and level of satisfaction dependent upon how well we measure up to these cultural messages. Not only is the effort to measure up burdensome, but even when we are reasonably successful at doing so, we often find the rewards unsatisfying. We may have the experience of being satiated and yet still hungry. Perhaps Augustine and others were right when they said that we are made in such a way that we have an appetite for the infinite" (Meeting Jesus Again For The First Time, p.87).

 

Our destiny as human beings is to live with a God who is free and enjoys sharing with others in love. We are beings whose essential nature is to express this same freedom and love in cooperating and sharing with others. That is where we will find liberation and joy. It is not to be found in each looking out for himself in the mad pursuit of consumerism and control of resources or wealth. That selfish pursuit of the material has only destroyed true human relating and existence. It has ruined human life. Jesus, among others, has shown that giving and serving are the way to human life, love, and happiness.

 

Works Cited

 

1.        Brinsmead, Robert. 1998. "The Status of Jesus Re-Examined" in Verdict, Essay 1A, p.14.

2.        Matthew 5-7.

3.        Ellul, Jacques. 1986. The Subversion of Christianity, p. 70.

4.        Ibid, p. 70-71.

5.        Ibid, p. 71.

6.        Ibid, p. 72.

7.        Ibid, p. 84.

8.        Ibid, p. 73.

9.        Ibid, p. 86.

10.     Ibid, p. 88-89.

11.     Brinsmead, Robert. 1989. "Dare to Blaspheme, Dare to be Free" in Quest, Essay 1, p.7.

12.     Thayer, Frederick. 1981. An End To Hierarchy, An End To Competition, p.3.

13.     Kipnis, David. 1976. The Powerholders, p.81.

14.     Hare, Robert. 1996. "The Secrets of the Brain: No Conscience, No Remorse", in Macleans, Jan.22, p.50-51.

15.     Ibid, p.51.

16.     Ibid, p.51.

17.     North Shore News. 1997. News of the Weird, p.20, Jan.22.

18.     Kipnis, David. 1976. The Powerholders.

19.     Ibid, p.77.

20.     Ibid, p.84.

21.     Ibid, p.130.

22.     Ibid, p.130

23.     Cook, Sue. 1997. "Mailbox" in The North Shore News, p.6, Feb.5.

24.     Heilbroner, Robert. 1986. The Worldly Philosophers, p.18-26.

25.     Ibid, p.23.

26.     Discovery (channel 42), Feb. 24, 1998. TV program.

27.     Heilbroner, Robert. 1986. The Worldly Philosophers, p.32.

28.     McKibben, Bill. 1998. "A Special Moment In History" in The Atlantic Monthly, May, p. 73.

29.     Morgan, Chris. Anthropology course at Simon Fraser University.

30.     Heilbroner, Robert. 1986. The Worldly Philosophers, p.32-33.

31.     Rees, Bill. 1993. Course at School of Planning, University of British Columbia.

32.     Leviatan, Uriel.

33.     Soros, George. 1997. "The Capitalist Threat" in Atlantic Monthly, Feb., p.48.

34.     Ibid, p.52.

35.     Ibid, p.53.

36.     Cronin, Helena. 1997. "The Evolution of Evolution" in Time, Special Issue, Winter 1997-1998, p.73.

37.     Gibbs, Nancy. 1998. "The Paradox Of Prosperity" in Time, Jan. 5, p. 64.

38.     Schumacher, E. F. 1975. Small Is Beautiful.

39.     Morehouse, Ward. Ed. 1989. Building Sustainable Communities: Tools and Concepts for Self-Reliant Economic Change.

40.     Heilbroner, Robert. 1986. The Worldly Philosophers, p. 21-33.

41.     Hume, Stephen. 1996. "Escape from the Material World" in Vancouver Sun, Section D, p. D1, Dec. 28.

42.     Ellul, Jacques. 1986. The Subversion of Christianity, p. 190.

43.     Matthew ch.6.

 From the series 'Taking The Vertical Out Of God'
copyrighted material. Contact Us