"Greed has poisoned men's souls"
Greed used to considered a sin. Now it seems to be seen as a virtue by some. It's not enough to have a Ferrari - you need to have a whole garage full. It's not enough to have a yacht - it's got to be a super yacht.
Greed used to considered a sin. Now it seems to be seen as a virtue by some. It's not enough to have a Ferrari - you need to have a whole garage full. It's not enough to have a yacht - it's got to be a super yacht.
[1]Not that this stopped the clergy being greedy of course. The grossly overweight priest is very old trope.
Few men reach a point of actual virtue in private and secret life. Many more men cleverly signal virtue in their public life yet retreat to vice in private and secret life.
The back bone required to actually be virtuous must be strong enough to stand against any wind in the event all laws of man were laid flat.
True virtue (I assume and make no claim to having it here) may possibly only exist in doing the right thing while answering to no authority while serving no system and while receiving no recognition or comfort of a superiors approval.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechwa...
He is referring to political/country leaders greed. Only their greed can cause violence and bloodshed at the level he is talking about.
Ambition and greed both refer to the intense desire to achieve success. Sucess includes money, power, or status.
The difference is a major one. Greed is to achieve those for themselves at the cost of depriving others. Ambition is to do for greater good of others.
I think all the leaders(democratic,communist,fascist) understand this, and they are all likely ambitious. The path to achieve success forces them to define boundaries.
They seem to define others as their country people - during the war times. In peace times, it is their party supporters.
That's the greed that's ingrained in all humans. "Humans take the perceived path of the most pleasure." is true in every human interaction I've witnessed or can think of.
We're all greedy by default. I think Agent Smith was right when he was talking to Morpheus, humanity is a virus that consumes all the resources in the local environment until they're depleted without thought for the greater good.
Perhaps, but we’re also all generous by default. Which wins out is determined by some combination of upbringing, circumstance and individual nature. There are many people in this world who will give away things they dearly need to those who also need them.
That is a pretty bleak view of human nature. Maybe try reading "Human kind" by Rutger Bregman for a counter view.
I think we are highly social creatures who care a lot about our status. If society looks up to people having a garage full of super cars as 'successful', then that is something to aspire to. If society looks down on these people as greedy and taking more than their fair share of the world's resources, then it isn't something to aspire to. I hope society soon changes to the latter attitude, for the sake of our children.
Even the worst people in history somehow believed they were the good (or at least the needed) guys and they deserved their riches. Political power always was a vehicle to maintain, defend, multiply those riches. This is why in the best version of that spiel the royals would understand that their position/riches came with very real duties attached. Duties towards those who had it worse than them. But this was already a forgotten idea, even in Chaplins time.
As someone whow grew up around both poor and very rich (including very old-rich) people, I can assure you that the poor people would often share their last penny while the rich ones were mostly afraid that someone might be after their money. Greed is buying a Lamborghini when your neighbour/employee/sister/village starves. Even when you totally earned it using your superhuman work ethic.
Everybody wants to be the good guy in their own story, so everybody will come up with their own reasons why they deserve it (they worked harder than a single mom with three bone breaking jobs) and why doing a good thing is actually a bad thing ("they will waste it on drugs and alcohol"). If you care about your real true self lies like these are a danger to ever discovering it in your life. And you only get one of those.
In the end the question is very simple. Do you care primarily about yourself or do you more care about the people and nature around you? Everybody likes to say they do — and so they lie to themselves why buying that Lamborghini is actually a totally selfless act. But if you realize the world would be a worse place if everybody decided like you, you might be the baddy all along.
So if you want to stay rich you have to somehow get the fact that tou don't do what is needed into balance with your own image of a good person. Aa result you become that attavistic kind of rich person that believes being good is naive and a luxury (no pun intended) they cannot afford. People who want to make the world better are idiots, only you know the world as it truly functions (let's ignore the fact that you profit from that believe). This is a quite common stance among the rich and powerful. Everybody is out to get you. Your game is not doing meaningful things, it is doing things that look meaningful to other rich people. Things become very symbolic. Actually meaningful is naive and dangerous so it must be avoided. These people are rarely ever happy and in the short moments they are, it is because they fell for the lies of their own greatness. We grew up in a world that told us money buys us happiness. To a certain degree it can give us safety and freedom, but after that it comes at a mental price. Greedy people are people who are willing to pay that price, no questions asked. And there are many of them. Remember, you get only this life.