One of my favorite snack foods is chunky style peanut butter straight from the
jar. And I use a small spoon, very small, to scoop out tasty bites. This snack
is so enjoyable that it would be easy to make a meal of the whole jar. But that
does not happen because I stop myself. I shackle and cage the demons of excess
ever eager to amplify appetite beyond the satiation of hunger.
Corporal hunger is a legitimate need satisfied by a proportionally sound volume of food to the stomach. But want—excess, avarice, greed—these exceed need, yet how do they exceed need?
There are limits to every category of consumption based on individual or group definitions of excess. Limits for one man are just the starting point for another … so how do we determine where need ends, and excess begins?
In the early 1990’s, I rendered a pencil and water color study of greed to help illustrate the extreme character of this weakness. A weakness we can no more do without, than we can do without vanity, power, fear, or sloth. Absent weaknesses we would not have cause to gain strength from them, but this can only happen if weakness is recognized as a fault.
My Franklin Language Master defines greed as an “acquisitive or selfish desire beyond reason.” ‘Beyond reason’ is the part that makes greed malignant, not only in the realm of finance, or corporal gluttony. Any ‘beyond reason’ excess tends to imbalance societies, families, or groups of any kind. History is replete with tales of excess crushing civilizations. This is so because greed functions like a cancer … the maximum of excess eradicates excess.
Today, monetary greed is much in evidence throughout our interwoven world. The big fish are getting bigger. But an over indulgent economic elite is far from the only infection. If a ‘beyond reason’ want heralds the onset of avarice, then any behavior exceeding need subjects individuals and populations to imbalance, and the probable chaos of anarchic reprisal.
A group, or society, as much as an individual, can take more food, more knowledge, more fuel, more physical gratification, more praise, more leisure, more religion, doubt, faith, trust, science, or property than is needed. And by so doing, disadvantage the whole.
Greed magnifies inequality, renders the adage “that all men are created equal,” a comic rant, a mere aspirational hope that one day we will realize the advantage of mutual respect. In reality, because we are not created equal, there is ample room within the species for greed too indulge it’s many aspects.
Of particular note, for those in search of spiritual gain, is the avarice of faith … the rapacious conviction that what we believe makes us better than other people, especially those of a different faith.
Most avarice of faith conflicts are instigated by greed, by the want of one man, or group, to subjugate another man, or group, in excess of need. Were human interactions driven exclusively by need, conflicts would lessen dramatically.
Individuals, organizations, systems, and publications which provide for an open exchange of ideas, goods and beliefs, render greed less potent. By an astute and proportional sharing of what we know and have, rather than dictating, forcing, or requiring others to be as we are, or as we want them to be, want is satisfied indirectly, and by such greed’s more insidious cravings are mollified, to the benefit of all.
But this is blind idealism, yet another comic rant disguised as reward; a foolish hope that better understanding ourselves, each other, and the world in which we live— without pursuance of that understanding turning to excess—is actually possible.
As we are, everyone is trapped in their economy, but some are more trapped than others. Everyone is trapped in their faith, their politics, lifestyles, routines, and prejudices, but some are more trapped than others. And greed is the gatekeeper, the magician that makes us believe that acquiring more of what traps us, will free us. It will not, because a want once satisfied loses value. What greed acquires leads to what we do not have, and not to the thankfulness of having acquired something we wanted. Greed has no measure beyond the maximum of excess—the eradication of excess.
Greed is not good, not smarter than a parasite vision of grandeur in excess overwhelmingly selfish, but it is real in our world, and necessary for as long as it takes man to evolve beyond it. Like tails and fur we no longer grow, one day greed will evolve out of us, and better minds will negotiate the advantage of working together for the whole rather than the few. But this is a long way off. Innate capitalism has fed, and does feed, all the world’s political, academic, social, and religious ideologies—and capitalism depends on greed
Corporal hunger is a legitimate need satisfied by a proportionally sound volume of food to the stomach. But want—excess, avarice, greed—these exceed need, yet how do they exceed need?
There are limits to every category of consumption based on individual or group definitions of excess. Limits for one man are just the starting point for another … so how do we determine where need ends, and excess begins?
In the early 1990’s, I rendered a pencil and water color study of greed to help illustrate the extreme character of this weakness. A weakness we can no more do without, than we can do without vanity, power, fear, or sloth. Absent weaknesses we would not have cause to gain strength from them, but this can only happen if weakness is recognized as a fault.
My Franklin Language Master defines greed as an “acquisitive or selfish desire beyond reason.” ‘Beyond reason’ is the part that makes greed malignant, not only in the realm of finance, or corporal gluttony. Any ‘beyond reason’ excess tends to imbalance societies, families, or groups of any kind. History is replete with tales of excess crushing civilizations. This is so because greed functions like a cancer … the maximum of excess eradicates excess.
Today, monetary greed is much in evidence throughout our interwoven world. The big fish are getting bigger. But an over indulgent economic elite is far from the only infection. If a ‘beyond reason’ want heralds the onset of avarice, then any behavior exceeding need subjects individuals and populations to imbalance, and the probable chaos of anarchic reprisal.
A group, or society, as much as an individual, can take more food, more knowledge, more fuel, more physical gratification, more praise, more leisure, more religion, doubt, faith, trust, science, or property than is needed. And by so doing, disadvantage the whole.
Greed magnifies inequality, renders the adage “that all men are created equal,” a comic rant, a mere aspirational hope that one day we will realize the advantage of mutual respect. In reality, because we are not created equal, there is ample room within the species for greed too indulge it’s many aspects.
Of particular note, for those in search of spiritual gain, is the avarice of faith … the rapacious conviction that what we believe makes us better than other people, especially those of a different faith.
Most avarice of faith conflicts are instigated by greed, by the want of one man, or group, to subjugate another man, or group, in excess of need. Were human interactions driven exclusively by need, conflicts would lessen dramatically.
Individuals, organizations, systems, and publications which provide for an open exchange of ideas, goods and beliefs, render greed less potent. By an astute and proportional sharing of what we know and have, rather than dictating, forcing, or requiring others to be as we are, or as we want them to be, want is satisfied indirectly, and by such greed’s more insidious cravings are mollified, to the benefit of all.
But this is blind idealism, yet another comic rant disguised as reward; a foolish hope that better understanding ourselves, each other, and the world in which we live— without pursuance of that understanding turning to excess—is actually possible.
As we are, everyone is trapped in their economy, but some are more trapped than others. Everyone is trapped in their faith, their politics, lifestyles, routines, and prejudices, but some are more trapped than others. And greed is the gatekeeper, the magician that makes us believe that acquiring more of what traps us, will free us. It will not, because a want once satisfied loses value. What greed acquires leads to what we do not have, and not to the thankfulness of having acquired something we wanted. Greed has no measure beyond the maximum of excess—the eradication of excess.
Greed is not good, not smarter than a parasite vision of grandeur in excess overwhelmingly selfish, but it is real in our world, and necessary for as long as it takes man to evolve beyond it. Like tails and fur we no longer grow, one day greed will evolve out of us, and better minds will negotiate the advantage of working together for the whole rather than the few. But this is a long way off. Innate capitalism has fed, and does feed, all the world’s political, academic, social, and religious ideologies—and capitalism depends on greed
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