People claim that money is evil, that accumulating money is evil, and that all we have to do is abolish money and all evil will disappear.
In reality, money is just pieces of paper or numbers in a computer or pieces of shiny rocks. It isn't good or evil. The thing that makes people crazy is the power it represents, to be able to take something for yourself, or to get someone else to do something you want them to. If you take it away, you have unlimited desires and limited resources and so another method needs to come about to determine how to divvy up power, and unfortunately the alternative is monsterous because we're humans who have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.
So if getting rid of money won't solve people's drive for more power, how do we abolish such evils? I don't really think you do as long as you've got people thinking in terms of power. In that sense, the postmodern neomarxists and the nietzschians are both terribly wrong, and looking at the world in terms of power is self-destructive. Instead of a will to power, we should be striving for a will to awe, and strive to become people we are impressed with ourselves.
Being true to oneself (because some people try to become "impressive" based on what they're supposed to find impressive rather than what they actually find impressive) and striving to be that best person you can imagine rather than focusing on accumulating power I think would help the world, as long as that striving has some understandings that for example you can't cheat the devil -- If you cheat on your way to becoming awesome, then you will know deep down you aren't.
In reality, money is just pieces of paper or numbers in a computer or pieces of shiny rocks. It isn't good or evil. The thing that makes people crazy is the power it represents, to be able to take something for yourself, or to get someone else to do something you want them to. If you take it away, you have unlimited desires and limited resources and so another method needs to come about to determine how to divvy up power, and unfortunately the alternative is monsterous because we're humans who have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.
So if getting rid of money won't solve people's drive for more power, how do we abolish such evils? I don't really think you do as long as you've got people thinking in terms of power. In that sense, the postmodern neomarxists and the nietzschians are both terribly wrong, and looking at the world in terms of power is self-destructive. Instead of a will to power, we should be striving for a will to awe, and strive to become people we are impressed with ourselves.
Being true to oneself (because some people try to become "impressive" based on what they're supposed to find impressive rather than what they actually find impressive) and striving to be that best person you can imagine rather than focusing on accumulating power I think would help the world, as long as that striving has some understandings that for example you can't cheat the devil -- If you cheat on your way to becoming awesome, then you will know deep down you aren't.
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I definitely agree with you in this regard. One of the biggest problems of the moment is the gap between haves and have-nots and the shrinking group that it is in between. Many things we're seeing is people with a little more than most trying desperately not to get caught in the musical chairs as the pie shrinks for most of the world.
That being said, power imbalance is something we can't help but have as humans who are all different so systems that help to reduce mass power imbalances or unearned power imbalances are important, and you can't just power through that, it takes nuance to get there or you just create a new power system to be imbalanced.
That being said, power imbalance is something we can't help but have as humans who are all different so systems that help to reduce mass power imbalances or unearned power imbalances are important, and you can't just power through that, it takes nuance to get there or you just create a new power system to be imbalanced.