October 24, 2022
On Greed, Pride and the End of the World
When we examine the situation at local, national or world level — whether from the social, economic, political or, more recently, military point of view — it is impossible not to observe that we are in a major impasse. Now, a blockage in a system that is in motion, designed to be in motion, is synonymous with the destruction of the whole mechanism. And that is what we are about to experience.
Certainly, we could call upon great specialists in everything, make complex, multidisciplinary analyses upon synthetic data, “macro”, “multi” and so forth… the reality is in fact appallingly simple: the cause is “more”, the cause is “better”. The cause is greed — material avidity — and its subtle reflection and cause: pride, haughtiness, arrogance — avidity, the insatiability of the soul.
“More”, and “still more”, is the cause of all evils in our world.
A simple example: what does a billionaire sunning himself on his 80-million yacht want? It is simple: he wants a 120-million yacht. And guess what the “lucky man” sitting on the 120-million yacht wants? Just as simple: a 160-million yacht. And on this slope there is no limit.
So too at the geopolitical level: someone “wants more”, wants to go “further”. Do not trouble to “decipher” whom I meant here, given the conflict on our border. The result of the analysis is simple and comes of itself: they all want more, they all want to go further.
And this “more” must be sought not only *ex parte materiæ*, in material things, but in the things of the soul as well — for pride and haughtiness are also fed by the “hunger” for “more” on the psychic and affective plane: more esteem and more honour, more love even; all lead to the same swelling of the ego. With the same catastrophic results.
It is natural… and that is why we are so close to disaster! For it lies in our nature to produce disaster. We are designed to move towards disaster.
Personal crises? Economic crises? Climate crises? Political crises? Geopolitical crises?
All have a single common denominator: “more”, “better”. Simplify this “equation” with so many unknowns by the one known quantity — “more” — and everything would resolve itself.
It is probably too simple to be possible.
For this is what seems to be the true utopia — to take pride and insatiability out of man.
Thus we were, thus we are and thus we shall be: created in the image of God and living after the likeness of Satan, God’s nearest and fairest angel, fallen through pride and through the will for “more”: “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness. (…) All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.” (Ezekiel 28:14-19)
The curse of Satan appears to be the curse of all mankind: “By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned” and “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness.” Impeccably put.
Do we still need any analysis founded on macroeconomic or geostrategic flimflam?
Everything is extremely simple. That is why the future is implacable: “Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.” The same Ezekiel 28:18.
This text — again, perhaps, too long and too heavy going for some; my apologies — is not meant to be a piece of religious writing. It is rather an attempt to find an ontological explanation for the self-destructive stupidity of our species. An attempt to find the “evil of evils” of our species. And I believe I have found it. It is “more”. And here, ironically, is the sign that we have no escape: “more” is the foundation of the modern dogma of perpetual progress of every kind — economic, scientific, social or cultural… a dogma that has encouraged greed and pride in the human being and has brought us here… to the threshold of the fulfilment of our destiny.
The text could be spun out at greater length. I shall not do so. We shall return to the theme. For now I shall conclude by saying only that the sole solution for the human being, indeed for the human species, is the return to a society founded upon traditional values, where pride (haughtiness, arrogance — call it what you will) is an imperfection, a lack, being accounted a sin in all the religions of the world, and in Christianity is even the first of the seven deadly sins.
So then — do you wish to change the world?
Let us try to begin with ourselves… let us see whether we manage to rid ourselves of arrogance, of the need for “more”… and we shall realise how possible, how attainable the “salvation of the world” still is.
And then, probably, you will realise how hard it is, how impossible even, and why we are so close to the end…
For your consideration, and in support of your own thoughts, I leave this here as well:
“Behold, I am against thee, O thou most proud, saith the Lord GOD of hosts: for thy day is come, the time that I will visit thee.” (Jeremiah 50:31)
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