If one believes wealth should be shared with the less fortunate, but chooses not to do so personally, that is hypocrisy.
Waste and Dishonour
- Thread starter milegajo
- Start date
If one believes wealth should be shared with the less fortunate, but chooses not to do so personally, that is hypocrisy.
Fair enough BR. However it might be interesting to note that those states (over here) with the highest poverty levels are also the states with the most generous donations to the registered charities. The breakdown as to whether those are to domestic charities or to the underdevelopped world isn't readily known though.
I have made no assumptions about you or your money boatman. I merely said desiring others to share with the less fortunate, whilst being unwilling to do so is hypocrisy.
However if the cap fits.....
However if the cap fits.....
Interesting! A few observations...
Everyone alive is a massive winner - after all, of the millions of sperm released in just one ejaculation, yours won the race!
I've also seen the happy kids in third-world countries playing cricket, or football, or hide-and-seek, accompanied by shrieks of happy laughter. I've also seen similar kids sleeping off malaria, shivering under the hot sun. I've seen 5 successive stores managers in one company I've visited over the last decade in Malawi die of AIDS, and orphanages full of children whose parents have died of it, and many of them suffering from it too. The "savage happy with his lot" is a myth................
Similarly, the Nature is wonderful, Earth-Goddess brigade clearly have no understanding of the natural world. It is indeed red in tooth and claw, and the average animal will end up either starving to death, or ripped apart by another predator. Viewed strictly on a humanistic moral basis, it is evil, vile, violent, amoral, selfish and cruel. But of course it is not - it just is....
And we are the end (for now) product. We are just better at it than our evolutionary ancestors.
Everyone alive is a massive winner - after all, of the millions of sperm released in just one ejaculation, yours won the race!
I've also seen the happy kids in third-world countries playing cricket, or football, or hide-and-seek, accompanied by shrieks of happy laughter. I've also seen similar kids sleeping off malaria, shivering under the hot sun. I've seen 5 successive stores managers in one company I've visited over the last decade in Malawi die of AIDS, and orphanages full of children whose parents have died of it, and many of them suffering from it too. The "savage happy with his lot" is a myth................
Similarly, the Nature is wonderful, Earth-Goddess brigade clearly have no understanding of the natural world. It is indeed red in tooth and claw, and the average animal will end up either starving to death, or ripped apart by another predator. Viewed strictly on a humanistic moral basis, it is evil, vile, violent, amoral, selfish and cruel. But of course it is not - it just is....
And we are the end (for now) product. We are just better at it than our evolutionary ancestors.
<Sigh>
No it is not boatman - if you read post 36 you will see it is not addressed to you. In post 41 I answered a question from you as to "how an honestly held view could be hypocritical".
Why you choose to interpret a comment made to someone else about "an interesting moral question" which relates to what "the relative poor in the UK and the US" say as a comment on you I cannot say - if you are the personification of the relative poor of two countries or their official spokesperson it may be logical. Otherwise it is not.
No it is not boatman - if you read post 36 you will see it is not addressed to you. In post 41 I answered a question from you as to "how an honestly held view could be hypocritical".
Why you choose to interpret a comment made to someone else about "an interesting moral question" which relates to what "the relative poor in the UK and the US" say as a comment on you I cannot say - if you are the personification of the relative poor of two countries or their official spokesperson it may be logical. Otherwise it is not.
I may be embarassing you boatman, (or did you mean embarassing myself?) - but really - if you don't want to be embarassed, use the correct words, don't imagine things that aren't there or take umbrage with slights that you infer but are not implied. I am trying to be ingenous here.
Yes it was a deliberate double meaning as you spotted. Could you try to read a post in the context of the subject rather than your interpretation of specific words. And nobody is a deliberate liar, can you accept that?
Do you believe that there are "No new taxes"?
Do you believe the Liberal Democrats have abolished student loans?
Do you beleve Bill Clinton ....(actually thats complete question)?
Of course people lie deliberately...they do it all the time.....from the youngest child caught with a cat and a razor who proclaims "it wasn't me" to the most cynical politician who tells deliberate lies (please feel free to use the phrase "manifesto promises" if you prefer).
Do I accept that "there are no deliberate liars"? No, I do not, there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary and to believe otherwise, one must have been trampled on the head by a passing unicorn.
You wouldn't happen to be a University lecturer by any chance ?
Perhaps a lecturer, but not associated with any mainstream teaching establishment! Haha
I disagree with "The "savage happy with his lot" is a myth................" I very much dislike the word savage as a description of a human being, though you do make another very valid point.
The world is most certainly not perfect 'everywhere else but here' or even here for that matter. Even through the rose tinted lenses of the starry eyed traveller this truth can be felt. As I am sure you are aware, the illnesses, trials and suffering you described are not exclusive to the locations in which you witnessed them. I too have seen humans warped and ravaged through various afflictions. The pain of living and the pain of anothers death. I believe that no amount of money, no matter how evenly distributed will ever change that. I fear it is money that exacerbates and perpetuates many of the worlds ills, contrary to what the numerous charities will tell you.
Being the curious fellow I am, I have often enquired with the person in the street who "only wishes to take a moment of my time" why it is that if they truly believe in the cause that they are aiding, why are they not in the place of the problem/disaster physically helping to resolve the issue at hand? My intent is not to humiliate, outsmart nor judge them, rather it is to make them think. To think is money the answer here? Is my money the answer. Is anyones money the answer?
I appreciate that some philanthropists and benefactors are physically incapable of aiding in the way they wish and therefore money is but a tool and expression of their assistance and wish. I am of the opinion that money should be the last, not first resort in the attempted resolution of any percieved crisis/disaster/injustice/problem.
It is no accident to me that the places where 'savages' dwell and where civilisation as we call and know it has not yet infected, money is hard to find.
The people are grounded. They are open and hospitable sharing willingly without tally what few things they possess. They are closer to innocence. And in this respect closer to being like children. The ones I witnessed enjoying those rare fleeting moments we in the west only glimpse before the world of our fathers is thrust upon us and all the burdens that go with it.
They certainly face the same challenges we all do, but it is how one meets those challenges that defines these beings. I have yet to meet a native in India who bemoaned his chosen vocation, his lifestyle, his family, his possessions or lack of them. I have yet to meet an Englishman who has not.
Call me "Country Bloke"
Father of a fantastic Daughter
Husband of a fantastic Wife
Custodian of a beautiful home
Tender of a wonderful land
Content with the tools, materials and friends I have to help me on my journey
I am content in this life....and hopefully the next
Well "Country Bloke", I would very much like to meet you, that way I can again be in the company of a being such as the one described, but more importantly, amend the post you quoted!
Apologies for the Kiplingesque quote if it offended your sensibilities!
But I have to say you have a very simplistic view of this world. Having worked on 6 continents over the last 40 years or so (yes, that includes India), I can assure you that small amounts of money - for example for drilling bore-wells, simple water filters and basic hygenic practices and providing mosquito netting - really does go a long way to alleviate suffering and illness. And no amount of being grounded will impact on the numerous diseases and afflictions - and the suffering that brings - that basic improvements in the quality of life will bring. Teaching basic agronomic practices help people eat, year after year, rather than running the soil into infertility. Providing condoms lessens the risk of AIDS. Being grounded doesn't mean that the pain of losing children to easily-preventable illnesses is any less. Or that simple cataract operations don't bring a huge lease of life to the previously-blind. Sure, many in third-world countries are fatalistic about their lot, but don't believe for a second they are happy with it.
But I have to say you have a very simplistic view of this world. Having worked on 6 continents over the last 40 years or so (yes, that includes India), I can assure you that small amounts of money - for example for drilling bore-wells, simple water filters and basic hygenic practices and providing mosquito netting - really does go a long way to alleviate suffering and illness. And no amount of being grounded will impact on the numerous diseases and afflictions - and the suffering that brings - that basic improvements in the quality of life will bring. Teaching basic agronomic practices help people eat, year after year, rather than running the soil into infertility. Providing condoms lessens the risk of AIDS. Being grounded doesn't mean that the pain of losing children to easily-preventable illnesses is any less. Or that simple cataract operations don't bring a huge lease of life to the previously-blind. Sure, many in third-world countries are fatalistic about their lot, but don't believe for a second they are happy with it.
Life is, to misquote, an awfully big adventure. This week has been barn rendering, scrubbing congealed fat from tanks aimed at rainwater harvesting, and we have made sugar from our home grown beet.
How can that not be a fantastic life?
There is no offense that you need to apologise for. If Kipling was the source of the word savage and its use, you are forgiven, such is my affection for his work.
In light of your experiences which span many more years and hosted in many more countries than my own, I may have to concede that you may be right. I do have a simplistic view. Possilbly even overly so.
But consider this if you will.
Did money drill that bore-well, make those water filters, teach hygiene practices and weave mosquito netting?
If you did not, then I guess the truthful answer is No, humans did.
Being grounded may not prevent illnesses and suffering, I did not claim it would. In fact no claims were made to the contrary of any of your statements or scenarios and I do not dispute them. Credit where it is due, I am presuming you have aided in the delivery of those benefits and that, if true, is to be commended.
Flawed, misguided, ideallistic or even as inaccurate as my words may be, they are founded on my own experiences communicated by my senses and form the basis of my outlook and perception. I do not believe it is possible to debate such a thing as a perception for it is what it is. I accept that, in this instance, yours is different to mine and in many ways I feel that is to be celebrated and thank you.
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