John Gunkler wrote,
Replying to LO23478 --
>To all those who think you understand that the "profit motive" is evil:
>I won't deny the evil that businesses have wrought over time nor will I
>deny that there are businesses that continue to create problems today. [I
>hesitate to mention this lest it distract you from my point, but one
>could...¦
SNIP...¦
then you wrote,
Replying to LO23457 --
>This is a tough-love message to At de Lange. You no longer have ANY
>credibility with me. As much as I want to learn from your thinking, as
>much as I want to believe your conclusions, as much as I want the joy of
>being challenged by your ideas -- I cannot trust you. So you have
>effectively shut me off from the pleasure and benefit I could have derived
>from dialogue with you.
SNIP...¦
Re. First and second message.
Most of us I would guess are probably very 'private' people.
And for me there is no contradiction in a 'public' dialogue among
'private' people.
'We each may contain multitudes.'
John, I read your first contribution cited above and I thought it reminded
me of something much more concise I had once read in Aristotle.
" Wealth obviously is not the good we seek, for its sole purpose is to
provide the means to other things. So far as that goes, the ends of
pleasure, virtue and honour have a better title to be considered the good,
for they are to be desired on their own account."
I thought it might be good to write it down here and now as Aristotle did,
so we could all share his thoughts and ask ourselves if we have we shifted
one jot forward in this complex matter over the past two and a half
millennia? For my part I simply take Aristotle to mean money is a means
to life, not its purpose.
Never have I met a rich man who apologized for his wealth.
I think organisations, like individuals and civilisations are remembered
and honoured for what they spent their money on rather than the amount
they spent.
Re. Second message
One day as Ghandi walked the pavements of South Africa a policeman seeing
him assaulted the little man, without warning pushing him about the place.
Michael Coates, a Quaker and friend of Ghandi saw this and rode up upon
his horse and restrained the policeman with the explanation that this
'little Indian man' had a 'special letter of authority', whereupon the
policeman relented. Coates then pressed Ghandi to take the matter
further, to court to get the matter redressed in his favour. 'This is not
necessary', replied the little Indian man ' -for I have already forgiven
him.'
I sometimes sense many things underflowing this list. Hurt and anger are
among them. Natural enough. But we must take care to direct our hurt and
anger into the right places. I hope you can understand that?
Last month some time I was with a young lone parent mother.
She and her daughter are all but destitute and she evidently was in some
pain. 'What is the matter, you seem distracted?'
'I have toothache and I was up all night with it.'
'Well, you must go to the dentist straightaway, especially with Christmas
coming up.'
'I cannot, he refuses to see me because I missed my last appointment.'
'Well, that seems very harsh...¦why did you miss the appointment?
'I had to ride there on my bicycle and when I went to go for it I discovered
it had been stolen and by the time I had walked there it was too late; they
were very rude to me. I realise they lose money because of me. I am ashamed
and frightened to go back'
The misfortune increases when she told me that it was a double bind; she was
going to sell the bike just before Christmas to be able to buy presents for
her daughter.
I asked her to go to the Police station and maybe they would look for her
bike.
'No point in that Andrew; policemen have more important things to do than go
looking for my bike.'
I am sorry that you too did not get what you seemed to want this
Christmas, John. Perhaps another gift will be bestowed upon you in its
stead?
Janine's daughter is, for now, possibly the more fortunate because 'she
will not anticipate what she has missed', the 'common' philosophic phrase
for the poor and among the poor.
Her mother has it seems 'let go of grasping' and so teaches her daughter
as lightly as any soft 'good night kiss' and teaches me inestimably about
the true 'good' of Socrates.
This LO is surpassed unnoticed every day in lessons of universal
compassion by the poor and destitute all over the world.
I recall a man asking a wiser man than himself why it was that mankind has
somehow become less connected to God, the reply was that man no longer can
bow low enough for long enough.
Only I can set myself free from that which binds me.
Every now and again I pass a very ancient man who walks his small dog on a
short lead around Oxford, the man is bent over almost double with a
crippling disease of the spine, his face is forever downward.
Walking with his dog I see a happiness I cannot see when I look even to
the stars.
Respectfully and with
Very best wishes,
Andrew Campbell
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