As a child, the following was drilled into my head: do not use a word within its own definition. For example, George Orwell in 1984 wrote: Freedom is the freedom to say two and two make four. That phrase, although very true, would not have been acceptable. Instead, it should have read: Freedom is being able to say two and two make four.
That is a quibble. It is the notion, though, of what lies beneath it that is of importance here.
Freedom does not come from a government. Freedom, as Orwell was saying, is based on the Truth. What many have failed to understand, apparently, is that the freedom of the truth does not imply any safeguard. Seeking the truth, and stating it as such, does not imply any protection from a response.
Peto primoris verum. Panton alius mos insisto.
Seek first the truth. Everything else will follow.
To seek the truth, one must confront the notion that there will probably be an answer, as Pilate is recorded to have said to the Christ: What is truth? Is your truth the same as mine?
Is truth subjective? In some cases, yes. Truth can be an elusive thing, and each truth will lead to another. It would appear that there is a Greater Truth, a thing that exists for all, but it is the perception of that Greater Truth that causes confusion and discord.
Take, for example, the political and economic viewpoints that guide various regions of human existence. Should the government hold sway over all things, a strong central core of individuals that decide the path of the nation in question, or should it be more open, limited control from the central core and leave more control with the populace?
Regardless of the control process in question, one thing, one guiding lesson has come to us through the history of this world: Human beings are spectacularly incapable of controlling themselves. The best forms of government are perverted in practice.
The guiding force in the West has been Democracy, and Capitalism. I am now, and have always been, a strong believer in capitalism. Sadly, what I perceive as capitalism has, like Communism, rarely (if ever) practiced in its most perfect form.
As understood by me: a product is created and offered for sale. The product is the point, the guiding factor. The highest quality product sold for the lowest possible price... the profit from the sales of the product is to be returned to the force of creation of the product, improving production, improving the product and increasing the labor force that assists in the creation of the product.
The intention, then, is to improve the product and the means by which the product is created, up to and including the increase of pay of the labor force.
Sadly, this notion has been perverted and sublimated to that one evil that has corrupted the world: the love of money.
I like money. I wish I had some. I wish you had some.
However, the pointlessness of what capitalism has been perverted into is carried in one ugly catchphrase: Greed is good. No. It is not. Greed is a cancer on capitalism.
The profit motive, to have a return on the initial investment, is what has destroyed the economy of the planet. Not the healthy, slow growth, but the despicable desire to have the largest return in the least amount of time. Using the symbolism from Jerzy Kosinski's brilliant Being There: tend the garden, tend it and allow it to grow. Seasons change, and so does the garden.
Consider as an analogy the field of animal husbandry. The animals can be force fed, locked and abused in such a manner that the very flesh for which they are being raised becomes unhealthy. This is the means by which the producer forces a growth that is morally bankrupt. This is exactly the means that is being held as "capitalism," and it could not be further from the truth.
Peto primoris verum. Panton alius mos insisto.
Slow and steady growth is the hope of the future. Force is the thing that prevents it.
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