One of the first ideas many parents try to instill in their
children is that sharing with others is the good and ethical thing to do. Unfortunately, Western culture is completely
at odds with the concept of sharing on just about every level imaginable.
Ultimately, teaching
children that sharing is an important life skill within a for-profit monetary
system is a lie on par with Santa Claus.
Just as children outgrow the cultural lie of a jolly fat man
in red delivering their presents down the chimney at Christmas, they soon
outgrow the lie of sharing as a way of life.
The for profit motive demands that they do so in order to not only
achieve a high level of monetary success, but to simply survive. This is not a problem created by Capitalism
or any other “ism”, it is a problem created by money itself. Profit is an exploitative process. The greater the exploitation, the higher the
profits. This is not an opinion but a
fact clearly visible in our global economic system. The exploitative nature of our monetary
system is absurdly evident in the extreme inequalities that exist in all parts
of the world.
If, as adults, we truly wanted our children to adopt the
ideal of sharing as the proper way to live, is it not our responsibility to
construct a civilization that embraces sharing as more than empty
rhetoric?
It is unfair to pawn hollow ethical standards on children
when we know they are nothing more than Hallmark card platitudes they will need
to toss out once they enter the “real world”.
I would go so far as to say it is cruel to burden children with ethical
concepts we fully know cannot be practiced within the context of our cultural
systems. It ensures them a life of guilt
because, even if they attempt to hold to an ideal like sharing into their adult
life, the contradictions it creates for them in terms of succeeding (or merely
surviving) will create tremendous mental turmoil.
Since we cannot deny that our current for profit system
creates nightmarish inequality and endless violent conflict, is it not time to
rally toward a NEW system? The resources
of Earth should be the common heritage of every human being alive. We possess the technological ability to
create abundance for all, and we can do it in total balance with the
environment. The barrier that stops us
from achieving this is our current system which requires ever higher profits in
order to sustain itself. In a world of
abundance, NOTHING would have any monetary value. Therefore, scarcity is created intentionally
in order to safeguard the ability to generate profits.
Isn't it time that we constructed a world in which the “Sharing
Claus” was not a naïve notion to be killed off like Santa Claus as we move
toward adulthood?
AFTERTHOUGHT
I am adding this bit because I realized this essay was
incomplete or, perhaps more accurately, lopsided.
Within our communities across the United States, acts of isolated
kindness and sharing take place on a regular basis, despite the tireless
pursuit of profit and exploitation the for profit monetary system
inspires. The purpose of this short
essay is not to suggest that sharing is wholly absent within Western
culture. However, in the year 2013, it
simply is not good enough to “think local” (a popular movement where I live in
Chico, CA).
Technology has transformed the way human beings view the
planet and the world’s population. Just
as our economic system is a globally interconnected network, our awareness is
global. We remain complicit with a
global monetary system in which a wealthy country (the U.S.) is capable of
manipulating (often through direct violence or the indirect support of
violence) an impoverished country (take your pick) in order to siphon their
natural resources and enslave their population for financial gain. How can we urge people to “think local” when
the reality of our world has shifted entirely to a global interconnectivity? As cliché as the saying may be, we simply
cannot “have our cake and eat it too”.
Our concept of sharing must also evolve toward global
awareness. It is folly to believe that we can cause
human suffering and environmental destruction in other parts of the world for
our own benefit and somehow make up for it by “thinking local” and sharing on a
limited basis with our close social circles.
As the interconnectivity of our globe continues to intensify at ever
increasing speed, our neighbors are no longer limited to the families living
along the same street. Because our
economic choices as individuals and complicity with a global economy have far
reaching impact, people living on the other side of the world have become our
neighbors as well. We cannot take from
one neighbor with ruthless disregard for their well-being and share those gains
with another neighbor and hope to live in a civilized world.
The concept of sharing as an ideal must become a global
phenomenon.
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