Maurice,
Re: You greedy, self-centred Americans lack human empathy.
As I seem to recall, a year ago on SI, I was resisting the intentions of George Bush to attack the innocent families of Iraq with all my might, while a certain unnamed commentator from a Commonwealth nation was lusting for action, in spite of abundant evidence of the fraudulent basis for attack.
As far as 'empathy checks' go, a mirror may be a useful tool here.. :')
***
Re: The idea is to increase total human happiness.
Recently, I had the opportunity to read the thoughts of a Malaysian factory worker who was employed by a subcontractor to an American clothing company. She talked of her youth a few years previous, when in the evenings she could go out past the neighborhood rice paddies and into the jungle beyond. It was a welcoming, calm, preternaturally beautiful and idyllic setting. It gave her great contentment to simply "be".
Today, she has not the time to go to that sacred spot because of the demands of her employer. Granted, she can afford the TV and videogames she formerly couldn't. But she'll never be able to return to her temple of nature, because last year, it was clearcut.
Now about human happiness. Just how do you propose measuring it? Certainly not by GDP, I daresay.
How about by the number of communities we can save, rather than destroy? Would that be a useful yardstick of human joy? More intelligent than, say, the number of Gameboys shipped per annum? Or the amount of money that IBM can save by destroying American communities that nurtured IBM for decades, as the managers skillfully transfer technology to the lowest cost provider halfway across the world, leaving communities across America broken and cast asunder....
Where is the loyalty that corporations used to pride themselves on to the communities that they symbiotically existed within? Gone. Gone with the winds and false promises of global-oney. |
