[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Sounds good to me ;)

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Thu Jun 20 12:03:23 UTC 2002


On Wed, 19 Jun 2002, Craighead, Scot D wrote:
> Russ:
> >But Jeff, yours and mine are NOT mutually exclusive. That's the point
> >that Jeme, Jeremy and myself are trying to get across to you. 
> 
> But that is not what Jeme is trying to say.


You've confused several lines of discussion.

The "yours" and "mine" discussion sprang from not a discussion of
ownership, but of membership.

I wrote that there is a culture that is yours (Scot's; as in, you are a
member) and mine (Jeme's; as in, I am a member) and that those two
cultures MIGHT be one and the same.

I didn't claim that I owned a culture and you owned a culture and we might
share control or dominion over a culture.

> He has said several times that if something is mine and he feels that
> he needs it more than I do, that he has the right to take it. And if I
> object to that, I am greedy.

I haven't said that.  I have said things that you interpreted to mean
that.  Let me restate and see if you understand.

I believe that need should be the primary reason to allocate resources.  
If a person is hungry and needs to eat, that is the greatest reason to
give them food.  Their ability to repay is secondary (if not tertiary or
lesser still).

But I also believe that needs are a very individual thing and nobody can
really tell someone else what they need.  (The "really" is there to show
that this is a simplification and not a fundamental tennet, per se.  
There are exceptions, but I'm trying to simplify so as not to confuse.  
The exceptions have mainly to do with people who are disruptive to
society.)  Every party in an interaction should respect the stated and
perceived needs of others and do their best to separate their own needs
from mere desires or wishes.

So if a person claims to be too cold and says they need a blanket, other
people should look to see if there is any way to provide that blanket
without compromising their own needs.

People confuse desire with need.

I think we all understand that.  Surely there are things you have because
you want them, but you recognize that you do not need them.  I have
probably thousands of such things.  When you stop and think about how many
people would be without need if you simply redistributed the things you
did not need to those who have a real need (or, more correctly,
redistributed the resources used to create the junk that nobody needs and
applied them to making stuff that all people need), you see that poverty
and hunger are unnecessary and resources are going to meet your silliest
desires (like 36" plush penguins and sports cars) because accumulating
money is more important than feeding hungry children.  If the priority was
to meet needs, rather than accumulate unneeded wealth (or trash), then no
one would have to go without.

Surely, we could still create luxuries.  There will always be craftsmen
and hobbyists (some of whom may even become artists) who spend their free
time bringing life's pleasures to those who already have life's
necessities.  The raw materials for the instruments of those crafts and
hobbies become a sort of need, too.  Those who enjoy music, for example,
but are not musicians, might find they want more musical instruments in
the world with which musicians could please them.  So these people would
help in the construction or repair of guitars, pianos, and flutes.  Truly
listener-supported musical programs.

People are driven by desire, not fear.  You should go to work because you
want to see your work done, not because your very survival depends on
pleasing some rich old men you will never meet.

We've been abstracted from the realities of life.  We go to work (the mass
of people in the first world) because we want to get our jobs done so that
we can get our paychecks which brings us our necessities and our
desirables.  But the work itself might have nothing at all to do with
those needs or desires.  There's no direct connection between what we do
all day and why we do it.

I read a pretty dumb book about the decay of life and lifestyles in the
latter half of the twentieth century.  Mostly, it was full of stuff that
was totally obvious or totally trite.  However, there was a nice little
section where people on the street were asked kind of "big
questions".  One of the answers struck me.  The question was "What are you
looking for?"  The answer followed something like this:

I'm looking for a total re-integration of life.  I want my family and my
entertainment and my meals and my friends and my work to all have
something to do with one another.  I want to spend my days doing something
I enjoy that helps meet my needs and the needs of the people directly
around me.  I want to come home to my family and friends and be
entertained by them and entertain them instead of turning to entertainment
from people that have nothing to do with us.  I want to know where my
dinner came from and where it's going when I'm done with it and I want to
help on both ends.  I want to feel connected with my world.

I think that's what everyone wants.  And I think I see how we got tricked
into not getting it anymore.  (It has everything to do with the downward
spiral of greed, accumulation of wealth, and selfishness.)  The real hard
question is, how do we get it back?

> I even prefaced this with "If I sow more than you and therefore reap
> more" and he still contends that he has a right to what I have reaped.

What need do you have for so much?  And why were you sowing it in the
first place if you can't eat it all?  Surely someone else could have used
that land.

> He makes a bunch of justifications for why I don't really own what I
> have earned or created.

At least I have justifications and not just rationalizations and excuses.

I have a very simple definition of greed that is exactly the one I pulled
from Webster's (I was going to say it was compatible until I actually
looked at what Webster's had to say):

greed:  excessive desire to accumulate or having; desire for more than one
needs

Do you NEED everything you have, or are you just accumulating according to
your desires?

> He states that Jeff doesn't understand the concept of ownership that
> other cultures have.

I think that what you've written is true, but not the whole statement.  I
don't think Jeff understands any philosophy of property but his own.  
There are philosophies of property that make no pretenses about
"ownership".

> I submit that he doesn't understand any concept of ownership.

I understand several concepts of ownership.  I just disagree with most of
them.

You are only a passenger on this rock... and for a very short period of
time.  Claiming dominion is extraordinarily arrogant and selfish.

J.
-- 
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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