Fri, 04 Apr 2008

More on Greed . . .

I have written here about greed before as, perhaps, the major problem in the world today. I am not, of course, the first person to think this way. I heard an interesting factoid earlier in the week. The reference to the almighty dollar is actually from Washington Irving, the noted author:

The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion.

Washington Irving (1783–1859), U.S. author. Wolfert’s Roost, “The Creole Village,” (1855).

Mr. Irving, is certainly not the first author to comment on greed as the foundation of many of the evils which plague our world.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

is attributed to St. Paul in 1 Timothy, 6:10.

Islam also decries hoarding wealth:

O you who believe! Lo! many of the (Jewish) rabbis and the (Christian) monks devour the wealth of mankind wantonly and debar (men) from the way of Allah. They who hoard up gold and silver and spend it not in the way of God, unto them give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom

Quran 9:34

I think that we need to work on the roots of most problems. We tend to focus on the effects of major problems, but really don't address the root causes. This makes us fight a war on drugs which sees one in ten people in the U.S. in jail, most for drug related crimes. We build more prisons while ignoring the basic problems with society which cause people to turn to drugs. We fight an obscene war in Iraq, spending billions each month to support a surge while ignoring the basic problems which cause dictatorships in the first place.

It we turned our attention to the basic greed which drives societies all over the world, we might not have all these problems in the first place.

posted 08:02 [/Thoughts] permanent link