Is Human Society Valueless?
Friends, an article posted on Reuters yesterday caught my attention. It concerned the sale at auction of a single sequined glove once owned by Michael Jackson. It featured it seems when he first did his Moon Dance routine, an important event which I can’t recall.
The glove sold for $350,000 which ended up at $420,000 with commissions. This did not include taxes which may have brought it up to say $500,000. So one glove belonging to a person of…well, dubious character, a rather tormented individual who seemed to be at odds with himself while some of his sexual preferences seemed…well, rather depraved, has a monetary value of half a million dollars.
What does this say about our society, our world? Well the first thing it says is that there are people in the world who have large amounts of money, so much money in fact that they can spend a cool half million buying one glove.
Now, I don’t know about you but I’m not one of these people. I get along financially but live a fairly austere life and drive a 1994 automobile. I would have to think carefully about spending $50 on Michael Jackson’s glove but would probably pass on it because Michael Jackson is definitely not one of my heroes and to have one of his gloves in my house would not be high on my list of priorities.
But while my lifestyle is modest I’m doing fairly well compared to many. I believe that more than a billion people don’t get enough to eat each day now because of global warming and the global financial crisis and apparently that figure is rising rapidly. But we can’t allow ourselves to dwell on these cruel contradictions.
The man who bought the glove is a Hongkong businessman, one who has embraced the capitalist system with obvious enthusiasm and success. He has accumulated lots of money which allows him to snap up iconic things like a sequined glove. I wonder how he got his wealth, how many people he trod on, cheated or bankrupted to get it. But the glove, what can he do with it?
I suppose at a party, he could bring it out of the safe, wave it about. He might even put it on and, putting some flour on his face, do a version of the Moon Walk for the amusement of his wealthy guests. Who would know what he’d do? It’s called conspicuous consumption!
Of course, the whole of China, despite being a Communist country where everyone is supposed to share equally, has embraced capitalism and, as in America, China now has the situation where a small number of…shall I say, greedy, unscrupulous, cunning people are accumulating most of the wealth while the majority of people struggle or starve.
But I digress. If the Hongkong businessman had been so minded, he could have used the half million dollars to put in a clean water system in a village in Africa. This would’ve stopped lots of kids dying from a variety of nasty parasites which live in polluted water. He could’ve spent it on medicine for poor people in India. But he didn’t do that because money spent in this way makes no profit.
No, this man, like others of his ilk, bought the glove because he hopes that one day he will be able to sell the glove for a million dollars or even two whereas money spent on clean water or medicines may save lives but it brings no profit and is therefore of absolutely no interest.
So, you see dear friends, the sale of poor Michael Jackson’s glove says a lot about our world and the bizarre value systems which it embraces, systems that even condone making money from manufacturing the weapons of war.
I’d go as far as to say it shows that, clearly, in the main, we humans have few values.
SOCRATES: AN ICON.
DRIVEN AS IT IS BY AN EXTREME RELIGIOUS, MILITARIST, RACIST, CORPORATIST, GREED-BASED IDEOLOGY, THE U.S. MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO GAIN CONTROL OF THE WORLD!
man’s inhumanity to man is truly perverse. dropping white phosphorus bombs on men, women, children – civilians; hellish weapons made here in the USA and bought with our taxdollars, ranks high on the list. i sometimes imagine what it must feel like to be a palestinian, or an iraqi, a lebanese, or afghani, etc., under attack with high-tech weapons and no one intervenes to stop it. indeed most of the entire world looks the other way. i guess that’s why i cannot resist the urge to speak out even though i know there could be unpleasant consequences. bush-the-elder annonced, after the 1st attack on iraq, that they kicked the vietnam syndrome. looks like he was right.
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One of the reasons most of the world looks the other way, Diana, is that the MSM is too busy carrying stories like the one in this post, a story that glorifies wealth and makes icons out of those that have it.
How they got their wealth, how many people they screwed to get it, is of no consequence to most people. They goggle at magazines of the world’s 100 or 500 richest people and feel envy rather than disdain and revulsion for those who are nothing more than obsessive, soulless money-grubbers.
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one of my favorite pins says “eat the rich”… happy unthanksgiving day to you all.
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“They goggle at magazines of the world’s 100 or 500 richest people and feel envy rather than disdain and revulsion for those who are nothing more than obsessive, soulless money-grubbers.”
I couldn t say it better!
This is TRULY the core essence of our society.
It is this the reason for which I dare say, even if we go and clean waters of an indian or african village, from the societies there, obsessive soulless money grubbers emerge at very high speed. It is human who needs to be re-educated even before being saved.
Why do you make children?
Why do you need to make 6,7?
Cultural reasons hence taboo…
Or religious reason.. then abstain bloody hell, and truly be in tune with the religious principles.. cause i m sure God didn t say mate every damn nite..
So you see.. my initial opinion, early age, driven by empathy was help people.
Today I say NO. DO NOT HELP THEM. EDUCATE THEM. If possible.
IF NOT, let nature take its course.
The problem is that the souless money grabbers needed slaves and perpetrated the reproductive bonanza.. now they feel its hit back and they start to pull the plug.
I met people borm from poooooorest families. Their dream were TONS OF MONEY.
TONS OF MONEY and they looked at me like to an alien when I said but there s more to life than money. Educated fellers, with degrees and all… And when I said art, literature, human empathy, etc.. are not quantifyiable in money.. how can you reduce a man to his esate value….they looked atme in silence, corners of mouth down, and turned head fast, in DISDAIN.These poor poor people that were helped to survive.
Before you let a potential soulless grabber in seed to survive, make sure he is EDUCATED.
This is my view. But it is a gargantuan task, and there’s no one to take it.
At least at a significant scale.
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One more idea, forgive me for my lengthy comments.
That does not mean the idiotic hong kogese could lo better with 500000. Plant a garden for example… H ah ha ha ha
Second. Michael Jackson. I am not a fan. But.
BEWARE. The media creates images and we buy into them, even us, intelligent people.
I too seen him as a wacko and wandered what is wrong with him,.
But then I paused for a minute, listened to some of his fans arguments and to my own soul, not mind, and to my own life examples.
1. court case. I sued a big corporation. I eventually won. BUT YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW DISTRESSING AND HUMILIATING it was to go through court proceedings.. regardless to what the corporation did to me, I was regarded as the villain ans strained to my guts. I dreaded every day I had to go there.. the preparations and all.. So to MJ… I know how it must have been.
2. He had money lots lots lots of money. Which he made SINGING and using his personal TALENT. If we were all doing this, making money with our genuine talent.. this world would be heaven.
3. He had money lots lots lots of money. Had you wondered.. how come so many parents settled out of court in “undisclosed” deals? WOULD YOU SETTLE YOUR CHILD”S DEGNITY AND INNOCENCE for a thick buck? But they did. What does that tell you?
4. These days.. people with money are as much target of blood suckers.. I say why you let your child unsupervised at night with a star? ha ha ha.. because you paln to later sue him and claim … and then accept money to drop the charges. IT SMELLS FISHY and it is my core believe that MJ was not guilty.
5. he was at odds with himself.. so? HE LIVED HIS OWN LIFE and made his choice mutilating his own body in search of his ideal.. Should that constitute our business or topic of comment? Yet it does. Why? Because media made a business out of it, and we bought into it.
6. Have you ever wondered why was he a constant target to maligning? His fans thought me that he argued with thw MIDDLEMAN. Which is, his talent was used by SONY major corporation, which was sucking the majority of his earings .. Dear Dear Middle Man. MJ dropped Sony and since then his career was bust. and MEDIA started to malign him even more. Wonder why?
7. I think the message perpetrated by MJ in his songs are good. HEAL THE WORLD. THEY DON T CARE ABOUT US. I only name two, not a fan, but even I know these. And rarely do I find in todays pleiad of hits, BEYONCE shaking booty and JZ talking negro power.. a healing healthy message. MJ maybe odd.. but oddest it is that we allow these pseudo artist incite inour kids (and see.. i don t have kids, but i call kids OURS, they are mine too).. our kids, the “dream” to become a stylish prostitute and a rapping nonsense pseudo gangster..
8. Social tendency to gossip and looking at others faults and issues. We have to stick to our business, and fight or criticize something that hurts us or the things that matter only. We have no right to analyze comment and look in disdain at someone s personal preferences and the way he expresses and choses to live his life. Yet this is the thing we constantly do in the offices, on the streets, in our intimate forum. It sucks.
MJ, long live for daring to be yourself, or better said, for daring to sculpt yourself the way you wanted in a world which can only accept pre approved prototypes.
I for one, cant care less. We are all free and we should all be free, as long as we exercise this right within the own personal borders.
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how do we know it’s the ‘original’ glove????………………
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p.s. there was also a lock of elvis’ hair sold the other day……………
next up for auction: rin tin tin’s nail clippings……………..any bids?
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Why do people want to possess useless objects,? I don’t know. My bid is, it’s a way to white wash money earned from a black markets. ?
It’s amazing, on the other hand, that those kind of people can have such a unshakable belief in a inanimate / material world (in my view completely worthless things)
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
Well done Adina
Thanks to, for the MJ torrent / defence talk of yours. I am 100% with you on this subject No one, (who has ears) can deny that MJ was endowed with one of the greatest voices in our time, like it or not.
I raise my voice with you on this, not because I was a fan great of him [[my idolatry is deposited decades ago with The Beatles, Cliff Richard/SHADOWS, Burt Bacarach/Dion Warrick, The Searchers and many other then (sixty) time ]].but more because he has been so much teared to pieces mainly for his behavior outside the scene .
Instead of the ever lasting reproach of MJ because he wanted his nose changed, why not turn the question to medics, who did the (bungle) job. At that time they were more than willing to undertake the job for big money – which MJ had so plenty of.
Michael Jackson is incomparable to anyone – I think.
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I don’t understand this thinking either. Does the guy want his friends and family to envy him for being the new owner of MJ’s glove? Is he really hoping to double his money later when he sells it? Is this the only way he can feel important? Why couldn’t he feel so much more important and better about himself if he helped a village in India? Okay so maybe he doesn’t like India. Why couldn’t he help the starving in his own country? Maybe he already did and now he’s rewarding himself with this glove toy? As a practical matter I couldn’t even dust the furniture with it. (There are too many sequins.) So it would be of no value to me.
So the question is about money and values in today’s society. For me, even if the guy had spent 1 billion to help others, I still think he wasted his $500,000 on a useless glove toy and could have used that money to help even more!!!
But let’s consider this too. I spend $40 per month on my internet connection. Do I need it? No but I really want it. It allows me to talk to people around the world like all of you here. Because I don’t need it, it is a luxury to me. And because I know how to cook from scratch, I could use that same money to provide at least 20 meals per month for some starving people. I don’t see any starving people here in my town so I guess I could send the money to some organization that helps starving people. (Although I know there are people here somewhere that probably go to bed hungry and I don’t know how to find them.) And I also know that any organization that I send money to is going to deduct their overhead/admin fees before my left over money ever makes it to the people who actually need it.
So my point is that it is the value or valueless part that’s more important here than the dollar amount. This businessman has so much money that he could help a village and I have so little in comparison but still I could help 1. Or I could provide one meal to twenty people per month. But I haven’t made a decision to let go of my internet yet.
Why do I even make this outrageous comparison? Because I think it will matter in the next few months or the next couple of years at the most. The economy will collapse (globally I think) This will change all of our values right down to the bare essentials. For those of us who think of these things we will learn to cut corners even further and help others along the way. But for others who are greedy they will become robbers and murderers. (They will never understand that money is not the answer.) Human cooperation is the answer.
Adina brings up the point of education that seems too huge to tackle. But I think she is correct. There’s an old saying that I’ve heard that goes something like this: “Feed a man dinner and you have helped him for one night, but teach a man to fish and you’ve taught him how to feed himself forever.”
And here in the states there are those who have learned how to use the government assistance programs in wrongful ways. The welfare mother, whoever she is, knows that when she has another baby she can apply for even more assistance. Her family of 3 just grew to a family of 4, 5, 6….. and her government check gets bigger each baby. She applies for food stamps and the government will issue a credit card type thing and load it with a dollar amount each month so that she can buy groceries for all of these babies. But she has a few bad habits. She knows she needs a couple of hundred dollars per month to buy her cigarettes. (Government don’t give her any cigarette money.) She offers to trade her foodstamp card to someone for 80 cents on the dollar. They give her the cash, they get to use her card and get their groceries at a discount, and she uses the cash to buy her cigarettes and whatever else she wants. She feeds her kids something real cheap like Ramen noodles. And the nutritious meals that the government thought they were funding with our tax payer dollars (for her children) …well it’s all a scam.
So we have the ultra rich buying shit that is worthless in a world of starving people. And you have the poor using the system that could help some of the starving children, but instead, taking the money and still allowing the children to starve. (Not all rich people are evil and not all poverty stricken people try to cheat the system.) Education and understanding is of the utmost importance, so is empathy.
I think our value systems are going to be tested, weighed and measured more than once in the near future. And I believe we will find that we can’t make it without help from each other. (The very opposite of this world today where it’s every man for himself.) Sorry for the long post…I do go on sometimes……
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Adina, thanks for your two comments. Wow! There is much to ponder there. Indeed education, understanding and empathy are important if we are to have a world where real values prevail!
Coco, yuk! The dog’s nail clippings? I’m too paw to afford them!
John, I certainly agree that M.J. was incomparable to anyone. Would you let him babysit your children?
Kathy, it amuses me how, following on from the global financial crisis, there is a strong movement by Governments and the Fat Cats to return to free, unregulated markets again. It’s as though the capitalist mindset hasn’t cottoned on to the fact that capitalism has a use-by date, that we can’t continue to flood the world with infinite numbers of goods and services and expect people to use credit to buy them.
Cheers to everyone!
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Dear David, Thank You for inciting and allowing these interesting topics , these dialogues.. your trademark, as always!
Dear JohnLJ, Thank You so much for the boosting support.
Dear Kathy,I for one am happy someone else writes long comments too. Much more so, when they are full of substance, such as in You case. Amazing amazing parallel.. what constitutes luxury, what constitues excess.. (e.g. internet).. WOW. Great point.
Learning a lot here
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John,
right on also witht he butchers, responsible for MJ’s nose. Great point.
Funny isnt it? In the “civilized” world millions of people spend HOURS of their lives and MONEY in UV emitting booths trying to darken their skin. or spraying fake tan on their bodies, chemical laden, trying to look “healthily tanned”. Yet that is considered sane!
None less weird, yet far more accepted, than whitening the skin of a black.
This world is definitely twisted , and so my only personal goal is to untwist my brain from my own and other’s misconception of “acceptable” or not.
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David what form of economic system works best? I’ve only ever been exposed to capitalism here.
The governments and fat cats are trying to avoid telling the citizens the full truth. The system has failed. The jobs that have been lost are not coming back. People haven’t wrapped their brains around that yet. They look to the MSM who tells them that things are improving. Sales of consumer goods were up by the end of August but that only happened because of the cash for clunkers program which caused many people to rush out and trade their cars (that were probably paid off) for new cars. That was a government program to induce people to buy something! They are also still offering the $8000 tax credit to first time home buyers so they can say the housing market is showing signs of life. They just expanded that program to offer a slightly lesser credit to second time home buyers. The economy (as best I can tell) crashed last year in September. The governments and central bankers intervened to prop it up with a toothpick of stimulus packages. I believe they did it to cover up a world of criminal activity AND to stop what would have been panic in the streets here and most probably the beginning of a bloody revolution. Since it seems that all of our economies are intertwined this would have been a global revolution. The governments weren’t prepared to deal with angry mobs of people storming the Capitols shouting “off with their heads.”
The tooth pick will break. The question now is when?
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Adina, I love the comments here too. As you said, I’m trying to untwist my brain also. I’ve had 48 years of indoctrination that I’m trying to measure against the truth. (or at least what I think is the truth as I stumble upon it.) I love reading about things I never knew before and I think I could spend my whole life reading and researching and still never be in danger of becoming too smart or running out of new things to learn.
This blog with this comments section is the best I’ve ever seen. David thanks for creating such a place to visit so that we can have a chance to learn from these wonderful conversations.
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Same here Kathy! Same here! Love reading… could live a whole life among books.
And another thing that makes me extremely happy is discovering a new view, radically different from mine, on a topic I though I have a very solid opinion about. I also feel this place allows this kind of interaction, and am honored to meet and dialogue with so many intelligent people.
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[cannot keep up with the pace of yours - David]
David
I shall not claim to be a ‘professor’ in the private life of MJ’s (fifty one year ?).
and if one consider,that my limited knowledge is passed through via a very unreliable media, to say the least, then I maybe had best to keep my mouth shut.
But I refuse! to
Because….
It’s also based on these same ‘independet’ media spreading lies which destroy lifes of innocents, be it of individuals or, in Iraq, in the millions.
Therefore I shall never let my ‘nanny’ be chosen based on informations coming form those, in my view, damned liers of western media, I can assure.
To substantiate:
Just another example on this, lately, (of stamping/condemn innocents), on Danish public Radio programme .
The newspresenter was, ADAM HOLM (the same PRO zionist I linked to (YouTube), yesterday)
He opened his very IRAN ‘analizing programme’, in company with three other newspaper EDITORS stating: “we all agree on that Ahmedinejad is a villain”.
With other words:
Ahmedinejad didn’ t get a chance to defend himself HE IS A VILLAIN -Because we say he is a VILLAIN…- – - finish…
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Adina, I am enjoying the flows of ideas as much as you are. It gives me hope that perhaps we can undo the indoctrination after all.
Kathy, neither capitalism or socialism really works. The former encourages greed, materialism and selfishness while the former reduces people to the level of a blancmange of mindless clones.
The best system is one that carefully combines the better aspects of both, one where taxation stops people from becoming too wealthy and redistributes their wealth to those who genuinely struggle.
I feel also that we need to return to a more rural lifestyle, one that is more in harmony with nature and we need to spend much more of our lives, not working, but developing our potential, be it in artistic pursuits or helping others.
John, I’m sorry the pace is too fast but things keep happening. I agree that the MSM shapes our view of the world and clearly puts people in categories like ‘villains’ and ‘heroes.’ This is why people must be encouraged to think for themselves and challenge insane views like ‘war is to bring peace’ and ‘becoming wealthy’ is the answer to all life’s problems.
Cheers.
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Therese Reply:
November 26th, 2009 at 10:13 am
That you are so prolific, David G, is really amazing to me. Also, I am grateful, dear. Happy Thanksgiving, all.
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David G Reply:
November 26th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Therese, given the delay in the start of my treatment (it begins in early January now), I find that I’m better to be busy with the blog rather than have too much time to think about what the future might hold.
Thinking about others, I find, is beneficial.
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adina Reply:
November 27th, 2009 at 12:39 am
You are doing a wonderful job, David.
Not here to please you, here selfishly, because my spirit is pleased.
You are familiar with buddhism. Please do not let the dual appeareances of doubt shadow your mind. Please do also detach from these temporary ills of humanity, which you are so passionately trying to fight. Do not hurt yourself more than this world already had hurt you, and us all.
Although I am not an advocate of wishful thinking, and all the bogus of positive thought churning “best seller” millionaires.. I DO BELIEVE that an inner MENTAL POSITIVITY causes a chemical balance that destroys disease. It is therefore our task to consciously achieve that balance and activate in you the destruction of your temporary disturbance.
Do I talk like a wacko? Does it matter?
if only a heart could heal…
If only a word could say.
I do not regard you as a sick person that needs my pity/compassion, neither does any one of us who visit your blog, I am sure. You are a strong man, with a temporary disturbance, which we are here to fight together. Ours is a moral support only, but it comes genuine, because you won our hearts, long before the disturbance appeared. We shall overcome it.
Together. Like rarely people do.
Michael Jackson was an abused child who was still terrified of his father, even after becoming a father himself. My mother loved listening to him on the radio; he brought so much joy to the world. He knew about the Jews, and you can hear him sing his revulsion, in the song, “They don’t Care About Us”. Many male child stars end up as freaks, and it is terrible that that doctor killed him.
As far as the worth of the glove, that is because humans are like monkeys in the way they idolize the most attractive of their species, to the point that they will deprive themselves just to have a chance to gaze at them, to buy one of their gloves that were used to dazzle their audience. That glove was a good investment opportunity.
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oh oh oh I love this:
“I feel also that we need to return to a more rural lifestyle, one that is more in harmony with nature and we need to spend much more of our lives, not working, but developing our potential, be it in artistic pursuits or helping others.”
There are kids today who have no idea where the food in the supermarket comes from .Such kids are more easy to accept whatever comes to them prepackaged, in any form. The generations to come and live mostly in the cities, while farms are accumulated by big corp., will never see the star studded sky.. nor will they care about it when they will..
It is here where our alienation with our human nature and with any basic principle of self choice starts. we do not chose. we think we do. but everything is prepackaged.
Work.. another topic of substances. What is WORK today?
What? LIES. IMMOBILITY. OBEDIENCE. LACK OF CREATIVITY (look at the stratification and decision makin process even in so called “creative jobs”).
All BULL CRAP.
Work should coincide with one’s passion and should be exercised in Freedom limited only by constructive feedback from genuinely interested and passionate individuals….
When did last your/mine office job coincide with this?
plus.. we are so depended of these cities and their structures.. that if something goes wrong one day… ……………. ha ha people think they can pack and store food and it’ll work…
Apropos. Hong Kong. Epithome of such a city disconnected from reality life. wonder why the individual bought the glove? What would a small farmer do with it? Whipe and clean his horse hair..
but i m afraid the diamonds would eventually drop. 
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Adina, your kind, positive thoughts are received with gratitude.
Together is how the world can best solve its ills. Thinking people, working together, are a potent force. Our task is to attack the mindless indoctrination which afflicts most people.
Thinking people can work out right from wrong, can reject manipulation, can see how ridiculous war and greed and materialism is.
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Adina, your kind, positive thoughts are received with gratitude.
Together is how the world can best solve its ills. Thinking people, working together, are a potent force. Our task is to attack the mindless indoctrination which afflicts most people.
Thinking people can work out right from wrong, can reject manipulation, can see how ridiculous war and greed and materialism is.
Therese, most children are abused one way or another. Thankfully, not all of them go off the rails.
Adina, since the industrial Revolution, the whole world has become a giant production line churning out ‘things’ which we are told will make us happy. Humans help to produce then, with their wages, they become mindless, non-thinking consumers. In so doing they make the capitalists ultra-rich, achieve little of their real potential, and help to destroy our planet.
We need to change direction quickly, while there is still time!
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