Week 4 of Cultural Anthropology is wearing me out!!

After reading these past two chapters in cultural anthropology, I have to wonder how it is possible that we don’t get it yet: Capitalism hurts/kills/decimates/reduces the humanity of the majority of the people it touches. If the word ‘socialism’ puts a bad taste in our collective mouth, then why not take a page from the marketing industry and call it something else? If we can call Kool-Aid, flavored water, if candy can be called fruit snacks, then why not call Socialism…oh I don’t know….Humanity over greed?

Wait. Let me pull back for a second. It is not simply greed that fuels capitalism it is fear. It is also the misguided notion of ‘other’. It seems we believe ourselves to be individuals in an absolute sense, as if there is some barrier, some space between you and I. There is not. I am not an anthropologist or a mathematician. I am only a human looking around. I have twenty four hours each day and a limited amount of energy. If I put all my resources into acquisition, then I am not maintaining.  I am not nurturing. I am not even culling what is no longer uselful. This is what we are doing. We are only pulling and storing, pulling and storing. We let food rot while people starve. We let houses sit empty while people freeze in the elements.

Did I miss something? It is possible that I missed something. Are human beings only driven by ambition and thus at risk of becoming lazy husks without the promise of out doing our neighbors? Or is that assumed personality trait a mistake? Has it been observed that all cultures desire ‘progress’ even at the cost of our sanity and community? If not, then maybe we should sit and listen to those, observe and take note of how to value each other.

 I keep reading ‘as above, so below’ in various books by authors who claim to have from one secret to seven, about spiritual enlightenment, but when will we actually look, underfoot, at the people(s) we are currently oppressing and displacing for a clue about how to live? Please know, I am not saying we have it All wrong, just that we have room to learn.