From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Fri Jul 01 2005 - 17:39:16 BST
Hi Mark --
> How can a selfless person own anything?
How can one be a "selfless person"? Are you a selfless person? Do you know
anyone who is?
Selfness is the existential essence of a person. Biologically,
sociologically and culturally, selfness defines the individual. Survival in
life depends upon it. So does freedom of choice. A person without selfness
has no reason to live; he or she is an automaton without value or purpose.
The problem you seem to be struggling with is the notion of proprietary
ownership. We do not "possess" things in the metaphysical sense that they
are a part of us, any more than we "possess" God or reality or Quality. We
are only observers of a world in which everything is an "other" to us. Our
material possessions are no more than appropriated articles that can be
transferred to other individuals at the end of our life-experience. They
are consigned to us by virtue of our labor, payment, or inheritance.
There is no greed implied in such transactions. All that is required is the
willingness to work for what we have. Material goods earned for
contributions to society are a measure of our individual freedom.
Capitalism is not based on greed; it's the enlightenend concept of being
rewarded commensurate with our productivity and talent.
To assert that the individual has no "right" to material possessions because
they are properties of some external "authority" is nonsensical. So is the
idea of "selflessness". "Each according to his ability, to each according
to his need"? Anyone who falls for that Marxist line doesn't know the value
of human life. That's pure Collectivism, and it's where Chomsky and his
fellow nihilists would dearly like to take us. I sincerely hope that no one
here is reading that ideology into the MoQ.
Essentially,
Ham
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