"Greed: The psychology of money, happiness and eternal life" - DW documentary
Instead of the epigraph:
"It is said that with money you can have everything, but you cannot. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine but not health; knowledge but not wisdom; glitter, but not beauty; fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything for money, but not the kernel."
- Arne Garborg (born Aadne Eivindsson Garborg) (1851 - 1924), Norwegian writer
* * *
see more
GREED: The psychology of money, happiness and eternal life
"People like to have a lot of stuff because it gives them the feeling of living forever," says American social psychologist Sheldon Solomon, who believes today's materialism and consumerism are will have disastrous consequences. Anyone who fails to satisfy his or her desires in this age of the Ego is deemed a loser. But with more than 7 billion people on the Earth, the ramifications of this excessive consumption of resources are already clear.
…
"Why do we care so much when others have more than we have, even though we actually have enough?”, asks American primatologist Sarah Brosnan.
One possible answer comes from a very rich Zimbabwean businessman, Philip Chiyangwa: “No one can ever claim to have enough. I have this in my head. I would even make money if you were to put me in the desert."
…
You can’t take it with you. Sheldon Solomon thinks we have to come to terms with our often unconscious motives - and even more with our own mortality.
-
Film director Jörg Seibold:
I believe human madness is increasing dramatically, perhaps it is worth questioning not just the global absurdity - terrorism, religious fanaticism, megalomaniac politicians, senseless wars, the mindless destruction of the environment, financial crises and predatory capitalism, flight and expulsion, and even the destruction of our own livelihoods through global warming…
It is much easier to start with oneself: for example, with the simple question as to what really satisfies me and when to I feel in harmony with my fellow men?
…
My meetings with the protagonists, especially with Sheldon Solomon, greatly impressed me and opened my eyes in many respects - especially Solomon’s preoccupation with Ernest Becker and his “Terror Management Theory.” [The Denial of Death, 1973]
-
Social psychologist Sheldon Solomon thinks he knows why humans are perpetually striving for validation and recognition. “It's the subliminal awareness of one's own transience, the loss of the ego. In the end, fear of death creates culture. A society that affords such a high status to wealth is encouraging greed.”
According to the so-called “Terror Management Theory,” man constantly strives for self-worth and meaning to compensate for this unconscious fear. He seeks and finds emotional security by creating a collective worldview - a cultural value system in which he feels safe and which protects him from the terror of finitude.
The more traditional values and the religions with their ideas about life after death lose importance, the more “worldly” standards of value take over the role of comforting the soul: possessions, status, money... Moreover, modern man looks for distraction by events, media, consumer or social networks. And some seek support in radical groups, in nationalism or racism. So greed “for more life” is becoming a symptom of anxiety in an increasingly meaningless society. It seems as if we have been seized by a panic that we’re always missing out.
see more
-
SHELDON SOLOMON: Terror management theory is our effort to take the ideas of Ernest Becker (1924-1974), a deceased cultural anthropologist who in the 1970s wrote some very important books, and to reduce them to a few simple assumptions that enabled us to then take them into the laboratory.
Central to Becker’s ideas about what motivates human behavior is the notion that we humans are unique in our awareness that we will someday die. And that gives rise to potentially paralyzing terror. We are also shackled with the collateral realization that our death can occur at any time for reasons that we could never anticipate or control. And finally, just kick us all in the psychological groin; we also don’t like the idea that we’re animals. From a starkly biological point of view, we are literally just breathing pieces of defecating meat.
And what Ernest Becker proposes is that what human beings did - rather ingeniously, but not necessarily consciously - is to construct and maintain what the anthropologists call “culture”. In other words, the terror is managed through humanly constructed beliefs that we live in a world of meaning and we are valuable contributors to that world. We refer to that as “self-esteem”.
Plato said: “That’s why you want to have children, that’s why you want to build pyramids, that’s why we want to write great books and symphonies. That’s why we want to have a lot of money - so that we can be elevated above the status of mere animals who are destined to die.”
…
one possibility based on our work is that human beings are motivated to have a lot of stuff and a lot of money - in part because, psychologically speaking, it gives them a sense that they may be able to live forever. And for that reason, enough is never enough.
…the desire to not die overrides our ability to just rationally entertain the possibility that there’ll come a point in our lives where we will need nothing - because we will be nothing.
…
Many Western Europeans and Americans in modernity, they no longer really have a firm belief in God. And what we propose is that, well, you don’t believe in God any more, but you have to believe in something that gives you confidence - some confidence, that you can live forever. Money has literally become, in Becker’s language, the new immortality ideology. We no longer worship God per se but we worship the prospect that if we only have enough stuff that we’re gonna be here a lot longer than anybody else.
…
as Ernest Becker said: “There is always gonna be a rumble of panic beneath the surface of consciousness. So, we’re gonna take this death anxiety and we’ve gotta do something with it.”
see more
-
Some people seem to find it easy to take huge economic risks. What role do emotions play in this process and what mechanisms take place in the brain? “Pleasant feelings such as euphoria trigger over-exaggerated risk responses. And winning intensifies them even more - because of the reward response in the brain,” says Johannes Hewig, psychologist at the University of Würzburg.
-
Like many other animals, man is a herd animal, he displays swarm behavior, loves hierarchies with clear roles and reacts in many cases like other primates. Human social, territorial and tribal behavior, instincts such as hunting, aggression, sexuality are all behavioral patterns and characteristics that remind us every time we open a newspaper how close we are to animals; and how many times we forget typical human qualities such as reason, empathy or morality.
The neurotic human-animal looks for distraction, compensation for the anxiety and gratification. To a certain extent, people behave like amoebas - attracted by anything that gives them satisfaction. So-called “neuromarketing” tries to capitalize on the way the human brain works: Electrochemical processes in the "reward center" secrete endorphins that make us temporarily happy. But in contrast to the animal, “the naked ape” often just cannot get enough
see more
-
What seems clear in affluent societies is that the more important the individual, the more it becomes all about self-realization, personal freedom and unlimited possibilities, and the more the ego of the individual is at the center. We live in a narcissistic, self-indulgent society in which is all about one thing: To have, not to be. And so people scavenge not just for money or possessions but also for recognition, experience and travel, partners and “likes,” shoes, handbags, sedans or SUV's.
see more
-
Khandro Rinpoche is a Buddhist spiritual teacher. “Today's lifestyle,” she says, “suggests to each individual that he is the most important thing in the universe. We lose sight of ourselves, cling to things and suppress the realization that everything is impermanent. This constant self-denial creates neuroses - and the worst of them is greed”.
When western-oriented companies talk about “wealth,” then the word “rich” is often mentioned in the same breath as “happy.”
From childhood on, we are conditioned to compare ourselves to others, to want more, to want something new or to try something better. Shopping becomes our favorite hobby.
With female fortune seekers, sales parties and shopping trips are booming - the world’s swanky shopping malls turned into event paradises long ago. Men, on the other hand, buy things they do not need with money they do not have to impress people they do not like. All this is powered by a multi-billion dollar advertising industry permanently persuading us that we need something that satisfies us - that makes us happy. Actual satisfaction would be poison for the concept of the “desire industry.”
KHANDRO RINPOCHE [She is one of few Tibetan Buddhist Lamas and a highly regarded spiritual teacher worldwide]:
Everything has become very mechanical. Someone tells you how your life should be. And everyone imitates one another, rather than there being a sense of awareness, of humaneness, of human true potentials.
…
Sometimes in India you find people who throw garbage outside their walls. The streets may be lined with garbage and waste, but as soon as you open their gate, you’ll find their lawns are impeccably neat, and tidy and beautiful gardens and nicely cleaned white washed houses are there. But then, they will step out of their own gates and then they won’t think twice before spitting or throwing something, or making dirty the external environment. So this is kind of the mentality that many of us have. So long as I am okay, I am comfortable and my own area is something that is protected - that sense of self-absorption distances ourselves from a global responsibility, of being able to see how everything I do has an impact to the other people and to the environment as well. So, it is a very linear selfish perspective, which is very unfortunate.
…
That sense of community, a sense of creating the globe, creating the community, creating the society, “I am part of the whole” - that feeling is definitely neglected these days.
…
I come from India… [where] every aspect of pain, suffering or ugliness is very apparent - it’s not hidden away. So, when that kind of accessibility is there, children grow up knowing that there are various ways of living life; that you are maybe very fortunate where others are not as fortunate - and a sympathetic attitude develops with that.
…
I’m quite optimistic, because I really think that when there is an extremeness of all this materialism happening that there is a lot of hope that from that there will come a saturation which will lead a person to knowing this doesn’t work. And perhaps, that will be the first gate that opens them up to much more deeper reflection, into finding answers not on the external, but finding much more answers within one’s own self.
see more
-
Mankind has increased dramatically in the last 2,000 years. We already exceeded the one billion mark in 1800: today there are well over 7 billion of us. And all of us consume resources - raw materials, land, and water. Accordingly, the state of the planet has deteriorated dramatically - dwindling rainforests, overfished oceans polluted by plastic, and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air.
The consequences of the thoughtless greed for things, boundless mobility and the growing disparities between rich and poor have long been visible. And they are complex. The melting of the poles or glaciers as a result of global warming is still relatively easy to understand - but it does happen a long way away... But in many parts of the world, living conditions are dramatically deteriorating due to climate change: soil loss, catastrophic droughts, floods, conflicts over resources. And so ultimately, migration, war and terrorism can be interpreted as signs of a collapsing system. But what’s typical of any collapse is this: once it’s there, it’s already too late.
see more
-
Religious scholar and ZEN-teacher Michael von Brück (Germany):
“The constant WANTING TO HAVE makes people run like hamsters in a wheel, so they never return to their senses.”
The theologian recommends regular meditation to reach a “wakefulness of consciousness” as a remedy for egotistical greed and addiction” and taking the term Nirvana - “The expansion of the ego” - quite literally.
* * *
См. также анимационные фильмы и рисунки Стива Каттса
"It is said that with money you can have everything, but you cannot. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine but not health; knowledge but not wisdom; glitter, but not beauty; fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything for money, but not the kernel."
- Arne Garborg (born Aadne Eivindsson Garborg) (1851 - 1924), Norwegian writer
* * *
Click to viewsee more
GREED: The psychology of money, happiness and eternal life
"People like to have a lot of stuff because it gives them the feeling of living forever," says American social psychologist Sheldon Solomon, who believes today's materialism and consumerism are will have disastrous consequences. Anyone who fails to satisfy his or her desires in this age of the Ego is deemed a loser. But with more than 7 billion people on the Earth, the ramifications of this excessive consumption of resources are already clear.
…
"Why do we care so much when others have more than we have, even though we actually have enough?”, asks American primatologist Sarah Brosnan.
One possible answer comes from a very rich Zimbabwean businessman, Philip Chiyangwa: “No one can ever claim to have enough. I have this in my head. I would even make money if you were to put me in the desert."
…
You can’t take it with you. Sheldon Solomon thinks we have to come to terms with our often unconscious motives - and even more with our own mortality.
-
Film director Jörg Seibold:
I believe human madness is increasing dramatically, perhaps it is worth questioning not just the global absurdity - terrorism, religious fanaticism, megalomaniac politicians, senseless wars, the mindless destruction of the environment, financial crises and predatory capitalism, flight and expulsion, and even the destruction of our own livelihoods through global warming…
It is much easier to start with oneself: for example, with the simple question as to what really satisfies me and when to I feel in harmony with my fellow men?
…
My meetings with the protagonists, especially with Sheldon Solomon, greatly impressed me and opened my eyes in many respects - especially Solomon’s preoccupation with Ernest Becker and his “Terror Management Theory.” [The Denial of Death, 1973]
-
Social psychologist Sheldon Solomon thinks he knows why humans are perpetually striving for validation and recognition. “It's the subliminal awareness of one's own transience, the loss of the ego. In the end, fear of death creates culture. A society that affords such a high status to wealth is encouraging greed.”
According to the so-called “Terror Management Theory,” man constantly strives for self-worth and meaning to compensate for this unconscious fear. He seeks and finds emotional security by creating a collective worldview - a cultural value system in which he feels safe and which protects him from the terror of finitude.
The more traditional values and the religions with their ideas about life after death lose importance, the more “worldly” standards of value take over the role of comforting the soul: possessions, status, money... Moreover, modern man looks for distraction by events, media, consumer or social networks. And some seek support in radical groups, in nationalism or racism. So greed “for more life” is becoming a symptom of anxiety in an increasingly meaningless society. It seems as if we have been seized by a panic that we’re always missing out.
see more
-
SHELDON SOLOMON: Terror management theory is our effort to take the ideas of Ernest Becker (1924-1974), a deceased cultural anthropologist who in the 1970s wrote some very important books, and to reduce them to a few simple assumptions that enabled us to then take them into the laboratory.
Central to Becker’s ideas about what motivates human behavior is the notion that we humans are unique in our awareness that we will someday die. And that gives rise to potentially paralyzing terror. We are also shackled with the collateral realization that our death can occur at any time for reasons that we could never anticipate or control. And finally, just kick us all in the psychological groin; we also don’t like the idea that we’re animals. From a starkly biological point of view, we are literally just breathing pieces of defecating meat.
And what Ernest Becker proposes is that what human beings did - rather ingeniously, but not necessarily consciously - is to construct and maintain what the anthropologists call “culture”. In other words, the terror is managed through humanly constructed beliefs that we live in a world of meaning and we are valuable contributors to that world. We refer to that as “self-esteem”.
Plato said: “That’s why you want to have children, that’s why you want to build pyramids, that’s why we want to write great books and symphonies. That’s why we want to have a lot of money - so that we can be elevated above the status of mere animals who are destined to die.”
…
one possibility based on our work is that human beings are motivated to have a lot of stuff and a lot of money - in part because, psychologically speaking, it gives them a sense that they may be able to live forever. And for that reason, enough is never enough.
…the desire to not die overrides our ability to just rationally entertain the possibility that there’ll come a point in our lives where we will need nothing - because we will be nothing.
…
Many Western Europeans and Americans in modernity, they no longer really have a firm belief in God. And what we propose is that, well, you don’t believe in God any more, but you have to believe in something that gives you confidence - some confidence, that you can live forever. Money has literally become, in Becker’s language, the new immortality ideology. We no longer worship God per se but we worship the prospect that if we only have enough stuff that we’re gonna be here a lot longer than anybody else.
…
as Ernest Becker said: “There is always gonna be a rumble of panic beneath the surface of consciousness. So, we’re gonna take this death anxiety and we’ve gotta do something with it.”
see more
-
Some people seem to find it easy to take huge economic risks. What role do emotions play in this process and what mechanisms take place in the brain? “Pleasant feelings such as euphoria trigger over-exaggerated risk responses. And winning intensifies them even more - because of the reward response in the brain,” says Johannes Hewig, psychologist at the University of Würzburg.
-
Like many other animals, man is a herd animal, he displays swarm behavior, loves hierarchies with clear roles and reacts in many cases like other primates. Human social, territorial and tribal behavior, instincts such as hunting, aggression, sexuality are all behavioral patterns and characteristics that remind us every time we open a newspaper how close we are to animals; and how many times we forget typical human qualities such as reason, empathy or morality.
The neurotic human-animal looks for distraction, compensation for the anxiety and gratification. To a certain extent, people behave like amoebas - attracted by anything that gives them satisfaction. So-called “neuromarketing” tries to capitalize on the way the human brain works: Electrochemical processes in the "reward center" secrete endorphins that make us temporarily happy. But in contrast to the animal, “the naked ape” often just cannot get enough
see more
-
What seems clear in affluent societies is that the more important the individual, the more it becomes all about self-realization, personal freedom and unlimited possibilities, and the more the ego of the individual is at the center. We live in a narcissistic, self-indulgent society in which is all about one thing: To have, not to be. And so people scavenge not just for money or possessions but also for recognition, experience and travel, partners and “likes,” shoes, handbags, sedans or SUV's.
see more
-
Khandro Rinpoche is a Buddhist spiritual teacher. “Today's lifestyle,” she says, “suggests to each individual that he is the most important thing in the universe. We lose sight of ourselves, cling to things and suppress the realization that everything is impermanent. This constant self-denial creates neuroses - and the worst of them is greed”.
When western-oriented companies talk about “wealth,” then the word “rich” is often mentioned in the same breath as “happy.”
From childhood on, we are conditioned to compare ourselves to others, to want more, to want something new or to try something better. Shopping becomes our favorite hobby.
With female fortune seekers, sales parties and shopping trips are booming - the world’s swanky shopping malls turned into event paradises long ago. Men, on the other hand, buy things they do not need with money they do not have to impress people they do not like. All this is powered by a multi-billion dollar advertising industry permanently persuading us that we need something that satisfies us - that makes us happy. Actual satisfaction would be poison for the concept of the “desire industry.”
KHANDRO RINPOCHE [She is one of few Tibetan Buddhist Lamas and a highly regarded spiritual teacher worldwide]:
Everything has become very mechanical. Someone tells you how your life should be. And everyone imitates one another, rather than there being a sense of awareness, of humaneness, of human true potentials.
…
Sometimes in India you find people who throw garbage outside their walls. The streets may be lined with garbage and waste, but as soon as you open their gate, you’ll find their lawns are impeccably neat, and tidy and beautiful gardens and nicely cleaned white washed houses are there. But then, they will step out of their own gates and then they won’t think twice before spitting or throwing something, or making dirty the external environment. So this is kind of the mentality that many of us have. So long as I am okay, I am comfortable and my own area is something that is protected - that sense of self-absorption distances ourselves from a global responsibility, of being able to see how everything I do has an impact to the other people and to the environment as well. So, it is a very linear selfish perspective, which is very unfortunate.
…
That sense of community, a sense of creating the globe, creating the community, creating the society, “I am part of the whole” - that feeling is definitely neglected these days.
…
I come from India… [where] every aspect of pain, suffering or ugliness is very apparent - it’s not hidden away. So, when that kind of accessibility is there, children grow up knowing that there are various ways of living life; that you are maybe very fortunate where others are not as fortunate - and a sympathetic attitude develops with that.
…
I’m quite optimistic, because I really think that when there is an extremeness of all this materialism happening that there is a lot of hope that from that there will come a saturation which will lead a person to knowing this doesn’t work. And perhaps, that will be the first gate that opens them up to much more deeper reflection, into finding answers not on the external, but finding much more answers within one’s own self.
see more
-
Mankind has increased dramatically in the last 2,000 years. We already exceeded the one billion mark in 1800: today there are well over 7 billion of us. And all of us consume resources - raw materials, land, and water. Accordingly, the state of the planet has deteriorated dramatically - dwindling rainforests, overfished oceans polluted by plastic, and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air.
The consequences of the thoughtless greed for things, boundless mobility and the growing disparities between rich and poor have long been visible. And they are complex. The melting of the poles or glaciers as a result of global warming is still relatively easy to understand - but it does happen a long way away... But in many parts of the world, living conditions are dramatically deteriorating due to climate change: soil loss, catastrophic droughts, floods, conflicts over resources. And so ultimately, migration, war and terrorism can be interpreted as signs of a collapsing system. But what’s typical of any collapse is this: once it’s there, it’s already too late.
see more
-
Religious scholar and ZEN-teacher Michael von Brück (Germany):
“The constant WANTING TO HAVE makes people run like hamsters in a wheel, so they never return to their senses.”
The theologian recommends regular meditation to reach a “wakefulness of consciousness” as a remedy for egotistical greed and addiction” and taking the term Nirvana - “The expansion of the ego” - quite literally.
* * *
См. также анимационные фильмы и рисунки Стива Каттса