The moral imperative of the dollar
On Wednesday, my sister and her husband invited me over to their house after work for the ostensible purpose of providing feedback on some "business" that they are currently engaged in.
It turned out to be something of a sales pitch. They've been involved with an organization called LIFE Leadership, which purports to be all about self-discovery and improvement in various key aspects of life; more or less standard self-improvement/self-empowerment fare in the form of reading materials, audio records, videos, all the way on up to seminars and conventions and the like. They were emphatic about how much this "system" has improved their quality of life, both as individuals and as a couple, and in particular with regards to their finances.
Turns out the whole thing is yet another play on the tired Multi Level Marketing scheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing if you haven't heard of these before). I guess the theory is that you share all of these delightful self-improvement strategies with your friends and family not only by coaxing them into buying the materials, but by recruiting them as advocates who will spread the word, sell more product, and, of course, recruit still more into the scheme. Of course I had to politely decline at this point; not only do I have an innate distrust of MLMs as my parents (via Nu Skin) and my grandparents (via Quixtar and MonaVie) have fallen prey to these moronic schemes, but I have no interest or ability when it comes to sales. They weren't too pushy about it, and other than the loss of a couple of hours, there was really no harm done.
In spite of the general veneer of being geared toward self-improvement in numerous categories, the heavy thrust of the presentation - even before the MLM nature of the beast raised its head - was on money. A lot of near-preaching about the virtues of strict budgets that allow one to amass large sums of money, about the joys of wealth, how to get out from under the yoke of oppressive employers. There was a lot of hearkening back to the ideals of the Founding Fathers (or at least a convenient interpretation thereof) that seems to insist that there is some kind of special pixie dust in America's soil that means literally ANYONE can be a successful capitalist entrepreneur and amass great sums of wealth without being dependent upon an employer or a government or, well, anyone else for that matter.
It's something that strikes me as unusually common among the neoconservative religious folks here in the US, that there is some kind of God-given right to make money, or some kind of moral imperative to attain wealth. So much so that they are not only tolerant of arrogant remarks extolling the so-called 1% but they will avidly defend them. Even more bewildering and ironic is that the vast majority of the religious neocons who vehemently defend and extoll the virtues of money are, in fact, nowhere near being a part of the 1%. My family, in particular, who are not particularly successful people (from a monetary standpoint) and tend to struggle with money and finances. I don't understand it. Are they defending what they perceive to be some kind of attainable dream? Do they think if they want it/pray for it hard enough one day they will wake up as part of the 1% and thus gloat in their previous assertions? Do they not understand that, by the very definition of the concept, almost none of them will ever be a part of the 1%?
All hail the mighty dollar!
I have some other thoughts on social equality and the like that I think I will share for another time, but for now, I just had to kind of openly shake my head at this strange culture of idolizing money for its own sake.
It turned out to be something of a sales pitch. They've been involved with an organization called LIFE Leadership, which purports to be all about self-discovery and improvement in various key aspects of life; more or less standard self-improvement/self-empowerment fare in the form of reading materials, audio records, videos, all the way on up to seminars and conventions and the like. They were emphatic about how much this "system" has improved their quality of life, both as individuals and as a couple, and in particular with regards to their finances.
Turns out the whole thing is yet another play on the tired Multi Level Marketing scheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing if you haven't heard of these before). I guess the theory is that you share all of these delightful self-improvement strategies with your friends and family not only by coaxing them into buying the materials, but by recruiting them as advocates who will spread the word, sell more product, and, of course, recruit still more into the scheme. Of course I had to politely decline at this point; not only do I have an innate distrust of MLMs as my parents (via Nu Skin) and my grandparents (via Quixtar and MonaVie) have fallen prey to these moronic schemes, but I have no interest or ability when it comes to sales. They weren't too pushy about it, and other than the loss of a couple of hours, there was really no harm done.
In spite of the general veneer of being geared toward self-improvement in numerous categories, the heavy thrust of the presentation - even before the MLM nature of the beast raised its head - was on money. A lot of near-preaching about the virtues of strict budgets that allow one to amass large sums of money, about the joys of wealth, how to get out from under the yoke of oppressive employers. There was a lot of hearkening back to the ideals of the Founding Fathers (or at least a convenient interpretation thereof) that seems to insist that there is some kind of special pixie dust in America's soil that means literally ANYONE can be a successful capitalist entrepreneur and amass great sums of wealth without being dependent upon an employer or a government or, well, anyone else for that matter.
It's something that strikes me as unusually common among the neoconservative religious folks here in the US, that there is some kind of God-given right to make money, or some kind of moral imperative to attain wealth. So much so that they are not only tolerant of arrogant remarks extolling the so-called 1% but they will avidly defend them. Even more bewildering and ironic is that the vast majority of the religious neocons who vehemently defend and extoll the virtues of money are, in fact, nowhere near being a part of the 1%. My family, in particular, who are not particularly successful people (from a monetary standpoint) and tend to struggle with money and finances. I don't understand it. Are they defending what they perceive to be some kind of attainable dream? Do they think if they want it/pray for it hard enough one day they will wake up as part of the 1% and thus gloat in their previous assertions? Do they not understand that, by the very definition of the concept, almost none of them will ever be a part of the 1%?
All hail the mighty dollar!
I have some other thoughts on social equality and the like that I think I will share for another time, but for now, I just had to kind of openly shake my head at this strange culture of idolizing money for its own sake.