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RE: The paradox of being “anti-capitalist” in a capitalist society
I read an interesting book a while ago called Sacred Economic by Charles Eisenstein. Its available in a free download if you are interested on his website. It put into question many of the ways I think about money, cultural values and solidified what I had been thinking about for some time in the form of the human narrative we are sold. I have always struggled with capitalism and often get disheartened here as it seems the content is mostly produced and driven towards that purpose. Thanks for writing this. :)
I haven’t heard of that before. I will have to check it out.
I have also been frustrated with it, although being on steemit has allowed me to meet people like @builerofcastles (who also commented) and @kafkanarchy84 who have I can easily recognize as good and intelligent people, which makes the struggle a lot easier. This has helped me to rid myself of my own bias that “capitalists are bad or confused people” although we certainly do differ in our understanding of the world. It is frustrating to be raised inside of that narrative though, I was put on medicine when I was a kid because I didn’t like being forced to compete and kind of rebelled against it. We still aren’t always free to be ourselves.
@whatamidoing You might also enjoy this RSA. It's based on a much larger book called Empathetic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin. Certainly humans are wired for competition but we are also just as wired for cooperation and empathy. However much of what we are sold glorifies the competition and bastardizes the cooperation. I think there is a new human narrative brewing as more and more people realize that infinite growth on a finite planet is just not sustainable. :)
Watch "RSA ANIMATE: The Empathic Civilisation" on YouTube
I checked the vids - for which thanks. I found the comments (I only checked the last 4 years, which I copied (58 pages). Now I'm going to have to read through it all.
As I suggested in my comment here, even empathy is not the answer - it is just an answer.
I posed this scenario in my story: Robert senses children being abused in a brothel, and he interferes. However, there is one customer who tortures little boys and Robert forces empathy on him. The same man returns and tortures another child. Robert invades his mind and discovers that empathy is making the pain of the child even more of a pleasure for the man. It turns out he too was treated this way as a child and saw what he is doing as being good (natural) for the child.
Empathy is not an 'island' that floats on its own, it is affected by our personalities, our experiences and belief systems.