To promote independent thought about ultimates. Philosophy, commentary on the passing scene, and whatever else turns my crank. Since 4 May 2004. By William F. Vallicella, Ph.D., Gold Canyon, Arizona, USA. Motto: "Study everything, join nothing." (Paul Brunton) Latin Motto: Omnia mea mecum porto. Turkish motto: Yol bilen kervana katilmaz. (He who knows the road does not join the caravan.) All material copyrighted.
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Wealth and poverty are both overrated. Money cannot buy happiness. And non-possession is not the same as non-attachment. The poor are just as attached as the rich, the only difference being that they are attached to what they do not possess.
in the name of which you fallaciously declare
that wealth itself is overrated,
when it's a foundation of Western Civilization,
the first that enabled everyone to produce it.
The poverty that is overrated is here in America, where the so-called poor have the same average income as did all of America in 1960, and much better entertainment and medical services than then. You know where to find the hundreds of millions stuck in real poverty, and outright slavery, so poverty is most definitely not overrated concerning its ability to crush the humanity out of a people.
What is over-rated is resignation to the lack of the wealth we would have had were it not for the last century-plus of insane statist intervention in America's economy, by the hydra-headed left in all its various dreadful embodiments, a blind bull in the china shop of civilization.
Yes, money can't buy happiness,
but in the employ of wisdom
wealth can bring satisfaction
at the world-betterment it funds.
That's why I keep on inventificationizing.
If it weren't for the wealth
for which inventors work so persistently
our daily lives would still be at about 1750AD, at best.
Yes, wanting just to have wealth merely handed to you
is spiritually corrosive, but
earning wealth by creating it is a tough job,
so there have to be many people who want wealth,
for there to be some who work for decades to create it,
else it languishes unborn, a fate guaranteed by Leftism's successes.
If you are relying on wealth to make you happy, satisfied, or fulfilled, then I feel sorry for the disappointment that you have in store for you.
Some days I wish that I could go back to living in a studio apartment, driving a 15-year old car, and doing computer-science research for twelve hours a day. There was some real satisfaction in that life.
Seeing that you are speaking of the utility of wealth personally as opposed as to macro-economically, you are not (pace Biblio Bill) confused. It is must be one of the trials of the pithy that they cannot always rely upon the commonsense of others to impart the necessary meaning to their few words.
That said, I agree that money cannot buy happiness. However, I'm not so certain that the rich are as attached to their things as you say. I know you are painting with a broad brush to make a point, but it has been my experience that those who build fortunes are not generally materialistic.
So I would like to suggest that the commonality for attachment you have identified in the rich and the poor is a trait shared by the unproductive of those classes. When you know you can produce -- i.e., take something and add value to it, in short create wealth -- you do not have a strong desire to cling to things. At least not as strong as the unproductive.
Contrast this to the coupon clippers and the welfare queens. The former hangs on tightly to what they got. The latter lusts for what they do not have. Both do so because neither are creators of wealth.
Regards, Bill T
2. Disallowing comments from a particular person, or deleting an offensive, off-topic, or otherwise substandard comment, has nothing to do with censorship. People who think otherwise confuse censorship with lack of sponsorship. I am under an obligation not to interfere with anyone's exercise of legitimate free speech rights. But I am not under any obligation to aid and abet anyone's exercise of free speech rights, legitimate or illegitimate.
3. The Comments area is not an open forum for anyone to say anything about any topic. As the name implies, it is primarily for commenting on the author(s)' posts. But to comment on them, one must have read them. And if I have spent three hours on a post, a reader will not understand it in thirty seconds. Secondarily, the Comments area is to facilitate civil discussion between and among commenters as long as the discussion remains on-topic.
4. Some undesirables: The skimmers, those who cannot read but only read-in. The sophists who, abusing argument, argue for the sake of argument. The ideologues, those who are out for power, not truth. The uncivil. The illogical. The politically correct. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who exemplify the anti-Socratic property: those who think they know what they don't know. If Socrates was famous for his learned ignorance, these types are marked by their ignorant unlearnededness.