A Tycoon As A Punching-Bag
I don’t understand people who go out to the streets and demand to be given something. Why do they deserve it? If it were my child, it would be different. But I didn’t give birth to you, so why should I take care of you?
Even if I were a tycoon, so what? I made my money, so why do you come to me? What is unjust here? What is illegal here? Why do you demand something from me? Why do I have to feel ashamed of what I have earned, of my social status?
Let’s take an athlete for example, who worked out in the gym for twenty years and has lifted tons of weights. Now he has muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he is proud of it. Suddenly some demonstrators come to him and demand to “take off” some of his muscles. How would he see that?
So if a tycoon has worked hard and has earned his wealth, he also has his own “muscles,” but they are expressed in his bank account. What right do you have to put your hand on it?
Another example: A musician has practiced for years, fifteen hours a day. Does he have to give up what he has achieved for you?
So why do we look at a rich man differently? Hasn’t he worked as hard as the athlete or the musician? And even if he has it as a result of his father’s efforts, so what? If you think that there is social injustice here—go and change society, do something. But it is wrong to just come and demand. And besides, if you destroy the tycoons, you will destroy society. Who will provide people with jobs? Who will enable them to make a living?
As long as the world is egotistic, we cannot change it for the better. We have seen it in Russia. Instead of correcting things, we will only create a bigger lie and new ways of stealing. In an egotistic society, every organization and every individual operate according to their own interests, and there is nothing we can do. We cannot build a more just society than the present one on the basis of the same desires, the same egoistic “fuel.”
There is no other choice but to change the engine.
[56036]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/2011, “The Nation”
Related Material:
Learning For The Sake Of Daily Bread
Take Care Of The Tycoons, You Just Might Need Them
Will The Elite Help Us?
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But we can not change the engine, we can not escape our egoism…
I don’t agree with anybody trying to take anything away from me or forcing me to give them anything. I do agree that the rich should stop abusing and taking everything away from the poor. Even before these crazy protesters began running amok, I stood against the rich who rob the poor blindly for a very long time. Even back when these same protesters were screaming and yelling at me that we should go to war back in 2001. Now they’re saying we should bring the troops home, and bring Wall Street to justice. I have been in debates where every last one of them was against me. Telling me I’m wrong about what I say. I’m not saying there aren’t any rich people who are honest. What I am saying is that our system is setup in a away that allows the rich to take whatever they want from poor people, and nobody can do anything about it.
The people are not asking for anything for free. They are protesting the fact that our government is wholly controlled by 1% of the population and the international corporations which buy and sell politicians–especially Republicans–and then dictate legislation that has been transferring the wealth of the American working class to the elite for 30 years. I liken it to the Cossacks who were allowed to raid and rob the shetls so that their lust would not turn against the Czars and their cronies. And, just like in Russia, if we don’t protest it now, it will fester until revolution overturns the current order.
It is this widespread all or nothing premise that misses the point. It is not capitalism that is under attack. It is rampant greed, lying, cheating, stealing, buying off, usurping… all at the expense of the others who mostly play by the putative rules and still lose. Also, socialism is not communism. It is participation and some control over one’s work environment and giving on what one has received versus hoarding it for self-serving, winner-take-all purposes. It is understanding the interdependece of the world, of do unto others… Why does the basic Kabbalistic premise of the circle of bestower and receiver, of proper intention, suddenly go out the window here? A growing number of tycoons have forgotten that they built their wealth with the cooperation of the rank-and-file, the road builders, the teachers, the working stiff who are all losing ground as they build their gated communities and prosper beyond all measure. Bless the Warren Buffetts and Bill Gateses. But I do agree with you that education is the key to all the world’s ills. The protesters are trying to educate, to awaken. Yes, they know this is their predestined condition to come to terms with now. But they are trying to change, not others, but the environment in which they live, which is according to Kaballah, the only thing one can change.