most of thoughts about man, begins with love of self…
the french call it… amour propre… a sense of one’s worth, self respect…
Rousseau used it in terms of the esteem that depends on others…
we have amour propre when others view us favorable…
the other term that can be use as self love is amour de soi, which
is self love but is more basic then amour propre… this self love tends to
be naturally good and is basic with animals also…the self love is for
the individual well being…
so we have two basic idea’s about self love…
but we have a third idea, that is we justify actions taken based on self love…
I am looking out for my best interests regardless of what that
means to others… looking out for number one and that is me…
this idea is not only common today but is the basis of our economic system…
but look at our hero’s… we glorify those who don’t put self love first…
our hero’s are MLK and Gandhi and Lincoln and Mother Teresa…
people who put others first and they don’t practice self love in the
third way…this shows we are aware of and want to follow those
who put others first… we just don’t have a support system that allows us
to practice what we preach… to practice putting others first means
we face opposition from those who goal is to practice self love by
accumulation of material goods and money…we are punished
for our desire to put others first by those who practice the vain and
selfish self love…notice the relationship between the words self
and selfish…
I call for a new understanding where we not only support but
we actively support those who put others first…
We follow our hero’s in this new understanding of who we are…
we reject the self love of the pursuit of material goods and wealth…
because that self love damages the person who practices it and, and
damages the family and the environment and the society of those who
put self love first, the love of goods and wealth…
but one says, it increases the wealth of a country and increases
the GDP… as if that is the important aspect of our lives… it isn’t…
the idea that we are an economic beings first and foremost is wrong
and dangerous… we cannot afford the practice of an unlimited
pursuit of limited wealth and material goods… we must, to save,
our resources, we must end the capitalistic idea that we pursue
wealth and material goods… if we put ourselves first, as we have done,
is to risk the future welfare and sustainability of any future society, of our
children health and welfare…what parent wastefully spends and
destroys a child’s inheritance? a rather selfish parent and that is what
we shall be if we waste and destroy our children’s inheritance by
using up our resources in some vain and unproductive pursuit of
wealth and material goods…
what we have failed to understand is our actions are not isolated
actions… we exists in both space and time… when we act,
our actions exists in both space and time…we take up space and
we occupy time… if we build a house, that house takes up both
space, the house occupies space and it takes up time…
that house exists within duration, which is time…
with every single house built leaves our children that much less
space and time… but we have millions to house and feed and clothe…
therein lies the difficulty of our current economic system whereas
500 people own the same amount of wealth as half of the entire human race…
in terms of the future sustainability of the human race, we cannot afford to
have the current economic inequality that exists because it denies
the future the ability to create its own future because the wealth
needed to create that future is tied up in the hands of a small
number of people… so we have a choice, keep our current system
and destroy our children’s future or we change and become
aware of our choices and practice love of others before love of self…
the choice is yours… self love and destroy the future or practice
love of others and save the future… choose and decide
the future…
Kropotkin