Foundations: The Opiate of the People- Karl Marx

View of God through the eyes of the philosopher/early sociologist Karl Marx

Disclosure
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Karl Marx was a philosopher; therefore, as such, he was part of a very large, pedantic, exhausting debate expanding out into many branches; beginning at least as early as Plato and continuing to today.  Marx himself contributed many volumes of writing to this debate.  While most modern educated people know something of Marx; our views should be held with caution as most of us, myself included, are not prepared or inclined to read the entire works of Marx, as well as that of his peers and predecessors, to be certain we clearly understand what he was trying to say with all necessary complexity taken into consideration.
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Having provided the above disclosure, generically speaking, Marx was a dialectical materialist; although he disagreed with dialectics and materialists independently.  Marx's primary contribution to humanity was the viewpoint that political and social reality is shaped by struggles between social classes over control of the material modes of production- broadly classified in sociology as "conflict theory."   Having observed numerous examples of this theory, and the outcome for humanity, Marx preached to the workers of the world the need to throw off the chains of oppression.

Within his "conflict theory" framework Marx exposed religion was part of the "superstructure" of reality generated by underlying reality of the material substructure.  That is, it is religion is one of the techniques that the ruling class uses to keep the subject class under control.  He said it is an opiate, a drug that immobilizes the subject class with the hope of a spiritual reward as a substitute for material possessions. Ironically, Marx's  viewpoint was so popular it became a sort of a quasi-religion, which unfortunately was used to control people, resulting in an outcome similar to that which he was trying to prevent.  That aside, Marx had a point, a careful historical analysis will demonstrate many examples of religion being used by the elite as a tool of submission. Critics of religion say religion is an implicit justification of injustice, misusing human tendency for self-serving thinking and/or wishful thinking; or in other words and offering of "pie in the sky when you die," meanwhile you can starve.

Despite Marx's atheistic tone, there are actually many clergy, particularly Catholic clergy, who preach "identification with the poor" as a primary aspirations and tenet of Christianity who find Marx as a brother in their fight, or find his works to not be a contradiction to the original teachings of Christ, but actually a supporting  viewpoint.  The "Liberation Theologists" in South America are a prime example.

From my standpoint it could be that Marx was generally correct about "Religion" and its application in society, however wrong and/or silent about the original mystic writings and writers.  Regardless of society or time, many a prophet have been murdered while the elite stood by- nearly all in fact.  It was only later that the prophet was institutionalized.  If I may claim any small piece of middle ground I propose the disconnect is somewhere in between these events.


Contribution To The Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Excerpts


"The basis of the irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man.  In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again.  But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world.  Man is the world of man, the state, society. This state, this society, produce religion, a reversed world-consciousness, because they are a reversed world.  Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point of honor , its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its universal ground for consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence because the human essence has no true reality.  The struggle against religion is therefore mediately the fight against the other world, of which religion is the spiritual aroma."  


"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real stress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the distressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation.  It is the opium of the people."  


"The task of history, therefore, once the world beyond the truth has disappeared, is to establish the truth of the world.  The immediate task of philosophy, which is at the service of history, once the saintly form of human self-alienation has been unmasked, is to unmask self-alienation in its unholy forms.  Thus the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of right and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."  

Theses on Feuerbach

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Excerpts

I

The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism -- is that the thing, reality, that which can be sensed, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as human sensory activity, practice, not subjectively. 

II
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but a practical question.  In practice man must prove the truth, that is, the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question

III

The doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of other circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men that change circumstances and that the educator himself needs educating. Hence, this doctrine necessarily arrives at dividing society into two parts, of which one is superior to society.  The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity can be conceived and rationally understood as revolutionizing practice.

IV

(Materialism) starts out from the fact of religious self-alienation, the duplication of the world into a religious, imaginary world and a real one.  (Materialism) consists in the dissolution of the religious world into a secular basis.  (It) overlooks the fact that after this is completed the chief thing still remains to be done.  For the fact that the secular foundation detaches itself from itself and establishes itself in the clouds as an independent realm is really only to be explained by the self-cleavage.  This contradiction must be understood as self-contradictory and then revolutionized in practice by the removal of the contradiction. Thus, for instance, once the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself be criticized in theory and revolutionized in practice.

V

(Materialists), not satisfied with abstract thinking, appeal only to contemplation that can be confirmed by the senses.

VI

(Materialists) resolve the religious essence into the human essence.  But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each individual.  In its reality it is the ensemble of social relations. Materialists, who do not enter upon a criticism of this real essence (socially derived), is consequently compelled to abstract from the historical process and to fix the religious sentiment as something by itself and to presuppose an abstract -isolated- human individual.

VII
This viewpoint, consequently, does not see that the "religious sentiment" is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual whom he analyzes belongs in reality to a particular form of society. 
VIII
Social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which mislead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in comprehension of this practice.
IX
The highest point attained by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not understand senses as practical activity, is the contemplation of single individuals in "civil society."
X
The standpoint of the old materialism is "civil" society; the standpoint of the new is "human society", or "socialized humanity".  
XI
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it.

Sources: 

Sociology of Religion: A Collection of Readings

Foundations: Sociology & Religion

If you are already reading this blog you know that its primary purpose is to find an association between God and Work.  There will be a series of posts that on the surface may seem to divert from this primary theme, however that will be necessary to build a common framework for understanding both God and Work before we can get anywhere near merger.  With that in mind, I must weave in a sociological thread.  Bear with me, think of it as a season of Lost- it will eventually fit together. Hopefully it won't take 6 seasons to get to the point.

I will start with a book that has been particularly useful to me in providing a fast foundation for a behavioral science viewpoint on God,  Sociology of Religion: A Collection of Readings, by Andrew Greeley.  Before you run- you should know that Greeley is both a Sociologist and a Catholic Priest, the combination makes him interesting and less threatening, whichever side you may be on, if in fact you believe there are sides.

In way of introduction I go to Greeley's Section One Intro, which I will leave in his words.

----------------------------Greeley--------------------------------------------------------
Serious, critical, and non-theological reflection on religion has presumably gone on for as long as there has been religion. But as a formal activity, which preoccupied many thinkers and writers, it was a nineteenth-century phenomenon. The men who engaged in such reflection, all of them brilliant and some of them geniuses, provided the raw materials out of which came contemporary social science.

One could divide them into two categories: those who sought to explain religion, and those who sought to explain it away. Marx and Freud, and perhaps Durkheim, can be included in the later category, while Weber, Simmel, Otto, and especially William James belong in the former
.....

The search for the meaning of religion in these classic thinkers (as interpreted and clarified by their contemporary disciples) continues to be define the terms of sociology's attempt to understand religion. They are to be read, not because they were right, not because what they say is the final word, but because it is within the context of the questions they ask- perennial questions, perhaps- that our search continues.

Sociology of Religion: A Collection of Readings, by Andrew Greeley
----------------------------Greeley--------------------------------------------------------

When embarking on the thread of classic social science I will differentiate the post with the label "Foundations".

Food for thought: great quotes about work

"One comes to be of just such stuff as that on which the mind is set." Upanishads

"We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one's own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness." the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

"If all men lead mechanical, unpoetical lives this is the real nihilism, the real undoing of the world." Reginald Blyth.

"I think a person who takes a job in order to live- that is to say, (just) for the money- has turned himself into a slave." Joseph Campbell

"A craft can only have meaning when it serves a spiritual way." Titus Burkhardt

"Thoroughly to know oneself, is above all art, for it is the highest art." Theologia Germanica

"Let everything be allowed to do what it naturally does, so that its nature will be satisfied." Chuang Tzu

"Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own." Carl Jung

"Art always has something of the unconscious about it." D.T. Suzuki

"The Tao is near and people seek it far away." Menicus

"It is the natural instinct of a child to work from within outwards; "First I think, and then I draw my think." What wasted efforts we make to teach the child to stop thinking, and only to observe!" Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

"Facts, to become poetic, must be fused with being." Gerald Sykes

"To be properly expressed a thing must proceed from within, moved by its form." Meister Eckhart

"To know oneself, one should assert oneself." Albert Camus

"The Tao's principle is spontaneity." Lao Tzu

"Is not the core of nature in the heart of man?" Goethe

"But if I do not strive, who will?" Chuang Tzu

"Don't listen to friends when the friend inside you says "do this." Gandhi

"One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that." Joseph Campbell

Clarification about my God and Work Project

We have been led to believe that we must make choices- family or work, the good of the earth or the corporation, our good or the good of others, spirit or commerce.  Our time and our minds are splintered into a thousand parcels.  Yet we were born of this earth, into families, which cannot exist outside of communities and organized activity we call "work". Work is born of our imagination and what we have done with it what we have to serve our needs - whether that be gathering berries, plowing the field, working the factory line, building sky scrapers, dancing in front of an audience, or programming code.  As time went by it simply made sense to say, "hey you go shoot arrows at things, and I will go over  there and dig because I can't shoot worth a darn."  While the complexity of our work and lives has certainly increased, any line drawn between the realms of spirit and work is arbitrary. 

The difficulty in imagining work and spirit woven together within a larger whole stems from our Western habit of dividing the world into discrete categories. The habit of breaking things into specialized parts, while beneficial for advances in knowledge and efficiency, has some unfortunate consequences.  In a world where our perspectives are so splintered, our connection to each other and to the sacred is trivialized.

We in the West have relegated theology to churches, temples, or very small sections of academia.  For the vast majority, their participation is nothing more than enjoying poetry of some ancient words for a brief moment only to return to the drudgery of life with no different viewpoint or appreciation of who they are.  As a simple matter of time, even if we spent one hour per day praying and three hours per week attending a religious service, religion would be less than 6% of us.  And few among us can muster even that.  Yet, on the other hand, by necessity, most of us spend at least 30% working, and the rest recovering from work and replenishing our bodies so we can return to it again. 

I propose that by nature we desire a whole experience of the world- one in which work and spirit, individual and community, earth and its inhabitants participate.  We prefer a world in which work serves us, as opposed to us serving work.  Call it what you will or even fail to define it, you prefer some mystery, some reason for hope, some belief, or some faith.  Life is difficult, why do you bother?

Now, go somewhere where the city lights are dim and look up at the sky and think about what you are looking at. Zoom out as many miles as can you imagine.  A million, a billion, even more. Hold there for a moment and look back. Imagine you are outside the boundaries and you can see the universe as a whole, perhaps you can see our galaxy as a distant speck among this whole.  Then as quickly as you can zoom back in. You see the galaxy, then the earth, then your country, your community, your family, and finally yourself standing there. Go even further if you like; you see your eye, then travel to the back of the eye, then travel through a nerve, up the nerve, into a collection of electronic impulses organized by an organic object we call the brain. Now, you are back standing there looking at the stars. As pro-ponderous as this sounds, you are in fact viewing light that has traveled that far and more that was born that many years before it touched your eye.  


Light is something so powerful it can survive that long and travel that far, yet delicate enough that it does not disturb you.  What is that light made of?   Physicists have spent a great deal of time studying and thinking about light.  In separate experiments they have proven it acts as both a continuous wave and also as tiny separate packets.  Make no doubt about it, light is remained a conundrum to even the most brilliant of our scientists.  

Out of the conundrum of light, has emerged a discipline of study called "quantum physics". It is a collection of theories formed into a particular scientific way of understanding the world we live in.  A quantum physics perspective see the entire universe from the largest viewpoint down to the smallest particles as a vast flow of energetic processes, unfolding in rapid succession.  Within this flow, everything from the largest objects down to the smallest particles has its own process of movement.  Each small movement is effected by the next and included in the larger. In this way, everything is interlaced in a vast pool of becoming.  Life, everything that exists for that matter, is by its very nature whole and connected.  We are made from the dust of the earth, which in turn is just the ancient dust of the universe collected there together and delicately protected from the amazing, powerful, and fearful chaos all around us.

Call it what you will, the implementation of life by god or the evolution of life, life is a creative process. I think we can all agree that the creation of life on earth stems from prior life, in fact cannot exist without prior life, and regardless of religion by faith we believe it will continue to happen for as long as we know.  The creative processes is the expression of divine activity.  It is an expression of the individual and the whole, of a point in time influenced by prior points, in turn influencing the future.  

If we can accept the fundamental notion that divinity can inhabit the fruits of our labor, the divide between work and God has the potential for being bridged.

Food for thought: great quotes about work

"Artists in each of the arts seek after and care for nothing but love." Marsilio Ficino

"Art is the proper task of life." Friedrich Nietzsche

"The whole business of man is the arts, and all things common." William Blake

"The most awkward means are adequate to the communication of authentic experience, and the finest words no compensation for lack of it. It is for this reason that we are moved by the true primitives and that the most accomplished art craftsmanship leaves us cold." Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

"The purpose of the whole (work) is to remove those who are living in this life from a state of wretchedness and lead them to the state of blessedness." Dante

"Industry without art is brutality." Ananda K Coomaraswamy

"For in order to turn the individual into a function of the State, his dependence on anything beside the State must be taken from him." Carl Jung

"When nations grow old the arts grow cold and commerce settles on every tree." William Blake

"Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art." Leonardo Da Vinci

"The greatest productions of art, whether painting, music, sculpture, or poetry, have invariably this quality- something approaching the work of God." D.T. Suzuki

"The human mind cannot go beyond the gift of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that art can go beyond the finest specimens of art that are now in the world is not knowing what art is; it is being blind to the gifts of the spirit." William Blake.

"All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit." Thomas Aquinas

Jonah's Fish

If you are not familiar with the story of Jonah first read Jonah from the Torah/Bible.

Summary

God told this guy Jonah to go down to a particular town, Nineveh to preach.  Jonah was afraid so he fled to a safer destination, Tarshish.  While on the boat to Tarshish, God sent a violent storm on the ship.  The ship was tossed around and the sailors became full of fear.  The sailors did everything that they knew to save the ship. They got to the point they were so afraid they began to throw misc. object over-board and pray to their various Gods. Ironically, Jonah was not afraid at all in this situation.  He went into the center of the boat and went to sleep.  The sailors eventually discovered him sleeping, and seeing he was not afraid, they knew he must be a man with unique insight into life and God, so they asked him to say a prayer on their behalf.  Then the sailors thought about the situation.  Their clumsy, yet ironically correct logic, led them to believe he, being very different than them, must be the source of their problems.  So they asked him, “Now make clear to us what is your work, and where you come from? What is your country, and who are your people?”  And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, a worshipper of the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” And the men were in great fear, and they said to him, “What is this you have done?" For the men had knowledge of his flight from the Lord because he had not kept it from them. And they said to him, "What are we to do to you so that the sea may become calm for us?" For the sea was getting rougher and rougher. And he said to them, "Take me up and put me into the sea, and the sea will become calm for you: for I am certain that because of me this great storm has come on you.” So the men threw him into the sea.  Suddenly the storm calms.  As the story goes, a “great fish” (possibly whale) takes Jonah into its mouth and Jonah was inside the fish for three days and nights.  Inside the fish Jonah prays and pledges his life to fulfill God’s calling for him. The fish delivers Jonah safely to the shore and Jonah goes on to preach in Ninevh.

Commentary

Consider the similarity of the following story:

An inner voice tells a young man he should pursue a certain dream. For fear of failure, or need of money, or to do what pleases others, the young man pursues a different avenue and winds up in some career, company, or job that is not his passion. This works for a period of time.  But eventually difficult times come and that career, company, or job is threatened.   Some sort of panic eventually ensues and a series of self destructive and erratic decisions are made.  Seeing the writing on the wall, eventually the man leaves or is forced to leave.  At first this seems to be a capricious and destructive decision.  At first to the man it seems his life has become the worst. He is in the heart of his own darkness, the deepest of pits, the direst of situations.  In fact, this may actually be true.  But slowly, eventually, the man discovers that life goes on, that a better job exists for him, or that with his free time he can pursue something different, something more interesting to him, or more aligned to his unique proclivity, talent, and situation in life.  He has seen the worst and survived it. He has done what he never envisioned or thought possible before. His worst nightmare has come and past, and he as awaken to find a brighter future.   Finally, the man has found the security and happiness that previously escaped him.

Observations

• I find it ironic that Jonah is less afraid of a giant storm in a boat full of freaking out sailors than he is of pursuing his calling. 
• If you do not belong somewhere, not only do you know it, but probably everyone else does as well.
• While naturally we want to avoid difficulty, great difficulty can actually force us to find the answer to deep questions about our life, its purpose, and our values.   
• Sometimes to get where you need to be you need to make a leap of faith.

Food for thought: great quotes about work

"For wayfarers of all times, the right strategy for skillfully spreading the Way essentially lies in adapting to communicate. Those who do not know how to adapt stick to the letter and cling to doctrines, get stuck on forms and mired in sentiments- none of them succeed in strategic adaptation." Zhantang

"Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life." Herbert Otto

"The beginning is the most important part of the work" Plato

"Our demons are our own limitations, which shut us off from the realization of the ubiquity of the spirit..each of these demons is conquered in a vision quest." Joseph Campbell

When asked his advice for young people struggling with what to do for work/money. "Follow your bliss." "If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living." Joseph Campbell

"The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure." William Blake.

"Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like." Will Rogers

"Come out of the circle of time, and into the circle of love." Rumi

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly." Bertrand Russell

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it." Emerson

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Anais Nin

"We are kept out of the Garden by our own fear and desire in relation to what we think to be the goods of our life." Joseph Campbell

"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T.S. Eliot

"What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else." Joseph Campbell

To be continued...

Isaac's Well

Excerpt from Genesis 26 (Torah/Bible)- Isaac and his stolen wells

12 Now Isaac, planting seed in that land, got in the same year fruit a hundred times as much, for the blessing of the Lord was on him. 13 And his wealth became very great, increasing more and more; 14 For he had great wealth of flocks and herds and great numbers of servants; so that the Philistines were full of envy. 15 Now all the water-holes, which his father's servants had made in the days of Abraham, had been stopped up with earth by the Philistines. 16 And Abimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you are stronger than we are. 17 So Isaac went away from there, and put up his tents in the valley of Gerar, making his living-place there.

18 And he made again the water-holes which had been made in the days of Abraham his father, and which had been stopped up by the Philistines; and he gave them the names which his father had given them. 19 Now Isaac's servants made holes in the valley, and came to a spring of flowing water. 20 But the herdmen of Gerar had a fight with Isaac's herdmen, for they said, The spring is ours: so he gave the spring the name of Esek, because there was a fight about it. 21 Then they made another water-hole, and there was a fight about that, so he gave it the name of Sitnah. 22 Then he went away from there, and made another water-hole, about which there was no fighting: so he gave it the name of Rehoboth, for he said, Now the Lord has made room for us, and we will have fruit in this land.

23 And from there he went on to Beer-sheba.

24 That night the Lord came to him in a vision, and said, I am the God of your father Abraham: have no fear for I am with you, blessing you, and your seed will be increased because of my servant Abraham.

25 Then he made an altar there, and gave worship to the name of the Lord, and he put up his tents there, and there his servants made a water-hole.

Commentary

Isaac could be described as industrious, honest, and peaceful. He was a good person- “a God fearing man”. Isaac did not go looking for fights, but was apparently of the nature that he could not avoid being fought with. In this story, Issac would dig a well deep into the desert floor to obtain water for farming and livestock. As a result of this effort - Isaac would obtain the water that he needed and he would prosper- “God blessed Isaac”.

However as Isaac prospered, selfish people envied him and eventually they would take what he had for themselves. As the story goes, over and over again, Isaac’s wells would be taken away and he would be forced off of his land. Each time he toiled to establish his success he was met with opposition.

There is no evidence in this story that Isaac seriously fought back or that he lost confidence. Rather than fight, Isaac gave up his property rights to avoid contention. Isaac persisted and just moved on and dug another well. Each time he was driven from one place the lord made room for him in another. It appears he found out the hard way that his ultimate success was not contingent upon a specific endeavor (well); his success was contingent on his capability to endeavor (dig a well). After an unfair amount of drama, the story eventually ends with Isaac finally digging a well he was able to keep and God smiled upon him and blessed his work.

Observations

• In this story, ‘digging wells’ can be equated with any significant professional endeavor that requires industriousness. While today, rarely would someone dig a real well to establish professional success, we can relate to ‘digging wells’ to the extent that we have put significant long term effort into an endeavor.
• Each time Isaac ‘dug a well’ he was blessed for his industriousness. Similarly, industriousness generally leads to reward. But not always.
• Isaac repeatedly faced set-backs. It is probably a planetary truth that the more you have, the greater the chance that you will be exposed to ill feeling and injury. People often take from each other what they have not worked for. We can relate to Isaac to the extent that we have seen something we have put significant effort into wrongfully taken by someone else (or disregarded). Unfortunately it will happen.
• Using Isaac as an example, the road to peace in this world may not always be justice, but magnanimity.
• While Isaac certainly had fair reason to give up, Isaac’s most valuable possession, the values that drove his success, could not be taken from him.
• Belief in the scarcity of resources leads to ill will, theft, and fighting. Belief in abundance leads to good will, generosity, and peace. A belief in abundance may provide energy to one in hard work. Additionally, if you believe in abundance, innovation seems a natural progression.
• Despite widespread belief to the contrary, the earth is abundant; there is always a place for another well. Yet to acquire it, firm values, hard work and persistence is necessary.

Noah's Boat

If you are not familiar with the story of Noah first read Genesis 6-8 from the Torah/Bible.

Commentary

This story begins with a description that the earth was full of evil selfish non god fearing people, which as stated by the text, “made god sad”. God fearing people today think things are bad, things must have been really bad- there was apparently only one person on the earth at that time that “walked with God”; a farmer named Noah. God's plan was to eliminate everyone other than Noah and his family and start clean. God told Noah to build a giant boat; a boat the size of which had never been seen before. Imagine how absurd it would have been to see this farmer building a giant boat to begin with, let alone with no water in sight. Still Noah carried out the instructions as provided by God in accordance with his faith. Noah would have been seen as eccentric, odd, perhaps foolish. Fitting in could not have been of importance to Noah. He persisted in following his way with God, his inspiration, his vision, which he continued to believe correct even as all others dismissed his viewpoint. Eventually his viewpoint proved to be right beyond all modern imaginable consequence- everyone other than him, his family, and the animals he boarded on his ship died.

Observations

The story of Noah makes me think of all the situations I have encountered at work where I directly disagreed with the decisions that were being made and was either directly or indirectly told to be quiet, follow the chain of command, fit in, just do the work you have been given and don’t bother. I imagine this type of misguided self preservation was behind every great injustice or atrocity ever perpetuated on humanity. Here are some examples in recent memory- abuse of Children by Catholic priests, Abu Ghraib, Enron, Bernie Madoff, Toxic Peanut Butter, nearly ubiquitous large pharmaceutical company malfeasance (Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca, BMS, etc. have all been found guilty and fined millions by the FDA), Toyota’s locking gas peddles, stock market bubbles, real-estate bubbles, BP’s actions in the Gulf of Mexico. Here is a list of recent corporate scandals from Wikipedia. In each situation there were large organizations of people who failed to see and stop inappropriate, unsafe, unlawful, harmful, or in some situations nearly murderous behavior.

In all these situations I have just mentioned I believe there are four types of people:

1. Perpetrators
2. People who knew the current course was unsustainable and potentially harmful but directly and selfishly contributed to the problem anyway.
3. People who indirectly and carelessly went along, obliviously believing the ‘too good to be true story’, enjoyed its benefits for a time, and who didn’t care enough to ask difficult questions.
4. People who saw it for what it was and either questions it, fought it, or avoided the inappropriate behavior and as a result may have suffered for a period of time.

Following a major disaster, we, as a society, tend to focus on discovery and punishment of perpetrators; we are not as focused as much we should be with aspects of power, group dynamics, and the complicit behavior of others that enabled the perpetration. Or building a way to protect ourselves from it. Though it probably won’t come in the form of dramatic earth-wide flood, all people are eventually held accountable for their behavior at some point. It may not happen in the short term, but over the long term it pays to be right. When the floodwater comes in you either have a boat or you don’t. Or conversely as Warren Buffett, billionaire investor put it, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.”

Work by Kahlil Gibran

Work

Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."

And he answered, saying:

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.

And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."

But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

From The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

After the beginning, then there was work…

Adam and Eve's Fruit

What is more fitting than to begin this project with the story of the beginning of mankind? You have heard the story. Adam and Eve.

From the Torah and/or Bible- if you are not familiar here is a copy of the relevant passages- Genesis 1&2

Commentary

Every time I read Genesis I cannot help but observe how surreal and depressing the story of Adam and Eve is. Here you have these two people, the purported ancestors of all humankind, who start off in such a great situation- the ability to rule god’s garden of paradise for eternity with limited obligations, unlimited food, no need for clothing, no guilt, and no worries. However, these two blow it all for one bite of a stupid piece of fruit, so that their future, and all of humanity, is forever altered for the worse. Consider the absurdity of the scenario - is it the snakes fault for deceiving the woman?, or is it the woman’s fault for listening to a snake?, or is it the man’s fault for listening to the woman?, or is it the omniscient god’s fault for putting the man, woman, snake, and tree there together in the first place?

Now consider another story. We start off as children naked and innocent: limited obligations, unlimited food, no clothing, no guilt, and no worries. Outside of the womb, early childhood is the closest we come to bliss in this world. All of our needs are provided for by our parents. Consider for a moment the amount of affection, shelter, clothing, nutrition, entertainment, toys of all shapes and sizes are heaped on children. As we grow more capable we spend more and more time in play. As our brains develop, so do our ambitions, and eventually we find ourselves longing for the day we can lead our own playful lives outside of the home (without our parents!). We look forward to our being able to make decisions for ourselves –being able to go where we want, do what we want, when we want, and so on. How fun would it be to have our own house, and work as a doctor or nurse, or fireman? We impatiently pass through our childhood years, pre-teen, and teen - storming forward, demanding more freedoms at each phase and before we know it we have entered full fledge adulthood. (The rotten apple core was thrown out the window at some point after we got our drivers license) What we learn is that with each stage the knowledge and freedom that we gain carries with it an equal amount of responsibility and heartache. As our parents warned us all too often for our taste we too soon are wishing we could return to that comfortable place in childhood when our cares and worries were few. We are indeed more free and more knowledgeable, but life’s pressures have also rooted us firmly to reality. Shelter, food, anything we want really, comes at a price now. We have bills to pay therefore we must work for a living- In fact most do for 50+ years of their life or until they die, whichever comes sooner. By the time we learn that the adult life is hard we cannot return to childhood, however hard we try.

While the story of the child appears more real to us than the story of the first man and woman, if you consider the symbolism, these stories are oddly similar by nature. They both begin with a man, a woman, and a phallic object in a garden of bliss, and they both begin end with aging, work, death and sorrow. They both seem to deeply elicit and defy blame. They both charge down the same inevitable path, causing some of us to fantasize about what would have occurred if we could jump out from behind a bush and say, “no don’t do it, its not worth it!”. They both describe the progression of humanity from conception to adulthood. Whether you believe the literal veracity of story of Adam and Eve or not, it would be hard to dismiss its odd metaphorical value. Also odd, it was reported in the Christian Bible that Jesus, the Christian Messiah, said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (NIV, Matthew 18:3) I am certain that most people scratched their heads and just moved on.

A traditional assessment and commentary on Genesis typically concludes with an exhortation- the morale of the story is turn away from sin and/or saten. While Adam and Eve theoretically could have remained in the garden had they not taken a bite out of that apple, who of us are truly capable of this? In fact, as evidenced by this story it appears not to be in our nature at all, much like it is not in our nature to remain a child forever or return to childhood after we become adults. We are human after all- we all grow old, we all die. You cannot deny the obvious- “turn away from saten”, nor would I dare, however I would like to point out the less obvious...

Observations

1. The more knowledge we reach for (either as individuals or as a society) the more troubles we seem to see or find, the more responsibility we have, and in turn more work we have to do.
2. Knowledge does in some ways make us more like god. We have power to know wrong and right, power to make decisions, and the power to create, however it also makes us more culpable for our actions.
3. There is no sense in blame. While in childhood I was angry at Adam and Eve, in adulthood I see that mysteriously in some way I have made the same choice that they did and I face a similar future. (minus the rule over the wife portion which seems very illusive in this era)
4. If you want a clue about the nature of work, read the story of Adam and Eve. Work could be the result of wanting to be more like God, or in our case wanting to grow up and do what we want, when we want, where we want. Ironically, most employers generally do not permit this level of work-life flexibility.