Don’t Sneeze at Diseased Greed

To sneeze at something means that you don’t take it seriously. The expression survives as ”nothing to sneeze at” meaning the opposite. Winning 10 000 is not a million, but it’s nothing to sneeze at.

I’ve often used the term greed-diseased to describe the people who rule the course of events in today’s world, that is to say, the 1% who can be described as a Greed-diseased Gang.

Unfortunately, this term is regarded as a curse word, an invective, rather than a description of an actual condition. So let’s set the record straight. The accumulation of money breeds greed. Like Frodo’s ring, the power that money gives captures the owner. Those who succeed in making a million want to make more. When they’ve made 60 million, the desire for even more money has become stronger than ever. And long before they ever get to a billion, they’re obsessed with the accumulation of money. They sneeze at all other considerations. And so would you or I.

That’s how money works. The person afflicted can come from any background, religious or political. Saints and revolutionaries fall under the spell of money as readily as criminals. We can see how moss attacks the cement grave stone in the picture above. The moss cares little if the concrete formes the base of a school or the wall of a prison. Money eats away at the character of people as predictably as moss eats away at the elements of concrete.

It has been shown in psychological experiments that even people primed with irrelevant visions of money on a screen saver tend to be less helpful than a control group. Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow states, ”reminders of money may shape our behavior and our attitudes in ways that we do not know about and of which we may not be proud.”

We are ruled by greed-diseased individuals. They care not for people or nature. They are sick! If they can find a way to get more money they will follow that course of action regardless of the consequences for anyone or anything. They are obsessed. We can no more reason with them than we can reason with moss. There may be exceptions, but, if so, they are so rare, we can sneeze at them.

These people who control the course of events also control the cultural atmosphere. They promote the pursuit of money as an honorable and intelligent ideal. This justifies and glorifies their own positions and helps maintain the prevailing order that runs on consumption and money-generating distractions.

Don’t sneeze at the people suffering from greeditis. Their disease is highly contagious and deadly. In its advanced global form it threatens the life of humanity. If we cannot destroy the money-oriented form of society and replace it with one dedicated to the well-being of people we will perish as a species. Fortunately system humanity has the ability to win this apocalyptic battle for survival. The outcome however is uncertain and the battle is definitely nothing to sneeze at.

“Staring at money, like starring at the sun, blinds us to life.”
Dartwill Aquila

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