Extreme wealth has a deadening effect on the super-rich – and that threatens us all
Extreme wealth has a deadening effect on the super-rich – and that threatens us all
In a kayak off the Devon coast I witnessed the kind of entitled mindlessness that has ravaged society, and our planet, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
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Immense wealth possesses you just as much as you possess it: managing it becomes a full-time job. You don’t know whom to trust; you can start to imagine your friends aren’t friends at all; it can dominate and poison your family relationships. It can hollow you out, socially, intellectually and morally.
You know we could really help these ultra-rich motherfuckers with this problem, all it takes is to tax them as they should be taxed.
NOOOOOOO!!
MY PRECIOUSSSS! FILTHY COMMUNISTES!
As an anarchist, I wouldnt think this is a remediation. To move grip from one holder to another would still cause concentration of power. Id suggest that we instead shape our languages to limit grip as much as possible. Degrip is remediation.
So let Elon keep all his ill-gotten gains but we talk in a contrived and awkward way so that in six generations they might be so used to it that they're no longer able to describe the inequity in which they live?
Do you have a practical example of words we can switch out rather than taxing the billionaires?
The reason I emphasize language is because we oftentimes lack the remediating words that we need.
Elon got his wealth is because we gave it to him. We gave it to him by accepting our roles as consumers, voters, and grippers.
Instead we need to find remediating roles. Roles that has action, attitudes and spreadability that causes remediation.
A role can be a degripper. One who strives to remove one's own grip, guiding others to degrip themselves and do action to degrip griphoarders.
Generally though, by using words that shifts our focus away from consumerism, towards nature, our peers and blossoming, we degrip. An example of this would be to integrate natural elements into our language. For example in norwegian, instead of "mastery", I say "blossoming", or instead of saying "rich in colors", I would say "bloom in colors". Or being aware of the species around us and pointing them out for our peers.