Feb. 3, 2010
MANN TALK: The Sins of Success
By Perry Mann
“As we succeeded in stabilizing an industrial economy, the consequences of what had previously been irresponsible and ruinous behavior receded.” -- the late Daniel P. Moynihan (1927-2003) former senator from New York.
The quote is an explanation of why in this country respect for marriage has declined while it has not in India. In other words, in this country the heretofore ruinous consequences of sexual permissiveness and of sinning generally have been mitigated, if not obviated, by wealth, a corollary of which is that excess wealth tends to seduce one from the narrow path and the lack of it tends to keep one on the strait way.
My grandfather and grandmother bought 65 acres of rocky hillside for $3.00 an acre in 1893. There they built a two-room house; and over the years cleared the forest, added to the house, built a barn, a fruit house, meat house and other outbuildings; had nine children, only six of whom reached majority; and lived from the land and their stock, working from sun up to sun down every day of their lives except Sunday, their day of rest and worship.
They had no automobile, no electricity, no telephone, radio, TV, refrigerator, indoor plumbing, or newspaper, except a four-page weekly. They had no insurance of any kind, except their neighbors. They had no stocks, bonds, accounts or savings, except what was canned and cured. Social events were limited to births, marriages, deaths, church-goings, harvestings and family reunions.
Coffee and tea were rarely indulged; alcoholic beverages or pop were never indulged or existent on the place. Cosmetics, jewelry and refinery of any kind were absent. No one would ever think of dancing, partying, Saturday-night carousing or smoking, except that my grandfather grew tobacco and chewed his own twists therefrom.
My grandfather and grandmother and their neighbors depended upon, and were at the mercy of, the weather, their health, their neighbors, their God and their discipline and sacrifice. If drought came and the crops failed they faced disaster; if their health failed they faced disaster; if their neighbors or their God failed them: same result. And if they did not rise early, work hard, retire early, save religiously, waste not, turn away from temptation and hew to nature’s mandates and God’s will, disaster that was always a step behind them would overtake them; and they never awoke a day or went to sleep a night of their lives that they were not aware of those footsteps.
So there wasn’t much, if any, time, energy, inclination or opportunity left in a day or night even to entertain such a fancy as a divorce, a trophy wife or mistress or an affair or of any other libido-inspired aberration that could distract them from their duties or take an hour from their schedule or a nickel from their budget.
Further, and most importantly, my grandfather and grandmother earned their living and lived their lives in a fulfilling manner: they worked with their bodies and minds in the open, under the sky and on the land with the help and companionship of their children and neighbors and their cows, horses, sheep, chickens, dogs and cats; and they used their creativity and hands to work the raw materials of nature into products that they needed and that added comfort and security to their lives. Their appetites were hardy, their rest was sweet and their consciences clear. They died in the house they built, attended by family and neighbors, just two months apart after more then eighty years of life and sixty years of and working together in the fields and woods, gardens and orchards, during all the seasons.
Now, the industrial economy has stabilized and the world has changed. Whereas, before, the consequences of irresponsible and ruinous behavior would have brought disaster, now the consequences of such behavior have receded; that is, now one can sin and not pay the price or so it seems.
But there is another factor, other than wealth, in the equation of success equals sins and that factor is job alienation. Not only does wealth keep disaster at a distance and give room for sin, but employment that is boring, stressful and dissatisfying, that is, divorced from nature and that produces nothing but superfluities, leaves one only with money and restlessness, a combination that more often than not induces one to indulge in harmful substitutes, to seek entertainments and pleasures that exhausts the money, subverts the health and does little to resolve one’s physical and spiritual restlessness. How much of a part does inside work of a repetitive kind and of a non-needful sort attribute to this nation’s drug dependency and to many of the other physical and spiritual ailments of its populace?
Capitalism and laissez-faire entrepreneurialism have engorged malls with consumers wares, have produced amazing amounts of wealth, built cities to which populations from the countryside have winged to like moths to flame, have created jobs that pay in a month more in wages than my grandfather could have earned in his lifetime. The catch is, however, that no one would work at most of the jobs if he could earn the wages at work that gave him satisfaction and that was worthy of his talents.
Thus capitalism has produced enormous wealth, which has loosened the grip of necessity, and the love of which has subverted honesty, loyalty, duty and discipline; has seduced society with temptations; has all but eliminated from the earth jobs that require art, artisanship and craftsmanship and has caused thereby the decay of morals, a widespread drug dependency and the general decline of the republic.
The Ten Commandments are the considered judgments of tribal sages running back to time immemorial, judgments based upon what the elders concluded members of the tribe should not do in order to perpetuate the tribe and keep the peace in it; and those sages in order to enhance the authority of their judgments claimed the origin thereof to be from God. Whether the judgments come from man or God, man has by building a Babylon instead of a Jerusalem effectively frustrated nature and God in their imposition of their mandates and commandments upon him and their exactions of consequences for breach of them. A rich nation has the same problem as does a rich man in eying a needle and knowing the Kingdom.
* * *
Perry Mann is a former teacher, a lawyer, a former prosecuting attorney of Summers County and a columnist for Huntington News Network. He lives in Hinton, WV.
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MANN TALK: The Sins of Success
By Perry Mann
“As we succeeded in stabilizing an industrial economy, the consequences of what had previously been irresponsible and ruinous behavior receded.” -- the late Daniel P. Moynihan (1927-2003) former senator from New York.
The quote is an explanation of why in this country respect for marriage has declined while it has not in India. In other words, in this country the heretofore ruinous consequences of sexual permissiveness and of sinning generally have been mitigated, if not obviated, by wealth, a corollary of which is that excess wealth tends to seduce one from the narrow path and the lack of it tends to keep one on the strait way.
My grandfather and grandmother bought 65 acres of rocky hillside for $3.00 an acre in 1893. There they built a two-room house; and over the years cleared the forest, added to the house, built a barn, a fruit house, meat house and other outbuildings; had nine children, only six of whom reached majority; and lived from the land and their stock, working from sun up to sun down every day of their lives except Sunday, their day of rest and worship.
They had no automobile, no electricity, no telephone, radio, TV, refrigerator, indoor plumbing, or newspaper, except a four-page weekly. They had no insurance of any kind, except their neighbors. They had no stocks, bonds, accounts or savings, except what was canned and cured. Social events were limited to births, marriages, deaths, church-goings, harvestings and family reunions.
Coffee and tea were rarely indulged; alcoholic beverages or pop were never indulged or existent on the place. Cosmetics, jewelry and refinery of any kind were absent. No one would ever think of dancing, partying, Saturday-night carousing or smoking, except that my grandfather grew tobacco and chewed his own twists therefrom.
My grandfather and grandmother and their neighbors depended upon, and were at the mercy of, the weather, their health, their neighbors, their God and their discipline and sacrifice. If drought came and the crops failed they faced disaster; if their health failed they faced disaster; if their neighbors or their God failed them: same result. And if they did not rise early, work hard, retire early, save religiously, waste not, turn away from temptation and hew to nature’s mandates and God’s will, disaster that was always a step behind them would overtake them; and they never awoke a day or went to sleep a night of their lives that they were not aware of those footsteps.
So there wasn’t much, if any, time, energy, inclination or opportunity left in a day or night even to entertain such a fancy as a divorce, a trophy wife or mistress or an affair or of any other libido-inspired aberration that could distract them from their duties or take an hour from their schedule or a nickel from their budget.
Further, and most importantly, my grandfather and grandmother earned their living and lived their lives in a fulfilling manner: they worked with their bodies and minds in the open, under the sky and on the land with the help and companionship of their children and neighbors and their cows, horses, sheep, chickens, dogs and cats; and they used their creativity and hands to work the raw materials of nature into products that they needed and that added comfort and security to their lives. Their appetites were hardy, their rest was sweet and their consciences clear. They died in the house they built, attended by family and neighbors, just two months apart after more then eighty years of life and sixty years of and working together in the fields and woods, gardens and orchards, during all the seasons.
Now, the industrial economy has stabilized and the world has changed. Whereas, before, the consequences of irresponsible and ruinous behavior would have brought disaster, now the consequences of such behavior have receded; that is, now one can sin and not pay the price or so it seems.
But there is another factor, other than wealth, in the equation of success equals sins and that factor is job alienation. Not only does wealth keep disaster at a distance and give room for sin, but employment that is boring, stressful and dissatisfying, that is, divorced from nature and that produces nothing but superfluities, leaves one only with money and restlessness, a combination that more often than not induces one to indulge in harmful substitutes, to seek entertainments and pleasures that exhausts the money, subverts the health and does little to resolve one’s physical and spiritual restlessness. How much of a part does inside work of a repetitive kind and of a non-needful sort attribute to this nation’s drug dependency and to many of the other physical and spiritual ailments of its populace?
Capitalism and laissez-faire entrepreneurialism have engorged malls with consumers wares, have produced amazing amounts of wealth, built cities to which populations from the countryside have winged to like moths to flame, have created jobs that pay in a month more in wages than my grandfather could have earned in his lifetime. The catch is, however, that no one would work at most of the jobs if he could earn the wages at work that gave him satisfaction and that was worthy of his talents.
Thus capitalism has produced enormous wealth, which has loosened the grip of necessity, and the love of which has subverted honesty, loyalty, duty and discipline; has seduced society with temptations; has all but eliminated from the earth jobs that require art, artisanship and craftsmanship and has caused thereby the decay of morals, a widespread drug dependency and the general decline of the republic.
The Ten Commandments are the considered judgments of tribal sages running back to time immemorial, judgments based upon what the elders concluded members of the tribe should not do in order to perpetuate the tribe and keep the peace in it; and those sages in order to enhance the authority of their judgments claimed the origin thereof to be from God. Whether the judgments come from man or God, man has by building a Babylon instead of a Jerusalem effectively frustrated nature and God in their imposition of their mandates and commandments upon him and their exactions of consequences for breach of them. A rich nation has the same problem as does a rich man in eying a needle and knowing the Kingdom.
* * *
Perry Mann is a former teacher, a lawyer, a former prosecuting attorney of Summers County and a columnist for Huntington News Network. He lives in Hinton, WV.
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