Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Fernando Solanas: The so-called public opinion, the imaginary world collective is shaped by the mass media and the mass media are essentially subject to the dominant powers. The collective world conscience drifts more and more towards a huge dehumanisation and naturally those who accept these gigantic injustices, those who accept the absolutely abominable genocides like the recent attack and bombardment launched by Israel against Lebanon – with more than 200 bombardments a day – and against innocent and defenceless people; like the pillaging and massive bombardment against Iraq to rob its oil, which was based on slander and on a grand lie that only later was accepted to be a lie, and where the massacre of thousands of Iraqi people does not unsettle anyone. All this demonstrates a growing dehumanisation of the so-called western consciousness. We are living through a huge degradation of the humanistic conscience of western culture. Naturally, the [caparación] of individual wealth leaves millions of people condemned to hunger, to malnutrition, to living death. All this expresses the social genocide that can be summed up as the bellicose genocide and as the scourge that is produced by illnesses like AIDS, where medical products are still considered to be business rather than a basic supply for the benefit of humankind; all this expresses the same: it is a society designed for business.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Fred Matser: Well, I understand the question comes from the United States, and indeed, I have been often in United States, it is acceptable and even it is favored to create wealth, and those people that collect wealth or are wealthy are often seen as icons. And so, they are used as role models and they are pushed through the media to be a role model. And alas, we have to say that in this respect, many of the mass media, the big channels, they have a lot of attention for the famous, the powerful, those people in the limousines, in the beautiful house, in the beautiful buildings, and that creates the picture that everybody should try to be wealthy. But, it doesn't take into account that beyond the borders of United States or even within the borders of United States, there is a lot of poverty. And I think the media could really be very, very helpful in showing that reality of their poverty and do an appeal on those that are wealthy to help their brothers and sisters in less privileged conditions. So, why it is socially acceptable, I don’t know. But, I do know that the media have a big role in making it sometimes socially acceptable. Of course, on the other hand, I forgot to say that, perhaps, we don't want to see poverty because it is perhaps too painful for us to realize that there is poverty.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Galsan Tschinag: How could it be any different? The stars are unequally distributed in the sky above, as the plants are unequally distributed on the ground underneath us. But this should not mean that the blind spots in the sky and the naked spots on the ground are worth less and display less. It is the same with individual people and whole peoples, because the actual value is invisible, is hidden in our minds and in our souls.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Giora Feidman: Well, acceptance is a concern. I just yesterday arrived to Berlin from Boston. From Boston I passed three point of security in the airport. That is disgusting that we arrive as human being to this situation. And what looked to me that I am a person that almost two, three times, two times a week, I don’t know, I am in the airport, this became something normal, that is acceptances. This is a reason that I say this kind of acceptances cannot be; we must repair these. We must follow dignity. Dignity must guide us. Who created the situations must be treated not with so much in the meaning of punishment but must treated, this people who create all this situation to what we call a sincere and productive education. Everything that happen in this case and many case of daily life is a result of education. And if it’s bad, it’s not good for society. We didn’t got success in the systems of education. Please, acceptances not of this kind of situation. Give up self-interest little by little and you will see that you will receive so much and you will give so much. The desire to receive of the body of the human mean for the purpose to share. This is cultivation. For this we came to this physical life.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Gladman Chibememe: Yeah. It is all a question of social values and it also depends on who is in control. So, if the one who is in control, the one who has the money, the one who can influence the media, the one who can influence the thinking of the people is a person who hoards the resources, then we appear to accept it. But, the reality is that it will be a concept based on a person or a group of people's ego, a self-centeredness, the need to progress as individuals and not as humanity in general. And, in this case it is a result in acceptance of hoarding of resources by some states and at the expense of a states that who also need -- that who would need the assistance -- that would need the resources to develop. Sometimes, these resources are taken from other countries and they are being hoarded or being stored in countries where they are even not used, but they are just stored for future use. And, yet, these -- an urgent need to use those resources urgently in some countries. Sometimes, such resources are also taken away from countries where they should be used instantly just to save the interest of selfish and gains by other countries for other states. So, in this case, we tend to approve a system just because it is a system that’s being implemented by a powerful state, a state that can control the media, a state that has the money, a state that has the computers and a state that has the technology. In this case, we tend to say maybe that’s the right way to do things and yet it is not the right way to do things. We need a situation in which all resources are open to everybody.

by Gladman Chibememe

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi: It’s a question of greed, a question of fear. You always want to meet your own needs, you don’t look at somebody else need and it’s a question of ‘I want to exist’, I don’t care whether you exit or not. If you look at the entire process of trade, they control their stock, they store, they hoard. This economic wealth in the form of gold, in the form of cash surplus and it is released only to get richer. It is not possible to expect this process unless we find a mechanism where the basic needs could be addressed in a manner that we are able to create more wealth. It is often not the case. Most often we look at the agenda of economic surplus where I need to hoard more wealth then what I want you to have.

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: We have a false perception of how we can enrich the mankind. It’s possible by making funds to enable innovation on a large scale. But the innovation, it turns out today, is not used to advance life standard of people, but on the contrary, to push away the people from the creation of value. We have no good idea anymore what a real creation of value is. Creation of value means that we produce things we don’t necessarily need. Economy in general is our enemy. It wants to earn money and to gather power, and it misses the fact, that a human, contrary to a machine, has the advantage of being creative, the advantage of being able to deal with mistakes, that he can solve problems where he doesn’t even know the basics, but develops them automatically out of himself. This creativity is not being developed, but just reduced to some few of us and then copied into thousands and millions to be thrown to the others as a consumption product. The main thing is that a person can realize the things he reflects upon in real life, in order to see how much his thinking correlates with the reality around him. And not with the pseudo-reality, which is being created by economy and technology. It is very much connected with the human development that a human shouldn’t be kept from taking part in this development process himself. In economy, we often talk about employment, we have to begin talking about people, that…[interrupted]

by Hans-Peter Dürr

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Harry Wu: I think this will come from the history and culture and even many different countries had different construction, it has to rebuild it, it will take time.

by Harry Wu

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Helena Norberg-Hodge: In actual fact, it is not socially acceptable to hoard while others go without, but we are now trapped in a system where the distances between the poor and the rich are growing, even within countries the gap between rich and poor is growing dramatically. Even in my native country of Sweden, and I have seen in Tibet, in Mongolia, around the world I have seen that the gap between rich and poor is being widened very, very rapidly. In this system, which is creating tremendous psychological as well as economic insecurity, people are out of fear rushing to try to provide for their loved ones, for their families and often this entails shutting themselves down emotionally from looking at the bigger society, from even looking within their own countries at the hardship of others. As I see it, we need to understand the system that is trapping people in an ever more inhuman way to shutdown, to isolate themselves and above all, we need to understand the narrow and econometric thinking that is driving our society and the fear-based reductionism and narrow thinking that most people are now suffering from. The assumptions about why some are poor and some are rich that are being foisted on us through the media tell us that if we study, if we do well at school, if we work hard and compete and we too will do well. So, a lot of the ideology that is being imposed on people is that it is to do with other people’s laziness, with their unwillingness to work, their unwillingness to study and that those who do well deserve to do well. In actual fact, we need to expose a system where the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands is marginalizing the majority. We are trapped in a system now that creates unemployment worldwide. Unemployment is a manmade structure. It is nothing to do…

by Helena Norberg-Hodge

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Homero Aridjis: It is not only socially accepted to hoard wealth while so many live without basic needs, but it is also socially accepted to deprive ethnic groups, animals and plants from their natural ecosystems so that big corporations and important businessmen can make money and governments continue with their policies.

by Homero Aridjis

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Jerry Mander: Answertext will be available soon.

by Jerry Mander

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Jesper Green: In the western world it is acceptable to hoard wealth, because it’s like a role playing game. We always want our level, and the more wealth we have the more status in the society we have. I think it’s been like that for millions of years, so it’s just that we have the possibility to do it and then it’s acceptable in this big civilization or role play game that we can reach the next level in our role play game and then pretend that we have some more possibilities because we have reached the next level, and then we actually don’t give a shit about who are not going, those who cannot make it, those who are not in a role playing game, those, we don’t give a shit about those who are just trying to survive and in that way trying to gain a level or just staying in the same level all the time, low level all the time. But, like in role playing games, we have guilds, we have clans, we have alliances, and I think maybe it’s, we should be able to play other people, serve other people, and when I say play, in a role play, role play game term then it’s like helping someone else, some [newby] to rise a level. I think we should do that.

by Jesper Green

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Jodie Evans: I don't know, maybe it's socially acceptable in a few places but around the world it's not socially acceptable. And, so, I think the question's more like, "Why's it socially acceptable in the wealthiest country in the world?" And it's something that's happened over a very short period of time. I can almost remember when Reagan was elected that all of a sudden, it totally shifted, people were allowed to flaunt their wealth. We watched in 20 years the utter -- that it's almost not just socially acceptable but what people are looking for. And I think that that's because people are afraid, they're distanced from their value, they're distanced from worth, that the culture has become so empty that everybody wants to have money, so it will somehow that will help their suffering or their pain or their lack of connection to anything valuable. And so we even look at why do people vote against their self interest. It's that they project themselves in the place that somehow money is freedom. And instead of the understanding what real freedom is or the understanding of what happens when you have money and how it can happy your freedom. So I think that in the United States, the reason it's allowed and that's only in some circles I would say that you have to be affluent to think that it's allowed. In many neighborhoods around the United States I know that it's not socially acceptable, it's actually appalling, especially for those people who live in the effects of it. But, globally, if you think of how may people are -- live on $2.00 a day, for them it's not socially acceptable, it's behavior. And, what we need to do is continue to create an uncomfortable situation for those people who are hoarding their money. I think one of the interesting things that's happened are rich people giving large amounts of their fortunes away and hopefully that will continue [audio cut off].

by Jodie Evans

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

John Gage: Hoarding wealth, keeping more and more and more is primate behavior. It’s the fear that something that you have been able to gain, some advantage that you have might be taken away from you and your family. So, hoarding is a natural phenomenon, preparation by those that have memory of history for the bad times in the good years, put away, so that in the bad years you shall have. But, the hoarding, which is possible today with the financial fluidity, with the ability of wealth to move in these abstract terms from bank instruments, dollars, flowing into marks, flowing into euros, flowing into yen, flowing into this enormous increase in financial fluidity has enabled those that move rapidly, those that have tools, those that have resources to accumulate vast amounts of wealth without any particular attention to the rest of the world, to thinking about how everyone else, without tools, without access, without capabilities to amplify their human labor, without an ability to amplify the crop or flock or herd productivity, how they have no resources to use to leverage, to build, to grow. So, socially acceptability only goes so far. It is socially unacceptable today for these vast accumulations. But, then, if that’s true, how do we alter this behavior? The answer lies in transparency, in seeing where the wealth is. Those that are very rich go to great lengths to hide it. Those subject to taxation go to great lengths to avoid it. Those that attempt to say their moral right of accumulation entitles them to wealth far beyond that of everybody else in the world must change their ideas, must at the base realize that at some point, enough is enough, and you must at that point stop.

by John Gage

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Jonathan Granoff: People don't realize that their brothers and sisters in the human family are living in unacceptably poor conditions, that they could have a positive effect in changing. When people feel the intimacy of other lives, then they step forward to express their caring, to express their love. These are natural human dynamics. And ah, it's the denial, the intellectual, emotional denial, of this interconnectedness. The great master said, "Love God with all your soul and all your heart and all your might, and like unto that love your neighbor as yourself." Well neighborhood now has become a moral location. It's not just a physical location. And then of course in Mathew twenty-five he describes how people will be judged. And he says "I was naked, did you clothe me. I was hungry, did you feed me. What you do to the least amongst you, you're doing to the presence of the divine amongst men. Now that's the premise of the Christian religion. I think that Christians understand and value this but they don't see that connectedness, they don't feel that intimacy with the poor. In Islam, taking care of the poor and the orphan and the disenfranchised is - it was the highest, one of the highest values of the prophet Mohamed. Charity toward the poor - which is not just charity but it's truly giving of oneself, is a fundamental requirement to being a full human being. Judaism has the same, if you read the Old Testament prophets, this sense of accountability to the poor, let justice flow down from the mountains like a river, the prophets said. And that justice is to care for the poor as your own family. Why is it acceptable? It's not acceptable. It's not acceptable.

by Jonathan Granoff

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Jonathan Meese: What is an animal? What is society? What is hierarchy? What is wealth? What is accumulation? What is structure? What is a basic need? What is satisfaction? Who wants to answer all this? Who is going to show it? Who is going to catalogue it? Why are such questions asked? They don't mean anything. They are only there to give our conditions an image. Societies accumulate themselves like colonies of ants. Creating their accommodation and their clothing. Is clothing a need? Or is it the radical dealing with others? Is the open game the most radical or is it the colosseum? Is the basic need water, ore or cereal? Is wealth sleep, dictatorship, god, gold or mania? Is tolerance the animal inside of us or is it the plant or the heart or the blood or the milk we drink? What do we tolerate when we sleep? The dream, which incorporate in us? Do we sleep too long to be tolerant? Or is society too tired to recognize the wealth in others? The radical wealth. This question is like a hurricane. These questions are like storms. Only in the eye of the storm is art. On the borders is the storm and you have to go through this storm to recognize the revolution, which takes place on us but only from the outside. You are never able to get inside because then you are just an instrument. Revolution is like a secret skin. The basic need is clothing which nobody can wear. It is too heavy. Wealth is accumulating itself, like El Dorado or Atlantis. Some things go down, others don't.

by Jonathan Meese

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

Jonathan Stack: I don't think it is considered socially acceptable to hoard wealth. I think the word hoard is by definition something negative. We don't believe that it is a good thing. What it is, is that it is a big part of the human beings just trying to pursue their own wealth. Now, I think the question is what is socially acceptable is abundance and I think that may be what you are talking about. This idea that a life lived successful is blessed with material success. And in a way, we have to figure out how to be able to accept that. I mean I have friends who are extremely rich, they've made good choices in their life, I don't judge their wealth and many of these people who are wealthy are extraordinarily generous and dedicate a lot of their time and resources and energy to helping others because they can. And I don't judge them for that; I don't necessarily do or could have done -- would even necessarily like to do the things that they have done. But, the result of what they've done has resulted in -- the result of what they've done is the accumulation of wealth. The result of what I have done is the accumulation of knowledge. Is knowledge wealth? Not in material grounds, so what I had to do is to live a life much more reduced in terms of my ability to consume, which comes very naturally to me and relieves a lot of the pressures that I think I would have if I work constantly pursuing financial wealth. That said, I have gotten children and they live in New York City and I can assure you, it's not an inexpensive livelihood to do, so I have had to figure out a way to consume according to the needs created by the conditions I have created in my life, the responsibilities by the choices I made. I think and I try not to judge what other people do, but maybe it's just as I said it. That said, in my 50, I need to figure out how to take better care of that aspect of my life.

by Jonathan Stack

Sep 9, 2006 10:35:00 AM cite

José Manuel Prieto: I think that to hoard wealth isn’t an end in itself. Wealth should be searched for together with the responsability that comes from it. The people which are socially in the position to yield wealth, the countries which are in the position to yield wealth should feel obligated, and many do so, to help the poorest. And since there is no contradiction between hoarding wealth and a social orientation, let’s say that socially the hoarding of wealth, which in these cases has a negative connotation, should not just be based on the negative. It shouldn’t be hoarded, the wealth should be yielded an distributed, and therefore should exist mechanisms that favour that distribution, and there should exist as well a consciousness, in my opinion, of who yields that wealth in the most developed countries, of the persons of major economic power, of the responsibility implied by that, and that wealth shouldn’t just be hoarded but should be distributed and should be put into the service of humanity on the whole.

by José Manuel Prieto