Yesterday I found the website for a Foundation for a Better Life, that's supposed to inspire certain values with little stories and billboards. Some of them are quite nice, but some of the values that they are promoting are definitely not universal. Take "ambition", for example. What in North America is a value, in other places it is an insult. In some languages, to say that someone is ambitious can have very negative connotations, with a meaning much more similar to "greed" than "drive". I imagine there are many more value differences with eastern cultures, so please send in some examples if you have any.
But is this only a language difference? After all, greed does have a negative connotation here. Well, not necessarily. The word "greed" can also bear different meanings for different cultures. While it is generally accepted that greed is "wanting more than you need", what to do when an entire culture is based on having more than you need? Or when we are bombarded by commercials all the time that can convince you that you need whatever they are selling. I mean, some people actually believe they need electric can openers. How is that not greed? Yet it's hard to understand that when you grow up into this culture. Mr. Terminator, governor of California, has 6 SUVs (or is it 7?), yet so one really thinks he is greedy.. or else he woudln't have been elected.
So the meaning of greed becomes distorted for your convenience. It starts to mean "wanting more than you friends and neighbours have", or "wanting more than you can afford and getting it without working for it, you lazy bum". So you start getting angry at people who are on welfare because they're taking your hard-earned money while they sit there and do nothing. Why can't they just work?, you ask.
I just watched Roger and Me last night, so some answers are fresh in my mind - bear with me. People are laid off because dirtbags like Roger Smith can open plants in Mexico and pay workers 50 cents per hour so that he can give himself a $2 million raise. 30000 people are suddenly unemployed and they have no experience because a) they were working for the dirtbags their entire lives, and b) the money that they got from the dirtbags was not nearly enough to pay for an education (or health, for that matter - health is a consumer good!). Then you try to create jobs in fantasy industries like tourism and fast food, but that fails horribly, because who wants to spend their vacation in a small town with 30000 unemployed people? Then you invest in the only industry that works - law enforcement. Since crime went up, half the people have become criminals anyway, so you only have to employ the other half and incarcerate the criminals. Probelm solved! But wait. Their old mothers and thier children are still on welfare, NOT WORKING!
Here is the ultimate solution: send them to Mexico! or Malaysia, or something. There the children will be able to work and become productive members of our lovely capitalist society, and get this - they'll make the world a better place! Your world! Because we are all unhappy and frustrated right now: your Nike shoes are too expensive (the children that make them should work for free, those little bastards), and your fast food is not fast enough, and wouldn't we all be happier if we could buy designer jeans for 1/2 the price.
But is this only a language difference? After all, greed does have a negative connotation here. Well, not necessarily. The word "greed" can also bear different meanings for different cultures. While it is generally accepted that greed is "wanting more than you need", what to do when an entire culture is based on having more than you need? Or when we are bombarded by commercials all the time that can convince you that you need whatever they are selling. I mean, some people actually believe they need electric can openers. How is that not greed? Yet it's hard to understand that when you grow up into this culture. Mr. Terminator, governor of California, has 6 SUVs (or is it 7?), yet so one really thinks he is greedy.. or else he woudln't have been elected.
So the meaning of greed becomes distorted for your convenience. It starts to mean "wanting more than you friends and neighbours have", or "wanting more than you can afford and getting it without working for it, you lazy bum". So you start getting angry at people who are on welfare because they're taking your hard-earned money while they sit there and do nothing. Why can't they just work?, you ask.
