Humanity in Flux: Would a Species That Recognizes Its Own Worth Be Actively Destroying Itself?

This is not directly related to Fukushima but it is related to the attitude that seems destined to destroy all of humanity and this planet. We must no longer listen when every catastrophe is counted off as how much it costs in currency! How much has it cost in lost lands, human life, animal life, plant life, natural resource depletion.... That is what counts. When all is gone and the only thing you have left are the money in your account....happy eating. We really need to wake up and stop all the fiddling.

FROM: Truthout

It is common sense that what we value, we wish to take care of, preserve, and treat with respect. Often times, this care is expressed towards material objects such as cars, jewelry, and luxury items; or more abstractly, towards traditions such as religious holidays or family and cultural customs. But what is the value we assign to the life of a human being?

When we take a look at how we treat each other as people, it is safe to say that we do not seem to value human beings very much. In a system based on materialism and the pursuit of "success," money and power have come to define a human being's value. Consequently, nothing has inherent worth - everything is just a means to obtaining a desired end and satisfying our seemingly obsessive need for recognition and power. In the pursuit of these goals, the environment is being destroyed with a fanatical vigor one expects of an adolescent consciousness whose shortsighted impulse for instant gratification leaves it dangerously indifferent to the consequences of its actions; at the same time, countless human lives are sacrificed in wars over resources while financial tyranny waged against the working class in the form of austerity is plunging millions of people into poverty across the globe. Nothing is off limits in corporate capitalism's suicidal quest for profits. But, when everything has a price, nothing has inherent value.   (...)

(...)The owners of the system - the corporate oligarchs - have, through mass propaganda and cultural conditioning over time, taught us that worth is about how much money a person has, the type of job they hold, the amount of property they own, and how "successful" they are (i.e. how well they reflect the values of the dominant culture).[3]In this type of society, materialism and the trivial become our Gods to which we pledge allegiance in an economy that constantly profits from our desperation to be accepted and seen as worthy. The meaning of life is reduced to achieving "success" and recognition while the deep-seated desires of one's soul for truth and connection are willfully sacrificed for superficial achievements whose promises of "happiness" and "worth" never seem to materialize. In the end, life itself becomes meaningless.

When money, recognition, and materialism determine a human's worth, only the few are seen as valuable. As Chris Hedges explains in"Let's Get This Class War Started,"[4] the rest of us are deemed worthless, "disposable human beings" in service of corporate oligarchs who view the lower classes as "uncouth parasites, annoyances that have to be endured, at times placated and always controlled in the quest to amass more power and money."

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)