Self interest makes us stupid. Really really stupid. It’s impossible to get more stupid. Because when self interest is the focus then you can’t see beyond it.
But the world is dominated by self interest. On all social levels and from local to global. It has become the economy. Big but blind. Massive but myopic. Because that is the nature of self interest.
Self interest means to plunder anything, anywhere, regardless of its effects. And the effects is to destroy what it plunders: cultures, economic, political and social cohesion, eco systems, whether the land or the water and seas. In other words, the means of life on the planet.
Destroying the means of life on the planet means to destroy those who plunder too who carry on regardless until the destruction stops it. But they are blind to it. Because they are focused on self interest.
In other words self interest creates havoc.
But it’s the life we are used to and we want what we are used to. Indeed we always want more. We are fed by the mythology of ‘progress’. It destroys us inside, but self interest blinds us to it. Our decaying insides make us desperate for more of it. But we are blind to that.
And we are out of touch with our real need for sharedness, for sharing, for the survival of the shared-ist.
andrewdsterling 