Everybody's got a racket
I don't know how I got thinking about this, but the more I considered it, the more it made sense: Just about everyone has a racket, a business, a livelyhood that they adhere to that, more or less, is used to support themselves. There are far fewer altruistic people out there than one would be led to believe.
The old adage "follow the money" is pure wisdom when trying to decipher the true motivations of various people. It helps you figure out just why someone is working this side of the street, and why someone else is on the other side. While being compensated for work performed is ethical, and trying to pursuade a person to buy your product or service is fine, we oftentimes find people who are "fighting" for a cause, a noble purpose. This person is thought be be selfless, not caring about themselves, but only for their "cause". Could there not be a better example of the human species than this?
Let's take the president of, say, PETA. What is Ingrid Newkirk's motivation? Is she selflessly giving of her time to save the poor animals? Of course not! When she found out how much power and control she could maintain through pursuading millions to donate to stop animal cruelty (something that 99.9% of normal humans would be for), she couldn't help but continue the racket. Why not? Someone else may get a piece of the pie if see didn't!
How about Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, or ICCI? What is their motivation for opposing large scale livestock operations? Could it be grants from various foundations around the country that encourage them (i.e. pay the staff and directors) to continue opposing livestock? Follow the money, folks.
Very few people are selfless - Jesus and Mother Teresa come to mind. The rest of us are subject to question. Follow the money, folks, and figure out the motivation as to why statements are made by certain people. It could be as basic as simply wanting to make an honest living. It could be as devious, however, as controlling the lives and actions of others in the name of some "grand and noble" scheme.
The old adage "follow the money" is pure wisdom when trying to decipher the true motivations of various people. It helps you figure out just why someone is working this side of the street, and why someone else is on the other side. While being compensated for work performed is ethical, and trying to pursuade a person to buy your product or service is fine, we oftentimes find people who are "fighting" for a cause, a noble purpose. This person is thought be be selfless, not caring about themselves, but only for their "cause". Could there not be a better example of the human species than this?
Let's take the president of, say, PETA. What is Ingrid Newkirk's motivation? Is she selflessly giving of her time to save the poor animals? Of course not! When she found out how much power and control she could maintain through pursuading millions to donate to stop animal cruelty (something that 99.9% of normal humans would be for), she couldn't help but continue the racket. Why not? Someone else may get a piece of the pie if see didn't!
How about Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, or ICCI? What is their motivation for opposing large scale livestock operations? Could it be grants from various foundations around the country that encourage them (i.e. pay the staff and directors) to continue opposing livestock? Follow the money, folks.
Very few people are selfless - Jesus and Mother Teresa come to mind. The rest of us are subject to question. Follow the money, folks, and figure out the motivation as to why statements are made by certain people. It could be as basic as simply wanting to make an honest living. It could be as devious, however, as controlling the lives and actions of others in the name of some "grand and noble" scheme.
posted by bgunzy at 12/04/2006 08:35:00 PM
2 Comments:
Wow, thanks for linking out to a definition of "altruistic." You were getting pretty deep and losing me there for a second.
Great post though...
Yeah, I had to check it out myself to make sure I used it right. Didn't know if it was similar to "truthiness", like Cobert talks about.
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