Worse, are you a dissatisfied human being seeking to be a satisfied pig? Is it ... and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends. ... People do evil because they do not know. The .... If it is everybody's business to steal, he will do it.
Are You a Dissatisfed Human Being or a Satisfed Pig? This essay is dedicated to my beloved Sarah who has been an unfailing inspiration in the creation of it...
Worse, are you a dissatisfed human being seeking to be a satisfed pig? Is it not amazing that the world is so satiated with dissatisfed hedonists most of whom are bent on accumulating more and more—but can not? And, that— richer than them—there are so proportionately few persons satisfed as pigs frolicking in their muddy pens of stocks, bonds, offshore accounts, greed, and corruption—convinced that their wealth makes of them some rarifed species immune to the daily rigors of life that most others must deal with often with daunting miserableness? Both are greedy. One is greedy to have what is not as yet possessed, and the other is greedy to have more of what is already possessed. Both are dogmatic and faithful in seeking what is snug and complacent looking always for self-satisfaction by means of their nambypamby creeds created to establish and justify their fantasized pleasures. Both have made a religion of being well and fxed on being warm as toast. Some ethical theorists proclaim that pleasure or happiness ought to be the main aim in life. The Cyrenaics, a group of Greek “philosophers” of the fourth century BC, believed good feeling is the only pleasure, and it was considered rewarding to have positively exclusively enjoyable physical sensations. Physical pleasure is more intense than mental pleasure. Epicurus (341-270 BC) followed in their footsteps advocating the pursuit of pleasure believing death is the deprivation of sensation—when our cravings fnally are diminished for good. While the Cyrenaics were more sentient, the Epicureans were more rationalistic in their thinking. The Epicureans believed death takes away the intense desire for immortality, and pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life. In his “Epicurus to Menocceus,” translated by C. Bailey, Epicurus stated: “To grow accustomed therefore to simple and not luxurious diet gives us health to the full, and makes a man or woman alert for the needful employment of life, and when after long intervals we approach luxuries, disposes us better towards them, and fts us to be fearless of fortune.” This advice, if taken, would give us freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind. Epicureans are contrary to the idea that our lusts must be
satisfed; they advocate sober reasoning and motives for choosing and avoiding luxuria, and mere opinions of the vox populi are fended off . Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and his godson, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) believed that the happiness of society was more important than that of the individual. Their philosophy was called Utilitarianism. Utility is the Greatest Happiness Principle that “holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” (Utilitarianism: Essays on Ethics, Religion & Society edited by J. M. Robson, F. E. L. Priestly, and D. P. Dryer.) Utilitarians believe that pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends. But they argued that is is better to be a dissatisfed human being than a satisfed pig. We should cultivate a capacity for nobler feelings at all times. Chinese philosophers have also left us words of wisdom on trying to fnd happiness. Ch'Eng I (1033-1107). He advocated that if we wish to improve our mental acuity with the object of being happy, we should have few desires. And without them, we will experience no delusion. Being serious means we are acting unselfshly. Without seriousness, our mind flls with selfsh desires that are harmful to our humanity. People do evil because they do not know. The way to be constant is to change according to circumstances. The Chinese accentuated humanity believing it is the foundation of goodness which leads to happiness. I once knew a man who was thought to be very successful (“happy”) and was the envy of many individuals who wished they possessed the possessions he vaunted. He was a genuine con artist, and when he was eventually caught up with by the police, he fed to Switzerland but was eventually extradited back to Italy where he was sentenced to prison for four years for embezzlement and other crimes. Listen to his story... I knew a man in Prato, Italy not far from where I live who was particularly interested in his “image” and how it is perceived by others. And I would like to tell you about him.
I became acquainted with this individual some time ago, and met him for the frst time in his offce. The more I came to know about him, the more I was struck with astonishment. And even as I begin to tell this story, I am tempted to pinch myself to convince myself that I am not dreaming! This true story is for me a very poignant one indeed. The personage under discussion is a business consultant (commercialista), a very successful one at that—if one would judge by appearances only. He is always answering his cellphone. He drives an enormous white automobile equipped with the most up-to-date electronic gadgetry. His offce, with three secretaries, is outftted with computers, fax machines and other modern offce accruements not always found in Prato. The room adjacent to his administrative centre is crammed with books and economic magazines and journals mostly written in English. There is a book in Italian he himself wrote and published personally but which few people have purchased but which he has given hundreds of gifts of. He represents many companies, and is often so busy in his offce, he tells his secretaries to inform certain callers that he is out of town. He is twenty-seven years old, uses Valium drops to calm his nerves, and is under doctor’s care for an ulcer. If you look at the left arm of his huge, expensive leather desk chair, you will see that it is worn through to the “bone” from his nervous hand rubbings. And he has told me, kidding of course, at least three times—Freudian-slipping all the way—the following: “If I don’t go crazy, I’ll go to jail!” (Kidding, of course!) Naturally, he dresses to kill. Elegance is all around him. If you enter his place of work, you will be impressed immediately with an inordinate amount of framed pieces of paper which—with the exception of one oil painting of his beautiful, childless wife— are dedications to him for some honour or other, for some diploma from one university or other, for some seminar or other he has frequented. Although he never went to university in his own country, he has testaments to his scholarly savoir faire from many institutions that seem at frst to be reputable and of an inestimable quality. All of these certifcates are, as might be expected, framed in very elegant, costly wooden borders which enclose them. You would be fxed deeply. Get ready to pinch yourself… Two of these qualifcations are from a school in California where this
character studied for less than two months. The diplomas state clearly that the man swotted successfully and fulflled regularly the requirements for not only a Master’s degree in Economics, but even a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics. Under these two enclosed parchments is another boxed declaration, a bit smaller, written on false United States’ Department of State stationery attesting to the facts that the two degrees are in buona fde, and signed not “by…for…” but forged for the United States’ Secretary of State his very self! Get ready to pinch yourself… If we lean towards another wall in the room, two more sheepskins will be seen. These are from a university in Switzerland, and they proclaim that this twenty-“sevenish” someone has studied for not only the Master of Business Administration, but still—hold on!—another Doctor of Philosophy in Economics! (To date: MA, PhD, MBA, PhD!) Are you counting with me? Get ready to pinch yourself… One of the truths of the matter here is that this somebody, to qualify for his Swiss PhD, purchased a PhD thesis—of a student recently “doctored” at a very famous United States’ business school—from a company in Ann Arbor, Michigan and well-known throughout the degree-getting world, had that thesis translated, and then submitted it in order to receive his Helvetian documents conferring honour and privilege. Get ready to pinch yourself… The most recent foray by this man hungry in his extravagant quest for recognition of his adroitness in business relations, has been the enrollment in an expensive “by post” course, with audio-visuals and brilliantly designed study guides, for yet another MBA (MA, PhD, MBA, PhD, MBA!!!) granted by an English school which I was informed, by an Oxford professor, is perhaps the most respectable of its kind and which is much-touted throughout
Europe. And with all of these pegs, our fox wants to return to a famous business university in his own country to—you guessed it!—TEACH! Get ready to pinch yourself… While he reads some English, especially economic terminology, he cannot—I swear!—communicate in English, and if you call to speak to him in English, one of his secretaries will tell you right off that he is out of town! Call again? Still out of town. Our heavily-“degreed” perpetual student, ever on the march to nail another “HONOUR” to his wall to impress his clients, has larceny at heart. If he is to be a purloiner, he is going to be the best of sharks. His determination and verve would move you. If it is everybody’s business to steal, he will do it better. He is an artist. He does what he does because he loves its labour for its own sake. (Cannot we, at least, admire him for this?) And the joy he affords his dear mother and father, as he sits next to them at Mass every Sunday morning in his parish’s almost empty church, cannot be computed in Earthly terms. If you ask him if he thinks what he is doing is “eccentric,” he will respond with a boyish grin—his baby face shining, his blue eyes twinkling: “Everybody’s doing it!” A cordial thank you to Professor Peter Singer for his Ethics (Oxford University Press) Authored by Anthony St. John Calenzano, Italy 9 October MMXVII www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior
*
*
*
