Non-competitiveness: an evolutionary anabranch, backwater or dead end?
Tom Merle remarked in a comment that “our western free market societies are really built on greed”. (I must add that the communist experiment was just as much built on greed: on direct greed for power, without the transmission chain of a sophisticated financial system.) He quoted the now infamous words of Gordon Gekko as spoken by actor Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed…”
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The Epicurean communities, on the other hand, have always been based on a cooperative, non-competitive attitude and behavior.
How could such as subspecies not only survive for 2300 years but also positively thrive and flourish for almost 800 years?
Had they followed the laws propagated by evolutionary biologists they must have died out long time ago – just like many small religious communities, including Christian ones, based on non-competitive cooperation. The Scandinavian type of socialist economy based on cooperation could never function, either, according to mainstream economists. But, in fact, it not only does, but makes its “players” happier, more content and less stressed than the people forced to “play” by the rules of a competitive system based on greed. And numerous religious sects (like the Amish in the US), cults, fraternities and sororities, based on non-competitive sharing are still up and running.
I am not sure about the future of anything in general and Epicureanism in particular, but I can imagine that it might continue as a narrow or broad alternative anabranch or backwater, a tolerated or persecuted minority for another few hundreds or thousands of years. It might turn into mainstream only if and when the present mainstream lifestyle based on competitiveness and greed will prove to be a dead end …and leaves enough survivors for an Epicurean revival experiment.
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“carpe diem” instead of soul-searching for children?
Since my rare but aggressive little skin cancer was staged as “micro-metastasized” (meaning something between stages IIIA and IV with a survival prognosis of 50-65% in the first two years) I have become much more aware of the value of each day. This is normal for me in my predicament but I am trying to let others learn something about it, too, first of all, my children. (My wife and I have chosen not to name my disease to them at this point, so they do not start getting upset about the possibility of losing their father shortly after having lost their mother to a mental disease – on top of having changed their “country” for the second time.)
This is no easy enterprise since my children are no different from other children of their age (9 and 12) structuring time around the present-laden knots of Christmas, Easter, Birthday, Halloween. Luckily I do not have to start from zero. My daughter is taken to bed alternatively by my wife and by me each evening and part of the ritual is her remembering what the best thing that happened to her on each day was. We have extended the topic range now to mentioning all the good things that happened. If there are “not so good” things mentioned we talk about the chance of them happening again and whether she can do anything about it.
This little “spiritual exercise” is very far from the Ignatian Examination of Conscience I was taught by Catholic priests and nuns or the other Christian soul-searching practices that teach the children how sinful they are. It teaches them (or so I hope) the Epicurean joy of adding to our happiness account the mental pleasure of remembering pleasurable events and teaches them that there is something good to be experienced each day.
The part about “what was not so good and what can I do about it in the future?” might seem to be more in the Stoic and modern motives analysis culture tradition but we know that the Epicurean communities spent considerable time trying to improve themselves and each other by practicing how to speak honestly even when telling your mind might imply the risk of retaliation by someone stronger (parrhesia) and this practice must have been very much like what we do today in self-improvement life coaching or stress-communication training.
Now all I have to do is to extend the practice also to my prepubescent son…
Still part of that strange race?
Are you still “part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don’t want to buy things they don’t need to impress people they dislike.” (Emile Gauvreau)
or
do you prefer to satisfy your needs in ways that are congruent with your value system?
Like, for instance, a consequently practicing Christian, Buddhist or Humanist or … Epicurean?
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