There is a lot in the news lately about Greece's crazy debt crisis and rejecting more loans and the finance minister resigning and blah blah blah. I don't know that much about it (I don't keep up with news, but I heard this story from a co-worker who was very critical of Greece). However, it seems to me that we as a society put so much emphasis on nations as debt collectors. Greece owes Germany money, Canada owes Australia, America owes Britain, etc., etc. Every nation has debt; the world has debt.
It feels like we are measuring a country's worth by its financial standing far more than any other criteria. I don't know much about living in foreign countries, including Greece, but there must be some good quality about their culture that we can appreciate rather than focus on the negative connotations of a failing economic system.
I see us do the same thing with individual people too. We judge our friends and colleagues by their salary, the car they drive, the house they own, and what clothes they wear rather than what kind of person they are, what they contribute to the community, how they treat others, or what their attitude is like.
I leave you today with some lyrics from Enter Shikari that I think apply to this situation:
Now I don’t know about you, but
I don’t think…
the primary purpose of your life, of my life,
and the entirety of the human race
Is just to blindly consume to support a failing economy and a faulty system
For ever and ever
Until we run out of every resource
And have to resort to blowing each other up to ensure our own survival.
I don’t think…
We’re supposed to sit by idle
While we continue to use a long outdated system
That produces war, poverty, collusion, corruption,
Ruins our environment and threatens every aspect of our health,
And does nothing but divide and segregate us,
I don’t think…
How much military equipment we’re selling to other countries,
How many hydrocarbons we’re burning,
How much money is being printed and exchanged
Is a good measure of how healthy our society is.
But I do think…
I can speak for everyone when I say…
We’re sick of this shit.