We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore LappĂ©, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Like All Rich People, Louis C.K. Hates Spoiled Rich Kids

by Jamie Johnson from Vanity Fair.
Access to unlimited resources consistently undermines any sense of normalcy in the household, and parents fail to restore balance by neglecting to teach their offspring that basic human values are far more important than an attachment to material wealth.
This author is my favorite from the 1% class that holds sway over the Earth's billions of people through their control of the Empire. In this piece he discusses the perils of growing up in a rich family, and for parents it poses...
a difficult dilemma: parents raising children born to privilege run the risk of creating self-satisfied little cretins.
Maybe that explains George Bush, Jr.

Johnson knows his subject well by growing up in a family who are heirs to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. He is also the creator of the film, "The One Percent", a film that I highly recommend if you are going to have much understanding of the class of people who largely rule the world.