Why do I get the feeling that America has lost something during the last two weeks of financial carnage? Something that will take a long time to regain and that is the “Moral High Ground”. The American moral high ground has not been very high for some years now (think Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and not being bound by the World Court decisions), but the last few days, to me as an interested and concerned outsider, has seen the US of A become another Wall St road kill victim.
The last thing I want to do is to seem sanctimonious or “holier than thou”, but if you forget people, and ignore humanity, in the broadest sense, then sometime down the line you are going to cop a hiding. If you ever think that you are better than anyone else, or know better, or put money or possessions before the welfare and well being of human beings, you might as well light a fuse – put a match to the blue paper and commend yourself to your ancestors. Ignore humanity, forget about people and something unpleasant is going to happen to you. It is just a matter of when. Dealing with people is about ethics, about building trust, about treating people the way you would like to be treated. Ethics is not a disposable item to be used only when deemed expedient.
People used to be taught from the fables and myths of the past. Not many read Aesop any more – more is the pity. Read this one, there is a lesson in it somewhere:
Aesop’s fable (CIV)
The goose with the golden eggs
Their was once a man who was lucky enough to own a goose that laid him a golden egg every day. However, since the process was so slow and since he wanted the entire treasure at once, he became dissatisfied and eventually killed the goose. After cutting her open, he found her to be just what any other goose would be.
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