Windows on Humanity

The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor."

- Eric Hoffer in “The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms” (1955)

My own ideas on the quote:

I need to go to a more personal level this time than has been my habit in commenting these great quotes of the past. This quote just moves me deeply, as I have never enjoyed direct competition in any form. In fact, I have always shied away from it.
However, I get immense pleasure from learning something new and I have always really liked competing with past myself. I must have a strange inverted psyche, but I really have never got any real pleasure from defeating other people in an open competition.

This must be also because of a very deep inner insecurity. However, I am also cursed with an overblown sense of empathy. This defect of character does all too often force me to think how the defeated would feel, and I just can't help it. My solution has always been to avoid direct competition as long as it is possible.
However, I have had no trouble in competing for a place in university or for a job. In these instances, situation is made much easier when one not needs know the other people that take part in the competition. The situation is made much easier when one never gets to see the ones who did not get to the university or did not get the job because of me getting the spot.

However, I have never competed in sports or sought personal promotion in the workplace. There has always been people that I know who have been interested in the same job and and I have seen them as just as worthy as I am for the job.
So, the lack of a competitive urge in a person is not without negative consequences. On the other hand, being a little boss a bit further up in the organization would not have been my thing, after all.

On a more general level, my personal example can show that not all humans are necessarily competitive animals. This is true, even if we are quite universally led to believe that joy of defeating other people in competition is a thing we all just thirst to do. Naturally, this claim can still be true for many other people.
However, nobody really knows how much of this desire is learned during the long of years of competitive indoctrination in school and many kinds of playing-fields. People who teach us to be utterly competitive seemingly think that they are doing us a major service when they succeed in diminishing our empathy for the losers and in creating worship of the winners. However, even this just might not be a universal trait of all humans.

(This piece was refurbished on 19th of December, 2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer
"Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902 – May 21, 1983) was an American social writer. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that his book The Ordeal of Change was his finest work. In 2001, the Eric Hoffer Award was established in his honor with permission granted by the Eric Hoffer Estate in 2005."

There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm.”

- Epicurus (Epicurean Principal Doctrine 33)

Morality is a property of the society. The accepted version of morality that is in general use in a society is normally instilled to the individual members of the society through education both at home and in  institutions like day-care and school.
However, in modern societies the idea of accepted behavior (read: morality) is gained most of all through literature, television, movies and other media. Every single human society on earth needs to have a rulebook over allowed and not allowed behavior. We often call this necessary and mostly beneficial social need with the name of "morality".

We also often are under an illusion that it comes from us and not from the needs of the society. This is so because this illusion has been built with great vigor by very many people in the past, and this idea is now commonly believed.
The basis for all morality in individual members of the society is the fear of being caught, as Epicurus already noted 2400 years ago. According to Epicurus a person can also strive for tranquility and happiness only when he does not even secretly do things that society forbids.

Epicurus also noted that unjust laws need to be changed if and when the needs of the society do change. Unjust and outdated laws just cannot expected to be followed in the long run. According to recent research all humans share certain basic instinct for fairness and justice. Also, the other great apes have such universal traits. They are simply products of evolution.
Having these feelings of justice and fairness have given a clear evolutionary edge to those groups of humans who have shared things more fairly with others and have really cared for other members of the group.

The universal feeling of fairness and justice are, however, often suppressed by society. This needs to happen, for example, if a society is based on unfair and unjust division of wealth.
Religions have been often important tools in keeping up class privilege in the name of 'morality'. The usage of religious 'morality' has often in the long past of humanity in fact meant the suppression of true human instincts of fairness and justice.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect."

- Marcus Aurelius in "Meditations"

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."

- Bertrand Russell in "Why I Am Not a Christian" (1927)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus
"Epicurus (Greek: Ἐπίκουρος, Epikouros, "ally, comrade"; 341 BCE – 270 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters of Epicurus's 300 written works remain. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators."