“The real evil, the fundamental cause of all the problems of the world today — the fact that two-thirds of the world live in absolute poverty, on less than a dollar a day, while others have not even that, and are dying in the millions — the root of all of that is our complacency.”
If we were not complacent we could not bear to live in a world in which these events were happening, these people were dying in the midst of plenty. We would not allow it to happen if we were not complacent. This is something which we need to remember... because this is the root of all the troubles in the world. It is a sign of our separateness. Complacency results from separation — the sense that we are separate and that by competition we become superior — and that superiority allows us to live what we call ‘well’. But we cannot live ‘well’ when two-thirds of the world are living and dying in absolute poverty. It is not possible to do so with impunity, and we do not. The result is crime. The result is catastrophe of one kind or another — governments which create wars for oil, for example. That is a catastrophe, and it is only possible because we are complacent, because we do not acknowledge the needs of millions of people who cannot take for granted what we take for granted: regular food, leisure, education and healthcare.
The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007)
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Benjamin Creme 134
artist, author, esotericist 1922–2016Related quotes
Source: Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights (2007), p. 7
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that’s wrong with the world.”
https://www.facebook.com/partnersinhealth/photos/%E2%80%9Cthe-idea-that-some-lives/10151726145651986/
"In Defence Of A New Edition" - Preface to the second edition (1902)
The Defendant (1901)
Context: The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives. These essays, futile as they are considered as serious literature, are yet ethically sincere, since they seek to remind men that things must be loved first and improved afterwards.
"Statement to the Court Upon Being Convicted of Violating the Sedition Act" (18 September 1918) http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/court.htm
Federal Court statement (1918)
“The poverty of yesterday was less squalid than the poverty we purchase with our industry today.”
"The Elderly Lady", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Context: The poverty of yesterday was less squalid than the poverty we purchase with our industry today. Fortunes were smaller then as well.
