The Creed of Greed

Wherever I look, whatever I read seems to reflect one over riding quality – Greed. And greed is slowly destroying our quality of life. We are evermore in danger of destroying our humanity as Midas came near to doing. When he was granted one wish by Bacchus, he asked for everything he touched to be turned to gold. However, finding this made his food inedible, he had to ask for the gift to be taken away. It is not our food we are turning into gold, but much else we need in order to nourish our humanity.

Like Scrooge, we suffer from the love of possessing. We buy what we do not need. We want to possess, not only for our pleasure and entertainment, which is legitimate, but for the love of possessing for its own sake.

Many have homes so filled with possessions that there is scarcely room to turn in them. The enjoyment lies not in the things we possess – we cannot possibly love so many objects at once – but in the act of possessing.

This is the age of the label snob. What the owner enjoys is not the suit itself but the name of the designer; not the wine but its label; not the car but the prestige that comes with it. We look to possessions to hike us into social circles. Many no longer care about the values and principles they abandon in order to do this.

In the last election campaign, as we followed it from TV to newspapers, to Facebook, billboards and blogs, many of us formed an opinion, silently. Then we voted against those who had obviously transgressed while in government. The large part of these transgressions had one word scrawled all over, and it was Greed.

The greed virus is now very much part of our psyche and we have passed it on to the  next generation. Anything goes as long as you get what you want. Sell your very soul if need be.

The basis of harmonious human relationships is respect for one’s own dignity, combined with respect for the rights and dignity of others. The word respect is hardly in anyone’s vocabulary these days. Ideals hardly exist. Many live for the sole chance of accumulating more whether it is wealth or power, by fair means or foul.

 This is the age of the man who has everything and the woman who needs nothing. But we continue to purchase what we don’t need and to buy objects at prices which we cannot truly morally justify when so many, all over the world, are dying of hunger.

There is a part of society which is sated and bored. Its members have had their fill: of food, of drink, of entertainment, of clothing, of sex. Nothing gives them much pleasure anymore, for they have too much of it all. Everything has lost its lustre so they turn to drugs for that extra buzz, that new experience. Many youngsters cannot survive a weekend unless they are drugged out of oblivion – either by drugs or by alcohol.

We have destroyed the island in our frenzy to build up everywhere and it seems there is little chance of this stopping in the near future. On the country. Hundreds of flats here, more hundreds there, maisonettes, shopping malls; the cutting down of trees, the killing of birds. We have carved up Malta and carved it up very badly so that we can no longer enjoy it. We have cultivated ugliness and it doesn’t look as if this is going to stop.

The Law Courts are full of law suits about money and property and criminal lawyers are kept busy with murders and attempted murders. Few of these are crimes of passion. They are more often than not crimes over possessions.

We are pushed into working in ways which are unsatisfying, so we may buy things we have been harassed into believing will satisfy us, make us happy and we have been convinced that we cannot do without. This is the logic of the economic system we have created, or rather, which has been created for us. And yet, man doesn’t really need so very much to live a worthwhile existence. Primitive man has much to teach us if only we could learn that lesson.

We no longer make friends or acquaintances but allies and contacts who can help us to accumulate more wealth, more possessions. But allies too, are expedient for nothing will stop us from climbing on their shoulders to take the final step ahead of them.

The body of the young Tutankhamen was sealed with his riches for all those centuries in a dark and airless chamber. All that remained was his decomposed body. It was the gold and alabaster that kept their substance and form. The glitter told us much about his status but nothing about the man himself. In giving a false value to wealth and possessions we are gradually losing our humanity and losing sight of what is worthwhile, of what life is truly about. But we are caught up in this vicious circle and don’t really know how to get off it.  For some the accumulation of goods has overtaken anything else. Nothing is ever enough. I was making these reflections as I was walking round Sliema. It is all so depressing.

The Royal Watercolour Society in Malta

On a more positive note I went to the vernissage of the RWS in Malta at the Auberge d’Italie which was opened by Marquis Nicholas De Piro. This is a wonderful exhibition which you should not miss. The RWS is the oldest and most prestigious watercolour society in the world with a maximum of 75 full Members who choose new associates each year in a rigorous Election procedure. There are over 100 most of which are for sale. Marquis De Piro commented that this is the most prestigious collection of paintings shown at the Auberge d’Italie or perhaps he said Malta, for a long time.