Ironically I've been so busy at work that I've not had any time to write for my blog. I've been writing a really long post for a couple of weeks but I just haven't had the time or energy to finish it! I like the format of your posts, which are a short collection of thoughts on a particular topic, and I think I'll start following that myself.
Yeah, short essays or "attempts". I like long posts as well, but sometimes things can be expressed in just a couple paragraphs/sentences.
The point I wanted to get across is that, hopefully, the self discipline and frugality that a person needs to develop and run their own personal finances like a successful business would carry on after they have been successful, and would lead to spending time focusing more on being than acquiring. And if someone in that position still wanted to grow their business, as in, themselves, they would look to invest into socially beneficial projects, rather than purely making more money for its own sake.
This seems like the ideal.
I think the "work to earn, earn to spend" mentality is the real problem. In fact, this is where I'd say that what we have today isn't even the Protestant ethic, because a large part of that was frugality and living a spartan lifestyle. What we have now is a culture of extreme work and extreme spending.
Yeah your right, consumerism,materialism, economism etc...The Protestant ethic just laid the foundation of viewing work in itself as duty to Society or God.
That's interesting, I have to confess I am not an expert in the cultural background of the idea of the Protestant ethic. As you describe it, it's not something I agree with to be honest with you. I don't think any good can come from work done just for it's own sake, and I don't think that's what God wants from us.
In the natural world we see a perfect balance in all things. All nature asks of us is just to play our part in a system of mutual exchange and benefit, where basically everything is in place for us. In humans' natural habitat, tropical forests, all our needs are provided for without the need to do any work besides simply foraging.
Almost all the work humanity has been engaged in throughout its history has, in my mind, been largely destructive or, at best, unnecessary. We could very easily live a kind of "Garden of Eden" existence and I think everyone would be happier for it. It definitely beats what we're doing to the planet now.
I think that's the real difference then between the Protestant Ethic and the kind of "Do-nothing" philosophy of, for example, Masanobu Fukuoka, and eastern philosophy in general. There's an assumption that things are perfect already, and we get closer to God not by doing more, but actually by doing less, and letting what's already there shine.
Well said. Masanobu Fukuoka sounds like a someone I need to know more about thanks for introducing.
Masanobu Fukuoka was one of the pioneers of what later became Permaculture. I really recommend you watch this video too. It's about a Permaculture project in the middle of the desert in Jordan.