[extropy-chat] humor: evil eye

[Lee Corbin]

Stuart writes

> --- Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>> There is an ongoing unconscious conspiracy to ignore
>> the role of envy in human affairs
>> and as an explanation for much of human conduct.  I
>> attribute this mainly to the reluctance
>> by anthropologists and other sensitive people to
>> criticize primitive societies, in which envy
>> plays such an overpowering role.
>> 
>> And is probably playing a vastly understated role
>> even in ours.
> 
> Well I would almost say that modern consumerism is the
> very institutionalization of envy and a healthy dose of greed.

I do want it understood that "envy" as traditionally spoken about
is what you might call "malicious envy".  It is the desire, hidden
or overt, that *harm* come to someone who has something more
than I have.  A slightly lesser form of it is a mere gladness when my
neighbor comes to grief, or someone vandalizes his new car which
had caused me the envy.

You are not talking about envy above;  the "modern consumerism"
doesn't necessarily contain an element of envy (read malicious envy)
at all.  It's perhaps at most an admiration of what someone else has
or what they have accomplished.  When that serves as a motivator
for someone to match or exceed those accomplishments (or 
possessions), it's probably even a good thing. 

Greed, too, as narrowly understood, is actually a virtue.  Ayn Rand
had to write an entire book, as you know, on "The Virtue of 
Selfishness".  If you are speaking here of "self-interest", then there
can't be any doubt that this is a powerful and natural force without
which there would be little or no human progress.

Of course, there can be such a thing as overly narrow or excess
and blatant self-interest, which is rightly called greed and denounced.
But I'm sure you don't include by your term "greed" the desire of
an individual to keep what he's earned, and not simply share it with
all the world's undeserving.

> If there's a conspiracy, it is the promulgation of the myth that it
> is not sufficient to have enough, one must always have MORE
> than one's neighbor.

That's more a widespread feeling than a myth.  People have
competed for status in this wise since before the pleistocene,
and according to many now, the status-seeking attending it
is what drove the acquisition of greater human intelligence
all throughout the EEA (environment of evolutionary 
adaptedness). 

What true envy does---and why it is so denigrated in societies
where it exists, particularly in the mediterranean area as Amara
and the wikipedia article metioned---is to greatly retard any
progress:  it makes people afraid to get ahead of their
neighbors.   For fear of the Evil Eye.

Lee