THE GREAT SWINDLE

CONTENTS

• Deterrence by Force
  • Direct Force
  • Indirect Force
    • The Wrath of God
    • Cop of Conscience
• Gambler's Odds
• Enlightened Self-Restraint

It is often assumed, and positively asserted as a "fact" (there we go 'jumping' to conclusions again), that greed and selfishness are an ineradicable characteristic of the human animal.

Well, this simply isn't so.

Greed (along with all other forms of "self"ish ness) is nothing other than a manifestation of the Sense of Self operating in IGNORANCE. It is a function of the Conceit of 'Self'. Acting in IGNORANCE, the Sense of Self becomes short-sighted "self"ish ness rather than broad-sighted SELFness. And as such, it can be broadened and corrected as that IGNORANCE is overcome.

Greed, itself, is not a Grand Distractor. It is simply the result of IGNORANCE.

But, the BELIEF that greed is endemic and invincible in the human animal is  a Grand Distractor. This fallacious mode of thinking distracts us away from, and blinds us to, the REALITY that the human Self can be educated away from selfish greed and into a more positive force, not only for the Self, but for humanity as a whole.

By distracting us away from this REALITY, this Grand Distractor induces us to despair in our hearts of ever being able to eliminate, fully, the effects of greed in any meaningful way, and, therefore, to not really try to correct it at its source.

And, by not fully  trying to correct it at its source , ie., IGNORANCE, we not only fail to fully correct it at all, but we don't even do a very good job of controlling it.

Instead of putting the bulk of our efforts toward educating the Sense of Self into a broader and more constructive view, we put our emphasis on trying to control greed by way of force and FEAR. At best, such an attempt at control is of minimal benefit, and, by its relative failure, our attempt at controlling greed in this way serves to reinforce our erroneous BELIEF that greed is an invincible aspect of human nature.

If we were to disabuse ourselves of this erroneous belief that greed is inherent and only minimally controllable, we would then be in a position to focus on that which would truly correct it. We could focus ourselves on educating the Sense of Self into being a positive and integrative social force, rather than permit it to continue being the negative and disintegrative force it has so often been in the world up to now.

In order to understand this better, let's take a closer look at the common view of greed, and how the common 'wisdom' has been applied to it.

Traditionally, from the beginnings of history, it has been commonly believed that greed is endemic in men, and therefore, that it cannot be eliminated but, at best, can only be deterred.

And, it is believed that the best, if not the only, way to effectively even deter greed is by the use of force, applied either directly or indirectly.

The direct  application of force boils down to the infliction of punishment, either physical (eg., death, cutting off the hand of a thief, incarceration, etc.), or economic (forfeitures or fines).

This force is administered by whatever social institution is responsible for the use of the organized physical might within a particular society. In a primitive society, it is the clan administering force against its own greedy members. In more developed societies, it might be the King and his army administering this force. In our society today, it is the criminal justice system which administers this force.

The indirect  application of force for the purpose of deterring greed (or any other unwanted behavior for that matter), has always been by way of the use of FEAR.

The FEAR of having force directly applied to him if he transgresses is instilled in the individual.

To the extent people refrain from acts of greed out of FEAR of being punished, such acts of greed are deterred, and the actual direct application of punishment by force is not necessary.

In other words, if we can scare people into not being greedy (or otherwise 'bad') by the threat of punishment, we won't have to actually punish them at all.

And, from the view that greed is intractable in people, and can only be controlled by force, it has usually been recognized that in order for force to do even a minimally adequate job of deterring greed, it is the indirect application of that force which must carry the bulk of the load.

Force, in the form of organized social might, due to very real pragmatic limits on the social resources which can be made available for this purpose, can be applied directly to only a relative few.

Therefore, if force is going to work in this regard, it must do so primarily by way of its indirect application, with its direct application being only a last resort.

But if, as often happens, the credibility of the likelihood of force being directly applied to a transgressor breaks down, then its indirect application by way of FEAR decreases accordingly, and the viability of force, itself, as a means of deterring greed, deteriorates substantially.

In other words, if the direct application to the few doesn't induce sufficient FEAR of its application to the many, which it often does not, then the force of organized social might loses the major part of what it had to offer as a deterrent to greed in the first place.

Consequently, as a result of the relative inefficiency of organized social might as a deterrent to greed, which is nothing new, another form of indirect force based upon FEAR has been traditionally relied upon to supplement the organized might of society in deterring greed. This form of indirect force has usually come packaged, in one way or another, as the 'Wrath of God'.

The force of the 'Wrath of God' has seldom been used by way of direct  application - at least not for very long. Experience too quickly teaches us that God does not often take direct action for or against us in this life according to any standards of justice of which we can make any discernible sense.

Instead, any force He might apply to us as punishment (or any benefit He might bestow as a reward) must take place in the hereafter. It is only the FEAR of what He might do to us, or refrain from doing for us, in the hereafter, that holds any credible deterrence (if any) to our greed in the here and now.

In other words, the force of the 'Wrath of God' operates primarily by way of its indirect  rather than direct, application.

It has been recognized for thousands of years that the 'Wrath of God' is not only far less draining on social resources than huge police forces, but is also far more effective in deterring greed than any police force, however large, can possibly be.

At least, so long as the 'Wrath of God' remains viably credible.

But, as with the force of social might, if the likelihood of the force of direct Heavenly punishment loses its credibility in our minds, then the ability of our FEAR of that force to deter our greed decreases proportionately.

And that is pretty much where we are today. The BELIEF in a Heavenly God, and with it the FEAR of the 'Wrath' of that God, are both in significant decline.

At best, the 'Wrath of God' has been replaced by the 'cop of conscience', and that has too often turned out to be an impotent cop, indeed.

So, today, the two forms of force that have traditionally been relied upon to deter greed, ie., social might and the 'Wrath of God', have both been seriously undermined by modern circumstances.

And, with respect to the point of view that greed is intractable, and can only be, at best, deterred, and that only by way of force; the decay of the effectiveness of the two traditional forms of force, coupled with today's crime rate in the western world, would appear to back up that analysis.

However, this entire view and analysis of human greed as being intractable, and the need for force to even deter it, is completely off the mark.

The FACT is that greed is neither endemic nor intractable within us. The tendency  toward greed within us is very real. But it is only a tendency, not an inevitably.

The FACT is, the majority of us, at least for the most part, most of the time, are able to keep our greed within reasonable bounds, and we are able to do that for reasons which have absolutely nothing to do with force or the FEAR of its application, whether by way of social might or the 'Wrath of God' or otherwise.

And, most of us, for the most part, most of the time, as any good gambler knows, is a pretty good average.

The reason most of us hold our tendency toward selfishness in check as much as we do, without force or the FEAR of force being in anyway involved, is simply that we recognize that if we don't hold it reasonably in check, neither will others, and social stability and order will deteriorate accordingly.

So, already, and to a relatively large extent, our Sense of Self is operating in wisdom rather than in IGNORANCE. SELFness is operating broad-sightedly rather than short-sightedly.

Without any force or threat of force at all, the people within any particular society will keep their greed within sufficient bounds to prevent outright societal collapse.

Such a level of control may be minimal, and the quality of life within that society may also be minimal as a result, but that level of self control is there nonetheless. As corrupt as the worst of societies get, they still manage to hold together, unless and until some outside society moves in and takes advantage of the internal rot. If such an outside social force doesn't move in, the corrupt society would endure indefinitely despite the extent of social decay.

It would endure because the people within it would, of their own volition, and without any threat of force, maintain a sufficient amount of control over their own greed so as to prevent its internal collapse.

While the level of that inner volitional control over our greed may be minimal (indeed, quite minimal in some instances), that level is still there, and it is there without the threat of force.

And, given the anarchy that would prevail if that minimal level of control were not in place, even that minimal level is quite a lot.

This FACT , in and of itself, says something fundamentally important about what human greed is, and about how it has actually been controlled in the past, as compared with how it has supposedly been deterred.

And, it also says something critically important about how, if we so CHOOSE, it can be not only controlled in the future but actually redirected into a positive force in the world, rather than continuing to be the negative force it has been so far.

As the Sense of Self becomes less IGNORANT as to its own true nature and place in the overall scheme of things, it will begin to lose its Conceit. It will begin to recognize its true place in the totality of all existence and within the entirety of humanity.

As it becomes less IGNORANT, the Sense of Self will become as powerful a positive force as it has been a negative force in the past.

It will become fully broad-sighted rather than pitifully short-sighted. It will, as it was meant to, be a sense of SELFness within the context of ALLness, rather than "self"ish ness locked into the context of MEness.

Only the Great Swindle, by way of this and the other Grand Distractors, is preventing this from happening.