The prosperity paradox: Time to rethink prosperity?
In Christmas 2003 I travelled to East Timor for a holiday. The customs officer at Darwin airport laughed at my departure card when I ticked holiday. "An odd place for a holidayyyy" he said. Dili at the time was under UN occupation. The streets were clogged with UN vehicles. UN choppers buzzed over head constantly. I spent the first few days wandering around Dili. I checked out the main street (a bank, a few clothes and pirated dvd shops). I went down to the beach and hung around the run down guest house where I was staying.
After a few days I made friends with a Timorese guy named Domingos who worked for the UNHCR. I met him through Rajud who was staying at the same guest house. He was working as a consultant to help write health legislation for the freshly minted East Timorese government. After hanging out with Domingos for a couple of days he asked if I wanted to come on a road trip to the West Timor border. They had to go to the border to receive some former militia members and resettle them in their villages. I said "yeah sounds like fun!" The West Timor border region was still quite unstable at this point in time. It was patrolled by the Australian army and there were regular incursions by the militias. I went in Domingos' Toyota Land Cruiser with a guy from the IOM and we were escorted by two UN police officers in another car. The handover was taking place on the border near the town of Balibo. The town was made infamous because of the murder of 5 Australian journalists in 1975 by the Indonesian military. We took the coast road towards the border. It reminded me of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria but without the safety barriers and it's barely a lane wide. Occasionally the road cuts inland and through villages. As we slowed down for a couple of emaciated cows crossing the road I said to Domingos "it's really sad the amount of poverty". He turned to me proud but maybe slightly insulted "it's not sad", he replied, "we have enough to eat; enough to drink and we are free. Why do we need anything else when we are happy?"
I didn't have an answer for him and I still don't.
After more winding coast roads the convoy cut back in towards some more villages. I noticed something that I hadn't notice before. Everyone is happy. Everyone is smiling. I walk around Melbourne and I can sometimes go a full day without seeing a genuine smile from somebody in the street. If we are so lucky and so prosperous why are we not outwardly happy? Why are we so reluctant to admit our own prosperity lest we give of ourselves? We won't admit our own happiness and our luck to be alive in the world. We won't give life itself the satisfaction.
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# by Peter Hanley - July 9, 2010 3:16 PM
Nice observations. It seems that the people who observe these issues the most are people who travel, read history, or have a worldview which differs from secular consumerism. People are usually blind to the limitations of their own culture, time period, and worldview unless something from outside hits them like a brick.
My analysis is that we tend to think that religious worship is a thing of the past, but it's alive and well. The objects of worship have simply changed. Instead of creating a god who we give a name like "Zeus" or "Allah" or the vague designation of "God", people worship things like status, power, money, a big home, a nice car, or whatever it is. But somewhat like the Greek gods we now laugh at, these gods are also terribly unpropitious. We have magazines full of their promises, but they demand too much. We sacrifice our time, our energy, our family, our friends, and our own contentment, but the sacrifices are never enough. And it's all because made-up gods don't give you anything. They're worthless.
But people never listen to prophets. They think, if only I do this, or give up that, then I'll finally get the promotion, pay off the loan, acquire those goods, have enough to put my kids in that school, or whatever. But the promised prosperity of heaven on earth never comes and people fail to enjoy what's in front of them.
So in the end, people have a worship problem, along with a cultural, chronological, and intellectual snobbery which blinds us to the fact that in Melbourne we're struggling with the same old issues that have plagued other cultures, time periods, and thinkers since devolution began. And unlike others who have maintained at least some of the hopeless human attempt to deal with these matters, we have entered a new age of enlightenment where the mistakes of the past are not merely tested, but simply assumed as fact.