Profit instead of prophet
by Bob on October 28, 2007
I was talking with a friend in England, and we were talking about the power structure in our modern, if not post-modern world almost. We got to multinational corporations and oil, and the like, and he mentioned that profit is the new religion of the world, it seemed.
So, I had a rejoinder of "so it's profit instead of prophet". We took note of that succinct summing it all up.
But it's so seemingly true.
Most college students when asked what they want to do after they graduate is "make a lot of money". When many people are asked whom they would like to most meet, one gets answers like the tycoons of industry, and even answers like "I'd like to meet myself in ten years".
So we see besides greed and unhealthy modern version of classical Stocism, we have a strong dose of Narcissism rampant. No big surprise, either. It went from the 60s culture to the 70s and 80s "me" culture to now the "only me" culture, if you can call it a culture anymore.
The term "generation gap" is being lost in the mists of self-absorption. It used to mean the difference in thinking and behaving and attitudes between the younger and older people. This was back in the 1960s. In fact, that's how the store, now a mega-chain, "The Gap" got its name in San Francisco. To sell things which fell into the generation gap, like jeans. In fact it sold Levi jeans. Since jeans were the common denominator regular and inexpensive clothing of the younger people. Common man jeans, that is, since the later 70s designer jeans had not come in yet. And of course that was a sad twist to abruptly kiss the 1960s with a death, namely these expensive designer jeans.
There are so many religious and spiritual prophets who we can learn from the past, and read the writings and see our lives in a mirror and reflect one how to improve our time for the betterment of man.
But most people today think of prophets as being people like Bill Gates or Sam Walton, or other industry tycoons or even TV personalities and actors and actresses as prophets and spiritually wise people. After all, they make a lot of money, so people these days feel they are role-models to follow.
But it isn't so. They have many important traits, some of which are admirable, even arguably so, but they are not icons of deeply spiritual prophecy.
So if we asked a blindfolded group to write down the words said out loud, if the word "prophet" were announced, most people would probably write down "profit" as the most likely. This tells us a lot about what people are these days.
Technology and its use and mis-use and over-use has made the difference in switching the gears.
Real prophets are someone we walk two thousand miles to see in person, or climb a mountain to visit them in their caves to hear words of wisdom. And likely they are not people we ride in a lift or elevator to the penthouse of a corporate skyscraper to see, were we so lucky to see them ever, if at all.
Perhaps most tycoons remember that they made their fortunes from the little man, the common man, and his meager pennies.
A lot of people used to visit the Oracle at Delphi and the Pythia to ask important questions and get answers. But usually the priestess was very cryptic in her answering, although she was in a trance state, and thought to be in communion with the gods and all reality as we know it. And Delphi wasn't the only site for oracles. We can take a tally of all the Sibyls in the ancient world. Delphi, Cumae, Libya, etc. It was a huge responsibility to be a prophet or prophetess or prognosticator in those days. You could get into a lot of trouble if you were consistently wrong.
Which reminds me of modern weather forecasters on TV. Depending on the region they are talking about, it seems they are mostly wrong, so they have to be comedians. So we pay for comedic prognosticators who are mostly wrong but we take the treat of the slapstick studio comedy. And who earn a lot of money doing it on TV. Slapstick and all.
So it goes. The power lies in real prophets not necessarily in monetary profits. But we can't whisper that to the World Bank, or even most co-habitants on this planet. They would smirk and think us daft.
Perhaps one is daft for giving more wisdom to prophets. But it's a spiritually comfortable daftness. It might even be the right path for the long road of eternity. That's if time works as advertised. We just don't know. Not even Houdini could find out, or even Einstein, what was on the other side of life. So we tread water meantime. Of course realising that the other side might be simply a convenient metaphor. It may all be one continuum as Jung supposed.