The root of all evil isn’t money, it is power; money is just the visible extension of power.
You can see it everywhere in our crippled society; a boss is rude to his assistant, a customer is rude to (i.e., abusive to) a waiter or a sales clerk, a husband is abusive to his wife, a mother abuses her children. Power exhibits the real trickle-down effect, with each successive layer of society snubbing, dismissing, or abusing the strata beneath it.
These perceived strata also exist in the animal kingdom, but there they are used for the preservation of the species: the alpha female among wolves does not permit other females to breed because her genes are strongest; older, more experienced ducks lead the flock flying in V-formation, with the lead changing to another elder when the first tires. The queen bee is the only one with gender privileges, and she uses these to lay a million eggs to enhance the hive’s population, literally killing herself in the process.
Only mankind has elevated power in all its manifestations to a status symbol, and in the last few decades (with leaders like Bush showing the way) power has become its own raison d’etre. The leader of our country does not lead because he is the best man for the job – that is, more intelligent, more experienced, more diplomatic, or even simply more able to subvert disaster. He leads because others, with even greater power, deem him to be the most easily manipulated. Consequently, his attitude toward all who would challenge his power is equally peremptory, and equally dismissive.
Our society values nothing so much as power: not intelligence, nor creativity, nor compassion, not even nobility. Only power has the sweetness to sway the millions, but that sweetness has begun to taste, and smell, like decay. In the overweening pride of our political and religious leaders, our corporate moguls, our finagling financiers, our real estate barons (and in the increasing incidence of their peccadilloes and perversions) we see the end of empire.
It is a natural end; bread that rises too high eventually collapses, an over-inflated tire will explode. All things that exceed their natural proportions are destined to end, whether it be rapacious corporate conglomerates or the gluttony of a single man. Excess leads to extinction.
We have consumed, and been consumed by, the idol of power in all its manifestations. And we will be exterminated by its effects, as surely as ancient Rome, or Hitler’s regime.
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