Envy and greed are to humans what candles are to birthday cakes
(’As candles to wanton cakes are we to the gods’ - or something…)
I’m sure none of those who read this have any particular wish to go inside the toilet with me.
If they did so, they would see – at least in my home – that I keep a small number of books there. One of those, at this time, is a copy of ‘Just what I always wanted’, written by Robin Laurance, which holds ‘A calendrical collection of curious gifts – birthday presents and other offerings – given to the rich, the famous and infamous’.
Which includes a watch given to John F. Kennedy by Marilyn Monroe, a pair of Scottish terriers given to Eva Braun by Hitler, a solid gold mousetrap given to the owner of the McDonald’s chain by his wife, et cetera.
It also reports on a birthday present given to Marxist historian and writer Eric Hobsbawn by his mother. Something Hobsbawn described as ‘a very cheap second-hand bike’, which, Laurance suggests ‘was apparently a cause of considerable shame [proving that] despite his later political beliefs, as a teenager Hobsbawn was clearly as status-conscious and materialistic as any boy his age.’
That entrance had me thinking about the way politicians and commentators talk about their political enemies.
So, on the left, people are forever talking about the ‘politics of greed’…
… while, on the right, le mot juste is the ‘politics of envy’.
As we saw with Hobsbawn, it might well be that, whatever the merits of the systems they attack or champion, certain people come to certain political views because they are envious.
In that sense, Hobsbawn may have been inspired as much by a sense of childhood humiliation as Karl marx was inspired and incensed when he witnessed the foul business of child labour in England’s ’satanic mills.’
From small – and sometimes bitter – acorns, mighty oaks may grow, and all of that.
Anyway, people being people, both political camps are probably right. Envy and greed are to us what feathers are to birds and scales to fish.
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