Monday, June 11, 2012

Part Two of the Last Posting

So, businessmen are there to do good. (see my previous post, for June 04: /business-method.html) We should add however that they don't know it. Harriet Tubman said this. "I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves." That's a very American quote, in my opinion, or I could also say a very Western quote, because the Western person tends to be unsure of who he is. The Western people have a difficult time connecting. Which, b.t.w., is another reason that they need business and thrive when doing business. It helps them connect.
     Now, when persons are held as slaves in the Western world, soon enough they are so influenced by Western culture that half do not know they are slaves. (What did they think they were, corporate execs?) So, we act without knowing what we are doing, and this is common. So, the businessmen do it, too. Here we must consider this huge edifice of business activity in the world we have.
     It seems to run the world. Alright: that was probably an inaccurate and hasty comment on my part, or an off-the-cuff bloggie type of thing, but I said it, or was impelled to say it. Let's figure out why I said that. Maybe I said it because business activity is, or it certainly seems like, one of the main forces. Too bad the persons who do it are cut off from knowing their actual "telos" --- meaning their real cause or purpose.
     Being a slave and not knowing it is not so different from being supposed to be doing good but not knowing it: you are unaware of a negative, whether that negative is your real condition A (slavery) or your real condition B (an ignorant cheating businessman betraying humanity). They have a similar situation. They are unaware of the positive, or unaware of the negative.
     Either, way, it is ignorance; what does ignorance know? Ignorance doesn't know anything, so in either case, the slave or the the businessman, there is this similar unawareness. This is rather sad, isn't it? Either way, it is similar: as for the businessmen, they are unaware of their own connection with goodness. Really sad!
     The real motive or intention of human action in general, according to Wikipedia and Socrates, anyway, is the good. We just don't know it. So, the businessman's motive should be to do good. But he has no idea.
     And I know what he thinks. He thinks it is "self-interest" or "competition." Sad. Now what do I do? Say something mean?

Here's another gem from the same Tubman source: I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.

     -She knew what she was doing. She carried out the work with great precision and accurateness. If only businessmen could do that!

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