Two Home Towns

Today I got to attend the third installment of the “Seven Deadly Sins” Sunday school class at the Church of the Incarnation. We are taking them in order of increasing deadliness as detailed by Pope Gregory the Great, the original author on the topic. Lust and Gluttony were our first two, today was Greed. It was a much tougher and deeper topic I think.

To help begin the discussion on Greed, Mary (our class leader) brought in a column from Steve Blow at the Dallas Morning News. It was regarding a relatively new columnist at D magazine going by the pen name of Marty Cortland. In “Ramblings of a Rich Man” Blow investigates whether Cortland is actually a hoax satirizing wealthy snobbery among locals, or someone who actually makes complaints about the degree of opulence in his lifestyle and it’s attendant “complications.” The editor of D dispelled the mystery. The man behind Marty is real. As I read the column describing him, his wife and their attitudes I was reminded of one of my favorite Winston Churchill quotes. When meeting Lord and Lady Astor at a state function, Churchill is reported to have said: “Sir, if you were my husband I would poison your tea. Madam, if you were my wife I’d drink it!” Give it a read and, more importantly, follow the links to Marty’s actual works. I wouldn’t be surprised if you think similar thoughts to Churchill. But all joking aside, I truly do not envy Marty or his wife. I wouldn’t trade places with them.

After reading about Marty there followed some discussion about what constituted greed. We touched on related topics such as first world wealth versus third world destitution, the waste and worry of too many possessions, charity and taxes. The same gentleman who drew distinction between sexual desire and lust in an earlier class wondered about the difference between being providing for your needs and those of your loved ones versus being greedy. I think this goes to the point of needs versus wants - or you might say perceived versus actual needs. We didn’t pose this question, but who is to say which is which? What really caught my attention on this point was a definition of greed from Islam that Mary provided based on her research: “Greed is having or desiring more than what is required of a man to keep his back straight.” I must say that I really like that definition.

Think about it. If you don’t believe that you’re genuine needs are being met you are going to feel pensive or weighed down. It is unlikely in these circumstances that you will “keep your back straight.” Having been there myself in the past, I can identify with this. The things that you pursue in this frame of mind might very well be things that you don’t actually need, or things that won’t cause you to feel any better once in your possession. But arguably even such errors aren’t greed if you really believe that needs underly your pursuit. Complicating matters further is the operative question: Need for what? Survival? Health? Happiness? What do you need to “keep your back straight?”

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs provides an interesting backdrop to this question. Remember his pyramid? From the base up it lists needs as follows: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization. From a physical point of view you could argue that you don’t really need anything once your physiological and safety needs are met. I don’t think we run into people that are greedy at those levels very often - at least not in the modern United States. But what kind of life is it that stops at primitive needs? What kind of existence has no love or belonging, no esteem, no self actualization? I don’t think anyone would hold the pursuit of those things against another human being. It’s how we do the pursuing that can yield trouble.

People often want material things because they believe that having them will help them to “fit in” with others, in other words, having them will help them belong. Love is necessarily behind belonging, and the desire for love is almost impossible to overstate. Anything that a person perceives will help to fill a void of belonging or love will be desired intensely. I don’t think that any human being could “keep his back straight” for long without love. The fear of exclusion is therefore very strong, and I think it drives a lot of our materialism. It is at this point I make an intellectual leap about belonging and greed that I can’t quite explain at the moment.

I believe that there is good belonging and bad. Good belonging is fellowship among people that respect one another, that treat each other as equals in the eyes of God, that include each other as best they can. Bad fellowship results when people find community through a process of exclusion, by convincing themselves that they are more worthy than others through their works, their achievements or their possessions. Bad fellowship draws together on this basis. It is hard for me to feel sure about what is properly defined as Greed in the case of every kind of need, but in my mind desiring material things to achieve fellowship by exclusion is clearly Greed.

I think that this is what we find so repugnant in Marty’s narratives.