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17 You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

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Cameron said:

I think your ideas would be much easier to follow and respond to with more concise sentences. I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but 106 letter sentences are tough to swallow.

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Do you believe this "vast majority's" guilt to be subconscious? 

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I'd only consider the actuality on a case-by-case basis, but I would indeed think it is possible that it could be much more within the realm of the subconscious. Of course, this doesn't change anything regarding one's personal responsibility for the experience.

zoid said:

Covetous behavior is definitely what Western civilization (most civilization actually) is built on, the whole idea of expanding as a means of pride, and jealousy, however subconscious they may be.

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But, what would you say to those who live for little in the world sans a paycheck? Those that hate their job, but use it only as a means to buy that nice car.

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I might be making to mutually exclusive sides to this argument, but frankly, we would lack many 'things' including corporations and jobs, if it weren't for this coveting (implying that corporations are based on greed which lies in coveting).

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A kid can smash a window and create a whole web of consequent effects, creating job opportunities for the repairman, the manufacturer of his tools and the replacing window, which in turn creates job opportunities for those who extract raw materials, those who transport all of these goods, the broker who helps others invest in all of these agents, etc. etc. etc... but it doesn't mean that it was necessary or necessarily beneficial in the long-term for the kid to break the window.

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Many people just need that sort of satisfaction out of life, because they lack it elsewhere.

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Perhaps they hold such grievance against society because they feel guilty that they desire this as well? Maybe they just covet too much?

What do you think?

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What do I think?

I think that people are, everyone to some degree, and some to a high degree, filled with an inner longing that burns a hole in them until the right plug fits.  I see it as a hole in the heart.  Maslow describes this in his hierarchy of needs.



Some will try to fill all the portions of the hole with material goods culminating in a failed attempt.  Failed because as studies show, satisfaction can be derived from a certain level of monetary success, but higher levels of financial status do not result in higher levels of satisfaction or happiness, e.g. you can only eat so much food, drive so many cars or sleep so many hours.  Once your basic needs are met, the others are left unfulfilled which, in turn, in some, even many, results in this never-ending cycle of acquisition.  Others, ones I perceive as evil, do not want any particular level for the sake of the goods.  They want more, more as in "more than you."  Most of them are very unhappy souls in my experience.

I think there is a lot of truth in your statement:

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because they themselves feel an emotional sting of jealousy and resentment for not having these things themselves

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I don't mean to sound like a jerk either, but I don't think in a lazy, simple manner, and, quite honestly, anyone who has achieved a six-grade reading level should have no technical limitations in understanding what I've said well.

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That is entirely incorrect.  As someone who likes to read and write I often analyze sentences I enjoy.  Your first sentence has a Flesch-Kincaid Grade level of 29.4.  In other words, you would have to have a doctorate plus in order to read it with ease and understand it.  I knew this before your sentences became a sidebar of the thread because I copied it and checked it.  After I read the comments about your sentences, I checked the longer one.  It came out as 45.4 grade level.  Obviously, someone in the 6th grade--even given the fact that your statement might have been hyperbole--could not understand it though they might have been able to read it.  This paragraph of mine is 7.8.

What I particularly like about the sentences was their complex syntax without large or abstruse words.  It was their length and syntax that contributed to their grade level.

Nice thread, nice posts.  I like it/them.

Mr. Mushrooms said:

What do I think?

I think that people are, everyone to some degree, and some to a high degree, filled with an inner longing that burns a hole in them until the right plug fits.  I see it as a hole in the heart.  Maslow describes this in his hierarchy of needs.

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That is entirely incorrect.  As someone who likes to read and write I often analyze sentences I enjoy.  Your first sentence has a Flesch-Kincaid Grade level of 29.4.  In other words, you would have to have a doctorate plus in order to read it with ease and understand it.  I knew this before your sentences became a sidebar of the thread because I copied it and checked it.  After I read the comments about your sentences, I checked the longer one.  It came out as 45.4 grade level.  Obviously, someone in the 6th grade--even given the fact that your statement might have been hyperbole--could not understand it though they might have been able to read it.  This paragraph of mine is 7.8.

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Well, I don't know how much of it was hyperbole, and how much of it was my expectations of six-graders. Seriously though, this is very interesting to me, and I'm glad you took the time to post that. Sometimes you just don't get certain perspectives regarding something that is so ingrained.

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What I particularly like about the sentences was their complex syntax without large or abstruse words.  It was their length and syntax that contributed to their grade level.

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Well, that is probably efforts I've made to be more concise manifesting. I don't really see myself dropping my syntax though, because its simply a reflection of the order I see and think through.

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Nice thread, nice posts.  I like it/them.

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Thanks; likewise!

Mr. Mushrooms said:

Some will try to fill all the portions of the hole with material goods culminating in a failed attempt.  Failed because as studies show, satisfaction can be derived from a certain level of monetary success, but higher levels of financial status do not result in higher levels of satisfaction or happiness, e.g. you can only eat so much food, drive so many cars or sleep so many hours.  Once your basic needs are met, the others are left unfulfilled which, in turn, in some, even many, results in this never-ending cycle of acquisition.  Others, ones I perceive as evil, do not want any particular level for the sake of the goods.  They want more, more as in "more than you."  Most of them are very unhappy souls in my experience.

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Cameron said:

I think your ideas would be much easier to follow and respond to with more concise sentences. I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but 106 letter sentences are tough to swallow.

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C.M. Mann said:

At times it's chic to hide your wealth.  We are now in a "MTV CRIBS" IN YOUR FACE cycle, and it's chic to show off.

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fireworks_god said:

Fairly often enough, I notice a generalization regarding Western civilization, wherein the perspective expressing such a sentiment is hung-up regarding how they perceive a lot of society being based around some people acquiring new, expensive objects, and how this society somehow judges these people, or any people, by this standard of the quality and quantity of the objects they own. This is something that frequently occurs, right? A lot of you have seen this, right?

Now, I don't find much of any use for generalizations, but I thought for the purposes of this thread that I would counter this above generalization with one of my own. First, to help paint a picture, I'm going to use a quote from the Bible:

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17 You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

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I have the feeling that the vast majority of people who harp on about society and how it values those with shiny, expensive objects are so concerned about this and feel so conflicted about this themselves, not because the "problem" is something so inherent and troublesome within society itself (evidenced by the people who simply aren't concerned about this, live their own life as they wish, and don't pay the possible phenomenon any mind), but because they themselves feel an emotional sting of jealousy and resentment for not having these things themselves, or the status and prestige that is supposedly associated with ownership of these things. Perhaps they hold such grievance against society because they feel guilty that they desire this as well? Maybe they just covet too much?

What do you think?

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adjust said:

A person in a higher position is rewarded with less stress, which generally means you will be healthier

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bradley said:

Right, I read the first couple sentences and thought, man, I'm just going to I will just refer him to Orwell's rules of writing:

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/george-orwells-5-rules-for-effective-writing/

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Ineffective language weakens and distorts ideas.

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This is exactly why I would not opt for deconstructing my syntax. The point to which one simplifies one's expression of one's ideas is subjectively determined by the nature of the ideas themselves and the specific form the thought processes have. As I'm not writing something that is targeted to the lowest common denominator, I do not feel it is necessary to sacrifice my intended point by stripping it of its meaning.
To do so would be to use ineffective language, and that wouldn't make George Orwell very happy.