IV.7               A Moral Dilemma: To Have or To Be                            To Have a High Standard of Living or To Be Moral   The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.   That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.                                             Henry David Thoreau (1817-62)   There are two ways to get enough: One is to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.                                                 G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)   The Cause of Persisting Wants and Problems The need for more and more, as well as a string of never ending problems, appear to be the cause of much human unhappiness. Natural desires for food, shelter, sleep, etc. are relatively easy to satisfy at least in the industrialized world. However, above these needs we develop vain desires for things not necessary such as decorative clothing, fancy food, exotic vacations, accumulating money, etc. These wants are not easy to satisfy because as one desire is appeased the next higher one emerges and with no end in sight. A person who does not recognize this, will never be content and remain a slave to his wants. A rational person learns to distinguish between wants and needs, and knows that only the latter have to be filled to furnish contentment. Also, as one problem is solved, the next lower one surfaces to take its place in a never ending repetition. Therefore, one must distinguish between real problems and others, which are concerns only. A real problem would be anything that may affect one’s life in a detrimental way, while a concern is something that has no or only a minor effect on one’s well being e.g. a leaking roof, the kids grades, an incompetent government. Problems should be dealt with immediately and eliminated, whereas concerns do not have to be on one’s conscience.      ". . . the great masters of living have made the alternative between having and being a central issue of their respective systems" tells us Erich Fromm (1900-80) in his book To Have or To Be. Fromm observes: The Buddha teaches that in order to arrive at the highest stage of human development, we must not crave possessions. Jesus teaches: ". . . . For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?" (Luke 9:24-25). . . . Marx taught that luxury is as much a vice as poverty and that our goal should be to be much, not to have much.        One of the most fundamental problems humans have to face is the competition with fellow humans and animals over scarce resources. The root cause of this predicament is the unchecked fertility of species in general and humans in particular. The human population explosion is not supported by the relatively constant production of food and the rapid depletion of nonrenewable resources such as oil. This problem comes more and more to the forefront as less-developed, non-industrialized nations strive towards a standard of living equal to that of the industrialized world. To satisfy this striving, it has been estimated that we would need the additional resources of several planets.      Access to these limited resources is currently regulated by national and international laws as well as cartels such as OPEC. To the extent that these agreements are immoral, they are not really laws and do not have to be obeyed; however, it may be prudent to do so. In any case, laws are only most useful when there is a moderate scarcity of goods. When there are plenty, then they need hardly be regulated. But if there is a life-threatening or even the comforts-of-life diminishing shortage, history tells us, laws will not be obeyed because individuals and nations do whatever they have to do in order to maintain their customary existence.      The preceding presents a moral dilemma because we have a situation that apparently  requires a choice between the good life perceived as a high standard of living and less satisfactory or even unsatisfactory alternatives. That is, either survival with a high standard of living and a bad conscience because it deprives the many of a like standard or a reduced standard of living with a good conscience. Hence, the dilemma is this: 1. If I want to retain a high standard of living, then I have to take an unjustifiable portion of scarce resources away from others who have equal rights or are equally deserving, but this causes me to have a bad conscience. 2. If I want to retain a good conscience without the remedy of self-deception, then I cannot take an undeserved portion, but my accustomed life style will be reduced or lost.      Historically, humans have solved this problem immorally using primarily two approaches or a combination of the two: 1. They used brute force while retaining a good but false conscience and/or some sort of a political or religious rationalization. The term "rationalization" meaning here to invent plausible explanations for acts, opinions, etc., that are actually based on other less honorable, self-serving causes. The "slaughter bench of history" is an account of this beastly struggle. For example, the reported extermination of nations by the Hebrews in the "Old Testament" part of the Bible used both, brute force and religious rationalization. And a little later, the imposition of Roman Catholic Christianity in Europe and the Americas was equally beastly. More recent instances are: colonizing by Western powers starting in the 16th century, World War I and II, the horrors of Stalinism and Maoism, the Vietnam War, and the second U.S.--Iraq war. 2. Once a people were subdued, a political ideology or a religious mythology maintained the victors in power through ideological social control. See "Means for Dominating Others with Their Consent" in Antisocial Minds and Their Means.      The dilemma appears to be whatever one chooses one loses. Either ending up with a less desirable life or with a bad conscience. Now, I have to face these two objectionable options like the horns of a mad bull who is moving towards me. Either horn will impale and thus torture me. But is there a way out? Could I take the dilemma by its horns by showing that one or both options are  not true? Or could I escape between the horns of the dilemma because there are more than these two alternatives?  A viable alternative would be opting for a quality life that is possible with a satisfactory rather than a high standard of living--see "A Quality Life Needs a Satisfactory Standard of Living" in Functional Democracy. Together with a world population that is limited, through birth control, to how many can be sustained with such a satisfactory standard of living--see Overpopulation and the Environment--it lets us escape the dilemma on account of this often overlooked alternative.