Measuring Humans

Again, this post discusses an obvious point that I feel needs to be stated emphatically:

That the world gravitates around money and power, that life is measured against that scale, is a common notion.

This contradicts the value system within which we often mature into adults: That value system that says Be a good person. Why? What I mean is, why be a good person?

The former notion, about the money and power, pervades most of life's domain, that is, most of the animal kingdom; It's an animalistic mode, and should not measure a man. Then why does it so often?

Indeed we are all animals, but we are human. Humanity is, indeed, a transcendence from the animal (as you may have noticed to be a common theme of my writing), but indeed the man is still an animal, and still subject to the scales against which animals are measured.

But it should not be so that, in measuring up one's life, on this animal scale of money and power, that the beautiful fact that we are human be forgotten. Our humanity puts us to a tougher test: Both scales are to be used.

A man is not a man if he manages to gather masses of money and power, but does not satisfy the be-a-good-person value system that we've created for our special species. Nor can he be a man if he indeed adhere's to goodness, but does not manage to measure up on the animal scale.

The mark of a man is scoring high in the money-power measure while maintaining his humanness, maintaining his value system.

For a more analytic discussion on this topic, see my previous post on Conscience and Moral Strength