Greed In American Culture

3753 Words16 Pages
If a man is endowed with an ethical sense and is convinced of the sanctity of ethical values, he is on the surest road to a conflict of duty. And although this looks desperately like a moral catastrophe, it alone makes possible a higher differentiation of ethics and a broadening of consciousness. A conflict of duty forces us to examine our conscience and thereby to discover the shadow. (Jung, 1953) This quote by Carl G. Jung captures the essence of my process of selecting and dissecting just one topic for a discussion about a cultural issue and its shadow components in our society. I found myself drawn to a variety of shadow issues in our Western, American culture. The majority of topics that piqued my interest revolved around the theme…show more content…
At first I looked at the issue of greed. I am accusing Monsanto of only being focused on their bottom line and not the health of their consumers. So I began to unravel places in my life where I have been greedy. I have definitely fallen into that place of insatiable desires, which is often driven by greed. For example, I stayed in a job for years after I lost my passion for it out of desire to maintain my standard of living. Is not that a form of greed? Clearly, I know what greed can do and how insidious it can be. So if I had my own ability to drop into unconsciously greedy behavior, how in good conscience could I project those onto Monsanto? Well, I rationalized that my greed did not necessarily hurt others. Or did it? How could I really know that? Or even if I was greedy, it should not excuse an even larger breach against humanity that would allow Monsanto to strip the public of their health while Monsanto makes record profits. All of this frustration just kept bubbling with no seeming…show more content…
Why was our country so docile and accepting of such horrible food choices that were causing obesity, health issues, and in many ways contributing to the skyrocketing health care costs? I do not buy these unhealthy processed corn and soybean products and instead buy organic, whole foods. But it is expensive to make these choices, so some of this anger got projected towards Monsanto. But a good dose of it goes to the social injustice aspect of this issue: everyone should be able to afford healthy foods that do not harm your
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