The Age of Matter

It is the age of matter. There is no one who denies this truth. And however eloquent the influence of Plato and his spirituality upon our souls, we cannot but bless matter and believe in it, for it is the instrument of science, which has smoothed for us the ways of living, increased the fertility and comfort of our life, and opened before us the field of leisure that tempts us to give ourselves to the pastimes of the mind, to matters lying outside the sphere of matter.

For matter, like everything else, can be an instrument of good or an instrument of evil; and that depends on how it is used. The man who gathers money to establish a laboratory for medical research, or a public garden, or a free playground for children, differs greatly from the one who gathers money to build a splendid palace for his residence or to undertake an investment scheme by which to swell his fortune.

And the man who buys an automobile because he needs to shorten the long distance separating him from his place of work differs from the one who buys an automobile merely for boasting and show. There is a difference between the man who strives to obtain an income sufficient to meet his needs, necessities and refinements alike, and the one who piles up money and, the more his income grows, the more his greed and his appetite for accumulation grow. And the difference is vast between the woman who saves out of her income to buy a new cooking stove or to build up a library, and the one who hoards from it to fill her wardrobe with unnecessary dresses or to adorn her reception room with useless things.

The acquiring of money is no fault; the fault lies in greed, covetousness, selfishness, waste, excess of avarice, and the getting of money by dishonorable means. All these faults are old in mankind—or rather they belong to the class of chronic diseases; and if they appear to us today more widespread in society and more deadly, it is because new factors have made their spread and diffusion easier.

Among those factors are the temptations of modern civilization, from whose spell none of us is safe from yielding, nor from fascination with its glitter. Who among us would not like to live in a house of modern style with an up-to-date bathroom and kitchen? Who among us does not see the necessity of acquiring a radio, one of the instruments of music, an icebox, a modern cooking stove, a library, and a household medicine chest? And who among us does not grant the importance of spending on learning, of taking some cultural journeys, of a measure of athletic activity, and of attending a number of motion pictures and concerts?

All these things, of which our grandfathers never dreamed—even the rich among them—have today become requisites of modern civilization, within the reach of the humble folk and their workers in the civilized countries, which see in the machines of the modern age and its discoveries something that lightens the burdens of living and gives ease to their toiling sons.

In this country, which was and still is a crossing place for the peoples of the world, and a center into which ideas and civilizations seep, the ordinary man cannot but be affected by what surrounds him and demand a higher standard of living.

This fellow of ours may be one of those whose ears have been reached by modern ideas which say, as said the philosophers of the eighteenth century and those who followed their course, that men are created free and equal in rights. So he interprets these views in his own particular way, and supposes that equality in rights means equality in money and in social position; and he asks himself, why has he not the right to grow rich like another? Why should he remain poor and destitute, content with the little things of living, when the laws of humanity acknowledge his equality?

And perhaps our fellow has come into contact with a class of Westerners with whose morals the catastrophes of continual wars have played havoc, shaking their faith in the principles of truthfulness and integrity, so that he has come to share their opinion in justifying the doctrines of the careerists and in gratifying the appetites of the self at the expense of conscience.

And what confuses his ideas further and shakes his faith more is to see people who were his like, or beneath him, in economic and social position, suddenly risen to the summit of prominence and wealth. Why? Because the road of quick riches lay open to them—why then should it not lie open to him? Some of them are merchants who grew rich by way of monopoly in the days of the war, by well-known methods of bribery and duplicity; others hired themselves out to the various kinds of political propaganda; one group's members grew rich thanks to emigration to countries far or near; and another group married into certain men of wealth on whom fortune had smiled, who had gathered money without toil and were at a loss how to spend it.

This man tries, like the others, to find a means to quick riches, because he is weary of working for a paltry wage or for an income that yields him bare subsistence, or sometimes less. And if he fails to reach what he wants by way of legitimate work, he strives to realize his ambitions by crooked means, and practices the arts of flattery, sponging, dependence, exploitation, opportunism, favoritism, and their like—means of plunder veiled behind a screen of honor and pride.

And when we know that the standard of living in our Arab countries is still extremely low, and that the average annual income per person ranges between three hundred and four hundred liras in Lebanon, while it reaches about five thousand liras per person in the United States—when we know this, we find some excuse for the poor, the deprived, and those of middling condition, who make up in our country an overwhelming majority; we see extenuating causes for their thirst for money; and it does not astonish us to see them pour out the water of their brows and take the crooked paths to reach riches, after the straight paths have been shut in their faces.

But how are we to explain the greed of the rich, the men of gathering and withholding? What excuse have these for their scramble to heap up moneys and their striving to attain the millions after they have hit the hundreds of thousands? How do we explain their sick avarice and their grudging of the smallest gift for the sake of the public good, while they lavish much upon harmful amusements and superfluous acquisitions?

Some people may answer you that the absence of social insurance in our country, and the individual's want of assurance about the morrow, and his fear of the vicissitudes of time, breed in him extreme avarice and a wearing anxiety over his moneys. But this answer alone cannot convince us. The truth is that the lack of social education and the weakness of spiritual cultivation are the first factor in feeding the greed that marks poor and rich alike. For moral education among us is still confined to certain old inherited traditions that fall short of meeting the needs of the age.

Parents direct their children toward the acquisition of money, but they do not know how to prepare them in the manner of gathering it and the manner of spending it. That is why the democratic governments of this age watch over the rearing of the generation's sons and daughters in a national upbringing that teaches them respect for the rights of their fellow citizens and abstention from taking for themselves what is theirs, and trains them to know that their first duty is cooperation with others, giving and spending upon public projects, and striving to improve their environment and raise the standard of living among its inhabitants.

The fight against self-seeking, greed, and careerism is carried on by fighting their causes: that is, by widening the doors of work before the young men and young women, raising the level of wages, and applying the law of the minimum wage for workers and employees.

When the worker and the employee are given the possibility of securing a decent standard of living, and each becomes confident of his day and easy about his morrow, his desire for plunder and exploitation and for hunting fortune by the shortest road will lessen. And the same holds true of the peasant and the small proprietor.

And when the rich are compelled, by means of taxes proportioned to their incomes, to give for the sake of public projects, and see in the improvement of their environment and the progress of their society what tempts them to continue contributing, they will become an important factor in building and construction, and will count spending on other than their personal pleasures a thing that cannot be avoided.

And when the schools adopt practical programs of social service, and rear the rising generation in the simple life, the sporting spirit, and organized group work, there will arise among us a generation with a social sense, which spends its efforts and its activity on scientific and artistic pursuits, and does not stake its life upon the gathering of money and the heaping up of coin.