I was doing some spring cleaning today, thinning down my book collection (as much as I hate to get rid of books, I really need more empty space in my life at the moment), and I pulled Elia Kazan’s biography off the shelf for the first time in years; I found the following passage highlighted on a page, in the chapter talking about the first production of Death Of A Salesman:
“The Christian faith of this God-fearing civilization says we should love our brother as ourselves. [Arthur] Miller’s story tells us that actually – as we have to live –we live by an opposite law, by which the purpose of life is to get the better of your brother, destroying him if necessary, yes, by in effect killing him.”
Since I highlighted it, clearly it resonated with me back in ‘93 during grad school, and sadly it resonates even more today, especially with the current economic crisis. When, one wonders, will this culture wake up to the poisonous nature of capitalism and what it does to our human nature? When will we be able to engender a true sense of cooperation amongst enough of us that the din of “get ahead”, “look out for #1″, “the one with the most toys wins” mentality will finally be drowned out I wonder…
