{"id":1261,"date":"2014-07-17T06:31:17","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T06:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1261"},"modified":"2014-07-17T06:31:17","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T06:31:17","slug":"greed-and-the-giving-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1261","title":{"rendered":"Greed and The Giving Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over at Jennifer Byrne&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/tv\/firsttuesday\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Book Club<\/em><\/a>, they&#8217;re broadcasting a series of conversations connecting literature and the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Seven_deadly_sins\" target=\"_blank\">Seven Deadly Sins<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an interesting thing, watching that show. Half of me loves just sitting back and listening, but there&#8217;s another part of me that really wants to get involved in the conversation. So, here&#8217;s my (and your) chance to have your say about <strong>which books do you think offer an interesting perspective on greed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This list of the cardinal vices has a long and interesting history, but in the end the list settled down to those listed in a papal order\u00a0by Pope Gregory the First\u00a0in about 590, and included in<em> The Divine Comedy<\/em> by\u00a0Dante\u00a0Alighieri in the thirteenth century:<\/p>\n<p>In the order used by Pope Gregory, and repeated by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) centuries later in his epic poem <i>The Divine Comedy<\/i>, the seven deadly sins are as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span lang=\"la\" xml:lang=\"la\"><i><b>luxuria<\/b><\/i><\/span> (lechery\/lust)<\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"la\" xml:lang=\"la\"><i><b>gula<\/b><\/i><\/span> (gluttony)<\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"la\" xml:lang=\"la\"><i><b>avaritia<\/b><\/i><\/span> (avarice\/greed)<\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"la\" xml:lang=\"la\"><i><b>acedia<\/b><\/i><\/span> (sloth\/discouragement)<\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"la\" xml:lang=\"la\"><i><b>ira<\/b><\/i><\/span> (wrath)<\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"la\" xml:lang=\"la\"><i><b>invidia<\/b><\/i><\/span> (envy)<\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"la\" xml:lang=\"la\"><i><b>superbia<\/b><\/i><\/span> (pride)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This week&#8217;s program focused on greed. The panelists talked about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Bryan Burrough and John Helyar&#8217;s <em>Barbarians at the Gate<\/em>: <em>The Fall of RJR Nabisco<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Tom Wolfe&#8217;s <em>The Bonfire of the Vanities<\/em>\u00a0and <em>A Man in Full<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Dr Seuss&#8217;s <em>The Lorax<\/em><\/li>\n<li>John Steinbeck&#8217;s <em>The Pearl<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Fyodor Dostoevsky&#8217;s <em>Crime and Punishment<\/em><\/li>\n<li>F. Scott Fitzgerald&#8217;s <em>The Great Gatsby<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Anthony Trollope&#8217;s <em>The Way We Live Now<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Nikolai Gogol&#8217;s <em>Dead Souls<\/em><\/li>\n<li>William Thackeray&#8217;s <em>Vanity Fair<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Richard G Newhauser&#8217;s <em>The Early History of Greede<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One book they didn&#8217;t talk about, but which I think gives an interresting and nuanced perspective on greed is Shel Silverstein&#8217;s <em>The Giving Tree<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ree1.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1262 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ree1.jpg?resize=261%2C300\" alt=\"ree1\" width=\"261\" height=\"300\" border=\"0\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ree1.jpg?resize=261%2C300 261w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ree1.jpg?w=270 270w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 261px) 100vw, 261px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This illustrated picture book tells the story of a relationship between a tree and a boy, over the course of the boy&#8217;s lifetime. During this time, the tree offers the boy many gifts&#8211;shade, leaves, fruit, friendship&#8211;asking nothing in return. What the boy offers the tree in return is less clear.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/The_giving_tree_img2.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1263\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/The_giving_tree_img2.jpg?resize=250%2C254\" alt=\"The_giving_tree_img2\" width=\"250\" height=\"254\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What interests me about reading this book in terms of the &#8216;deadly sin&#8217; of greed, is that it tells a story about the relationship between two people: how a great many of the things we might want come at a cost to others.<\/p>\n<p>For me, the definition of greed as a sin (as a moral wrong) that comes from this is that greed occurs when the balance between taking and giving is out of whack.<\/p>\n<p>Greed that does not have an opportunity cost for others is not really greed at all, perhaps. Or at least not sinful. It is not greedy, I think, to relish the sunlight on my face. Being out in the garden &#8212; in a park or at the beach &#8212; has few, if any, costs. Perhaps the fuel to get there, if the beach is a long way away.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, endlessly &#8216;growing&#8217; a business (which was the model of &#8216;good greed&#8217; some of the panellists on <em>The Book Club<\/em> offered) usually does have some negative effects on others: on other businesses, on individuals, on the environment, for example. If the business is understood as the &#8216;boy&#8217; in Silverstein&#8217;s <em>The Giving Tree<\/em>, then any number of individuals, institutions, etc might be understood as the tree. At what point does the boy\/business ask too much of the tree? At what point does the boy\/business&#8217;s desire for personal comfort or gain place the health, happiness and wellbeing of the tree\/community at risk? That, for me, is the point where true greed occurs: at the point where &#8216;the boy&#8217; stops caring about, or perhaps even noticing, that their success, comfort or happiness is being bought at the expense of someone else&#8217;s, and continues on anyway.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you think? What works do you think speak to the deadly sin of greed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over at Jennifer Byrne&#8217;s The Book Club, they&#8217;re broadcasting a series of conversations connecting literature and the Seven Deadly Sins. It&#8217;s an interesting thing, watching that show. Half of me loves just sitting back and listening, but there&#8217;s another part of me that really wants to get involved in the conversation. So, here&#8217;s my (and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[193],"tags":[690,693,691,688,692,689],"class_list":["post-1261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-reading","tag-greed","tag-jennifer-byrne","tag-seven-deadly-sins","tag-shel-silverstein","tag-the-book-club","tag-the-giving-tree"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4LH1G-kl","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/The_Giving_Tree.jpg?fit=800%2C1003","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1265,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions\/1265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}