Want: The Engine of Progress
Makinde Kehinde Margret@kehindemargretmakinde
17 hours ago
It is generally agreed that comfort produces stagnation, while want produces movement. No man reforms in abundance; no system corrects itself while well fed. Want, therefore, is not a failure of society; rather, it is the most dependable instrument.
Want is the catch.
It hooks populations gently, just deep enough to keep them struggling, never so deep as to let them escape. Under its influence, endurance is virtuous, submission is discipline, and suffering is relabelled as growth. Hunger persuades faster than law, and uncertainty achieves what policy cannot.
Reform arrives only when scarcity prepares the ground. Prosperity resists instruction, and want welcomes it. In times of lack, people become flexible, teachable, and grateful. They transition willingly, naming necessity, opportunity and survival success.
Want requires publicity in its introduction and suggested inevitability. It does not command; it suggests. Endurers are praised, escapers are paraded as proof, and perishers are converted into numbers.
Thus, nothing is wasted.
A Modest and Efficient Solution
Having established the usefulness of want, I propose it be managed rather than remedied.
A standard measure of want should be maintained and sufficient enough to ensure motivation or insufficient to provoke revolt. Distribution must be unequal for efficiency or concentrated among those least able to refuse it.
Since youthfulness is adaptable, it should receive higher doses. The poor, accustomed to this, will bear it best. The wealthy, requiring stability, may be exempted from it.
Endurance should be rewarded with praise rather than relief. Certificates of resilience may be issued at minimal cost, while failure may be absorbed into data.
Employers should preserve wages at levels adequate for survival but inadequate for rest. Fatigue may be addressed with language. Hope, being renewable, does not need to be delivered.
Finally, 'want' must be renamed. Let it be called grit, transition, or growth. In this way, suffering may proceed efficiently, without complaining or clarity.
I declare no personal interest in this proposal, since I have been comfortably removed from wanting myself. I offer it only for the public good and the smooth continuation of progress.
When necessity is properly maintained, it persuades better than mercy, provided it remains someone else’s.
#philosophy #criticalthinking #reflection #humannature #socialcommentary #powerandcontrol
📍Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Picture Credit: Lucut Razvan for Unsplash
Read, reflect, and ask yourself: are we managing want, or letting it manage us?
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