Impunity wrote:
Really, someone like @Gerishon Kirima (RIP) who toiled whole his life, died at relatively older age but did not "enjoy" fully his weolth as we know it...but people now talk of him "NICELY" as a hard working man who left immense weolth with little formal schooling...now how is this "nice" talking helping him while in sayuni?
Here is what you don't realise - your type of thinking is what some people look at africans with and wonder - hawaoni? Hawaoni siri? We are naturally hardworking people but rarely do we work for the next generation (at least some of us). The place of the individual in the grand scheme of things is also defined by culture. Let me ask you - to what benefit is someone comitting suicide in Japanese culture?

A child is born into the world and is taught by his/her environment. So you push against society and society either responds positively or negatively or is indifferent and since we are social beings we do and enforce those things that we learnt society reacts +vely to and shun -vity. In cultures like Jewish cultures that give +ve strokes to person who leave something behind to their children and laugh (-ve strokes) at those who didn't over time have the notion of - "in order for me to be seen and remembered as a great member of society - I need to leave as much as I can to my kids and teach them how to build on it". Let me give you a local example of how our culture changed - P.S. Culture is not traditions (traditions are part of culture). In kenya a long time ago people who worked in gava and retired without stealing would be looked at like fools... it was not uncommon to say "Ona kale kajinga? Kalikuwa wapi wengine wakiJipanga?". What this communicated to people who were coming later was - if you don't want to be the laughing stock - "Jipange". In Luo Nyanza for a long time - if you wanted to be recognized as a proper member of society you needed to have higher education. Cash alone was not enough - a PhD made the society recognize you as a person who had "made it". People were proud to be associated with you. In Central (for sometime), Just having papers was not enough - People who didn't school and made money were treated better that those with papers. There is a saying "Kithomo ti thuruari". In Kikuyu culture a man is frowned upon if he is just in the house! <-- anafanya nini? A pakistani friend of mine came over and she made a note... WHAT ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE DOING OUTSIDE? Huko watu hawatoki tuu sababu ya kutoka! Anyway back to my point. How you @impunity was raised - individualistic logic informs your school of thought... NAWACHIA NANI? I SHOULD ENJOY - HAWA WAJIPANGE! and that is why i put up this video
Most people are intergenerational wealthy - passing it forward!! sisi tunachoma each and everytime, receiving very little and passing on very little. The same thing was happening to us with experience and knowledge - we did not pass it down "efficiently". so each generation relearns some of the stuff. Asians take their kids into their businesses. During holidays hakuna kukaa home - watu wanaenda duka ya baba so that they can learn the trade early. Asians are in the same economy you guys are in! they came here to build railways - not rich but their superior culture lifted their community above local communities. Sisi tunaficha and our kids don't aspire to do what their dad did or bring that education into the business - they start from scratch AGAIN and AGAIN. Each time we are restarting - that is why we are poor... it's not the government! it's because you received very little from your father and you will make it and pass on very little. Looking at it from a macro perspective you can see the wisdom of having a rich society but it does not just happen it's designed and worked at! A society that reinforces these good attributes and despises bad ones survives and becomes richer. Right now... corruption is a culture hapa... get rich or die trying if you wanted to fix it you would shun all ill gotten wealth. Think of a devil worshipper.... refuse their money, don't let your daughters get married to them. e.t.c. (by the way the role of the belief all seeing eye in the sky is important in culture).
I dare say - ALL HUMANS ARE EQUAL BUT CULTURES ARE NOT! the more prosperous a nation is the more superior their culture is (or was) coz it can change and destroy civilization - just ask the romans and the greeks.
All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!