We created capitalism, and it is destroying us

While watching a documentary on the Blue Zone, I thought about how capitalism is gradually destroying humanity. Capitalism is devastating the very humanity that created it, and in many dimensions at that. On one hand, health is being lost, and on the other, humanity itself is slipping away. 

Like other living beings, the true place for humans is nature. Unlike other creatures, humans have made inventions and discoveries, produced technology, and created comfortable living spaces by working nature. Because of their intelligence and mind, humans have established dominance over the nature they were born into, but they did not stop there and chose to destroy it. 

The fact that humans chose to struggle with nature and establish dominance over it instead of building a peaceful relationship has led them to attribute a value to themselves above nature. With the self-confidence provided by technological developments, they sought to consolidate their power by commodifying nature. It did not stop there; nature also became a tool for humans to establish dominance over one another. It is no longer possible for a nature that has been commodified, instrumentalized, and therefore exploited by humans to embrace humanity. Moreover, in today's world, expecting a humanity that derives its power from technology—its own creation—and worships money, which it created as a tool of symbolic power, to live in harmony with nature would be nothing more than a fantasy. 

Ever since humanity met money and adopted it as the primary tool of power, it has abandoned not only the nature it was born into but also its own human values. The fact that humans, who transfer value from money, eventually forget that the true value comes from being human is the driving force of today's capitalist world. In today's world, if you have money, you are valuable. No other quality or qualification is needed. Even if you commit crimes, act against the moral values of society, or are deviant, you receive the respect and value you "deserve" through the power of money. At this point, the greatest evil capitalism does to humans is distancing them from humanity, that is, from their own essence, and alienating them from themselves and all of humanity. 

In today's advanced technological world, we are also at risk biologically. Let alone our brain health, we are also losing our physical health. Even a few years are enough to see the difference. Don't we all miss the taste and quality of the vegetables and fruits we ate in our childhood? With the food sold in snack restaurants and kiosks, we are only occupying our stomachs, or rather, we are actually tiring them unnecessarily. We think we are full when the stomach is busy, but we are not being nourished; on top of that, we are being poisoned. 

With McDonald's hamburgers, the obesity problem began first in America and then in many parts of the world. As a solution, instead of abandoning this type of diet, new areas of business and profit were created with gyms, body shaping techniques, and aesthetics. In other words, every solution developed within the capitalist system is for the benefit of the system, not humanity. Our ancestors said that money begets money; how right they were. 

If humanity had not seen money and abandoned nature and itself, it would be living in a completely different world now. Perhaps there would be no plazas hiding the sky from us. People would not look at each other with suspicion in the elevators of plazas, and behind colored glass, some people would not be challenging humanity with the power of money. If humanity had not worshipped money so much, perhaps green and blue would not be so estranged. We would be enjoying watching the branches of trees reaching out to the clouds and the dance of green with blue. 

If money had not come between us and separated us from one another, smiles would not be missing from our faces, and words would not be missing from our tongues. We would even be able to say good morning to each other in the mornings.  

If there were no wounds opened by money in our brains and bodies, we would at least enjoy this world, however long or short we live in it.