This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the unethical ways in which a powerful empire has been established, emphasizing economic manipulation and deceit.
John Perkins critiques the methods by which an empire has been constructed, highlighting the role of economic manipulation and exploitation. He acknowledges his own involvement in this system, suggesting that the success of such entities often comes at the cost of integrity and fairness, thereby calling attention to the moral implications of wealth and power acquisition.
In practice
During a lecture on the effects of economic imperialism, this quote can illustrate the negative consequences of unethical practices.
No matter how many toys we amass we leave them behind when we die, just as we leave a broken environment, an economy that only benefits the richest, and a legacy of empowering greed over goodness. It is now time to commit to following a new path.
Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former times, and celebrates the discipline and sobriety of the age in which his youth was passed; a happy age which is now no more to be expected, since confusion has broken in upon the world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence.
To know that nothing happens in God's world apart from God's will may frighten the godless, but it stabilizes the saints.
If facts, logic, and scientific procedures are all just arbitrarily "socially constructed" notions, then all that is left is consensus--more specifically peer consensus, the kind of consensus that matters to adolescents or to many among the intelligentsia.
The law of God cannot be fulfilled by external obedience.
I am optimistic when I consider the spiritual dimension which the scientist's discipline forces him to ignore.
Strange, that I came into the world with nothing, and now I am going away with this stupendous caravan of sin! Wherever I look, I see only God... I have sinned terribly, and I do not know what punishment awaits me.
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