Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

As already noted here in these recollections, other principles are often in operation. In the story, ‘Crime and Punishment’, it was noted that “the guilty often go free”. Thus, after the potato-picking escapade, young Ian had learnt that ‘the hardest working people are paid the smallest.’ Of course, this contradicts the Protestant ethic of the importance attached to hard work. With this in mind, young Ian started to rewrite the Ten Commandments. He still hadn’t arranged them into order of importance but his provisory suggestions are:

The New Ten Commandments

1. Commit crimes, because the guilty often go free.
2. The hardest working people are paid the smallest, so don’t work hard.
3. Honour your father and your mother, but only if they deserve this honour. 
4. You shall not murder, unless it is someone who has murdered your friends or family.
   • I’m not sure this is a good idea. After all, it leads to spiralling revenge murders of the Scottish and the Japanese clans. Also, you can commit murder if you are the head of state and have influential friends²⁰⁷²⁰⁸.
5.  You shall not commit adultery (unless you visit Thailand).
   • This old commandment seems to contradict God’s command to ‘go forth and multiply’. Obviously, the original commandment seems to contradict common sense in the modern world where divorces are just as common as marriages.
6. ‘You shall not steal (unless you belong to the 1%).’
   • Of course, this is highly debatable. I think it was the French philosopher Proudhon who said ‘property is theft’²⁰⁹.
7. ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, his male servant, female servant, ox, donkey, or anything that is theirs’.
   • This is just too ‘stupid’ for words, so I will not comment on it in detail. I mean who has female servants, oxen, and donkeys in New York today!? I suppose it means ‘thou shall not covet your neighbour’s Porsche 911.’
   • Today, the Porsche 911 consumes so much petrol that one Porsche probably results in the slaughter of many children around the world; (cf. ‘Butterfly theory’ and ‘systems theory’ in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine financed by oil revenues). And if you do not have a pot to pee in, why the hell shouldn’t you covet your neighbour’s Porsche and his whorish blonde mistress?
8. I forget the original commandments for 8-10, but I will propose some new ones. Regarding Afghanistan and the Taliban (2022), just because you have a gun, cock, and beard, does not give you the right to terrorise women and young girls.  
9. If you illegally invade a smaller country, God’s wrath will descend on you.
   • The Russian politicians will be convicted as war criminals. 
10. Regarding Proudhon’s statement ‘property is theft’: If your income is far above that of ordinary people, you are committing a social crime and will be punished (by God or the mob).
    • If you want to avoid this punishment, you should donate at least 50% of your excessive income to those in need.

Application in Life

Looking back, creating these new ten commandments reminded me of a book I read before. It is about Shadow who learned important lessons of life such as humility, courage, respect for elders, responsibility, and so on. In other words, it is a shortening of the Old Testament tenets. Of course, this is just so much ‘propaganda’ that adults use to brainwash their children into obedience. In ‘real life’, the intelligent child learns that other ‘principles’ are more relevant. And this is what inspired me to create my own commandments above.

You can read more about Shadow in this post:

²⁰⁷ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56213528 Read: 27 May 2022.
²⁰⁸ https://theconversation.com/why-repressive-saudi-arabia-remains-a-us-ally-156281 Read: 27 May 2022.
²⁰⁹ Why do people think the 1% is stealing money from them? https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-think-the-1-is-stealing-money-from-them Read: 27 May 2022.