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IS MONEY THE ROOT OF ALL eVIL?
SALON ASKED THE EXPERTS
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F R I D A Y
Matthew Fox
Episcopal Priest, president of the New University of Creation Spirituality

That comes from the Bible. And everything in the Bible isn't to be taken literally. The root of all evil is a relationship to money or to any other addiction that looks attractive to us or is a good distraction. I think this is an aphorism that the elders were teaching young people in ancient Israel. And there's obviously some truth to it. The truth to it is about our relationships, but money itself is not the root of all evil, it's human choices that is the root of all evil, human relationships. So if we get too attached to the money, that's what fills our hearts. Then all kinds of disturbing things will follow. In terms of Christian tradition, the word greed is considered one of the capital sins, and that's what's really being talked about here; that greed can become a god for you. Really, you can take the seven capital sins and say that any one of them is the root of all evil.
I think misdirected love is the root of all evil. Whether that's money or some other addiction isn't really the point. So I think our love of power or alcohol or drugs or escaping from the deep feelings of life and feelings of grief -- I think that's the root of it. I don't think that the problem is money. I think it's the not having something equally interesting to fill our souls with.

T H U R S D A Y
Stephen A. Diamond, PH.D.
Author of "Anger, Madness And Daemonics"

Money itself doesn't do anything: It's just inert, pressed dead wood pulp and thread, pictures of dead presidents and lots of ugly green ink. It is what people project onto money -- its symbolic psychological significance -- that comprises the powerful force which drives us all to do such outlandish things to procure it. Sometimes, these behaviors are simply foolish, innocuous or misguided, and no one really gets hurt. But other times, they fall into the category of what I call "evil" -- attitudes and behaviors like aggression, cruelty, hostility, disregard for the integrity of others, self-destructiveness, psychopathology and human misery in general.

W E D N E S D A Y
Christopher Byron
Columnist, New York Observer

Bernard Shaw said the absence of money is the root of all evil. If you don't have money in an affluent world, it's pretty dreadful, it's pretty difficult to get along. And getting money isn't easy in spite of what many on Wall Street seem to think in the last couple years. It's an aberration, what's going on down there right now.

Allan Sloan
Wall Street Editor, Newsweek
I sure hope money is the root of all evil because that could explain why I'm so nasty. Or actually, if I'm as nasty as people say, how come I'm not rich?

T U E S D A Y
Robert I. Simon, M.D.
Author of "Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatric Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Nature" (American Psychiatric Press)

It's too simplistic an idea. People do evil things for all kinds of reasons. You have the little evils of every day, the discourtesies, the insensitivities, and much of it is based on the inability to really think about what other people are thinking and feeling. Then you have the real big evils, the people who are serial sexual killers that kill people strictly for their own sexual gratification for purpose of an orgasm. What evil is is the inability to put oneself into someone else's shoes. The psychopaths can't do this at all.

M O N D A Y
Andrew Tobias
Personal Finance Expert and Author

Money itself -- the medium of exchange -- is of course this miraculous invention that is as fundamental to economics and prosperity as language is to civilization and culture.
It's not money that causes evil, it's desire (whether material or sexual or egomaniacal). Not to knock desire; just to say that a "good" person will not allow it to trample basic notions of fairness and honesty. So it's perhaps the lack of scruples or conscience that's the root of all evil. A chemical imbalance, no doubt. One day there will be a pill. Or a patch. (Imagine the money in that!) And the truly evil people will find a way to get everybody to take it, or wear it, but them. And they will take over the world. Except that George Clooney and Nicole Kidman will find those people in the nick of time -- I mean with just seconds to spare -- and stick patches on them and it will all work out OK.