By Maddie Hoagland-Hanson

As opposed to love, money is gonna be a tough sell (to coin a phrase). I’m the underdog here. After all, every major world religion (except maybe capitalism) is on Sam’s side. Despite his album title, The-Dream is definitely on Sam’s side: “I can’t even hate, homie/’Cuz I am to blame/Instead of loving you, I was making it rain.” And we all know that mo’ money means mo’ problems. See, I’d be on Sam’s side too, if his point wasn’t desperately in need of a counterpoint.

But since, as they say, my heart’s not in it, that should make it all the easier for me to defend money over love, right? So here goes.

The Bible is often misquoted as saying that money is the root of all evil, but the source (1 Timothy 6:10) actually says that “love of money is the root of all evil.” I don’t wish to argue this point, except to say that it nicely sums up a parallel between love and money: misallocated love is dangerous, just as misallocated money is dangerous. If directed towards “the right things” (without getting into what those might be), both love and money are positive forces, and not opposed to one another. “Love versus money” is a false dichotomy: if you do it right, you don’t have to choose.

Since, according to Camus, “it’s a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money,” surely the phrase “I don’t care too much for money” is both naïve and presumptuous. Only those who have enough money find it easy to reject the promise of more, and voluntary asceticism, while perhaps noble, can hardly be called poverty. It’s hard to worry about finding one’s soul-mate or loving one’s neighbor before worrying about having food to eat, no matter what the “starving” artists try to tell you: they’re just jealous because they’re 30 and live with their parents.

Even Oscar Wilde thought that “it is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating,” and he was a fascinating guy. (He also wrote, “Who, being loved, is poor?” but he was probably up on his car payments that day.)

Having written even this much in defense of money, however, I have to admit that in a real-world battle between love and money, money will easily win out without my assistance, and love needs all the help it can get. One ought to play to one’s strengths, and, as an English major, mine really isn’t money. Even though money is important—astoundingly so—I’m hard-pressed to argue it’s what’s most important.

I therefore concede this point to Sam Kaplan, and by extension, to John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Oh, and Biggie.

Hoagland-Hanson, a junior English major, can be reached at mhoaglan@haverford.edu.

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