Money Corrupts Everything

 This is a journal entry I wrote this morning, December 23, 2023.

Watching college bowl games this Saturday morning. The thought that occurs to me is that in this country money eventually corrupts everything. There used to be four major bowl games—Orange, Sugar, Cotton, and Rose—and maybe a couple of others. Getting to a bowl, especially one of the big four, meant something. Bowl games had names, but those names never included the name of some corporation that has nothing to do with college football. Star players didn’t sit out. Star players who weren’t yet pros didn’t appear in TV commercials the way Caleb Williams or whatever his name is does. The Big 10 had ten members not the eighteen it will have next year. The Big 12 had twelve not more. Conferences weren’t destroyed by the demand for money the way the Pac-12 has been and the ACC probably will be. Money corrupts everything in this country. It has corrupted American politics essentially since the beginning. Money is essentially the only thing that can explain why Americans keep voting against their own self-interest and electing Republicans.  It has corrupted higher education at least in the sense that people now go to college not to learn, and especially not to learn how to think, but just to get qualified for some job. Universities become trade schools. Scientific research happens only when there is lots and lots of grant money. The business of America really is business, and I’m sick of it. Am I sick of it because I’m not rich? Maybe, though I like to think that’s not it. I like to think that it’s because I know how shallow a life devoted only to making money is. Because I know that there are values that aren’t money and that make live fuller, more rewarding, than money ever can. Whatever the reason is that I think this way, I sure wish people were motivated by things that truly enrich and not only by that which pads the bank account and finances houses bigger than anyone needs and BMWs.