Love and Money

I remember in high school when my math teacher began a class with a question, “what do you think really runs this world? Love? Or money? As every optimistic and encouraging answer filled the room, my teacher continued to stand in front of the class shaking his head nullifying the overall response of the class in his response to our answers, “to be young.” I do not know what prompted this question he posed one day nor had I ever really taken time to ponder it, however, it did and still does provide and interesting debate for myself and others.

The answer to this question is not shallow, rather complex and intriguing, everyone personal answer to this question can and should differ all with different and opposing justifications. The relationship between love and money is interesting and in Salman Rushdie collection of short stories entitled, East, West he elaborates on both these absorbing topics. Having recently been introduced to Rushdie, I have found that a very common literary tool he uses in his work is satire. Through out the East, West collection his satire was very often geared and pointed to social commentary.

In one of the short novellas Rushdie sticks to what appear to be his main cannons offering satire to a reader on the topics of both love and money. At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers tells a tale where Rushdie views an auction whose main marquee is the actual pair of ruby slippers that Dorothy wore during the Wizard of OZ. Rushdie goes in depth here talking of the power these slippers have over people. These objects instill in people feelings of obsession and greed. Interestingly enough these radical yet comical feelings as Rushdie made them appear to be are the exact one that provoke people whenever they are surrounded by the two powerful deities of love and money.

This all reminds me of when Barry Bonds hit his 755 home run this summer passing Hank Aaron on the all time home run leaders list. People with no affiliation to Bonds nor the record or any vasting interest in the athletic accomplishment of the situation. People fought, scratched and clawed their people trying to catch this prized ball all to capture and obtain a monetary award. I am sure that somewhere, wherever he was Rushdie would smirk at an event such as this, the notion that people will turn on other people at the drop of a hat merely for money. Alluding back to my math teacher’s question of what really runs this world.