Does Money change people?
This is a popular question that has received popular answers along the lines of:
Money does not change people, it only amplifies what’s already there.
Money does not change people, it only unmasks them.
Money does not change people, it only reveals who they truly are.
Money does not change people, it only exposes their true selves.
My unpopular opinion: Money changes people, and I’ll love to back up my claim with two arguments:
- What does change mean? Are the words, amplify, unmask, reveal and expose not summarily explaining change?
- Does not having or lack of money change people?
For the first argument,
It’s needful to know the context of change here. Content is king, but when context comes in, content takes several seats. So, let’s argue contextually.
We would want to define the context of the question and the answer that follows. A person might ask in the context of the type of change, or the extent to which the person has changed. Simply put, the degree of change.
Now that we’ve defined that, it is important to note that the question to which I’m countering its popular answer isn’t contextual, it is general and I’ll be answering from a generic standpoint. If the asker wants context, it should be added to the question.
Change, generally speaking, is not only about your physical activity, it also involves your thoughts, values, intentions and your perceptions. In fact, it is these non-physical qualities that define physical actions.
Again, since we are not within any context here, it is easy to see that the type of change isn’t cared about. Because a fundamental problem in this context is that we always see change as negative. So, if you have a friend that ‘blew up and you’re explaining how this your friend has changed since he got money, to the larger percentage of your audience, without research, your friend changed negatively. So, it is necessary to cut off that bias too in our argument.
Since we’ve established that change is inclusive of physical and non-physical actions, it is easy to see that the arrival of money could make one change his or her taste of everything (fashion, food, accommodation, education etc) no matter how little or the word you used to qualify that, be it amplify (money amplified her taste), exposed (money exposed his love for flashy cars) or unmask (money unmasked their pride). By Merriam-Webster's definition of change, a change already occurred, and that’s change enough to establish that money changes people.
If there were a Changeometer to measure how people change, no matter the degree, the deflector will definitely pick a slight deflection either to the right (positive) or left (negative) side as soon as the money variable is introduced into the equation.
For the second argument,
If you agree that not having or lack of money changes people, then it follows from simple logic that having money definitely changes people.
And if you don’t also agree that not having money changes people, refer back to the first argument to check your point again.
People can change the rules they live by, but money changes these people to do so.
Did you follow my arguments? Are there flaws in it? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.
