Above is the following Ted talk which brings up an interesting point of view in which the question for why the experiment takes place is “Does money make you mean?. Within this video it makes many key points that relate to The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald one of the very first one that comes to the surface in the video is around the 3 minute mark and Piff shows that the richer players in this rigged game of Monopoly began to show more dominance. This directly correlated with the amount of money the players had and the player with the more money generally showed these traits. This type of dominance shown by the wealthy leads back to the book where Tom is described as a large husky specimen. Who peaked at 21 and played football in college as described by Nick. Meanwhile as many of us know from the book that Tom is married to Daisy and is obviously wealthy. Everybody who describes Tom in the book generally has the same feeling of Tom’s dominance as a person.
As Paul Piff continues on in his lecture he approaches a subject around the 5 ½ minute mark about the amount of wealth and that person’s amount of empathy and compassion. What Paul discovered was that as a person’s wealth and status increased their self-interest did as well. Back to the Great Gatsby Daisy has a strong since of entitlement from the beginning. As her character shows some of her more defining characteristics she becomes a person that as long as the situation is beneficial for her the situation is fine. Such as her affair with Gatsby, everything was great with the relationship until Gatsby demanded a commitment and for her to say she never loved Tom. This does not go over well with her and she never says those favorable words in Gatsby’s eyes. This leads me to another point that Paul makes that the rich are more likely to moralize greed being good and daisy never feels as if traveling the world recklessly is ever a bad thing. That living the most carefree life without a worry of money or other people is okay as long as it benefits her in the end.
Paul Piffs Ted talk gave me a very different perspective on power and money and the ideologies of people in advantageous situations. One of the most eye opening of those was toward the end of the monopoly experiment when asking the players about what they did to win even though them winning was inevitable they talked about personal accomplishments rather than how by the flip of a coin they were destined to win. This relates to the American dream as everybody want to attain the most wealth and status. But at that same point given those advantages should we as humans not take a step back and look for other ways to use those resources rather than for ones personal benefit.
As Paul Piff continues on in his lecture he approaches a subject around the 5 ½ minute mark about the amount of wealth and that person’s amount of empathy and compassion. What Paul discovered was that as a person’s wealth and status increased their self-interest did as well. Back to the Great Gatsby Daisy has a strong since of entitlement from the beginning. As her character shows some of her more defining characteristics she becomes a person that as long as the situation is beneficial for her the situation is fine. Such as her affair with Gatsby, everything was great with the relationship until Gatsby demanded a commitment and for her to say she never loved Tom. This does not go over well with her and she never says those favorable words in Gatsby’s eyes. This leads me to another point that Paul makes that the rich are more likely to moralize greed being good and daisy never feels as if traveling the world recklessly is ever a bad thing. That living the most carefree life without a worry of money or other people is okay as long as it benefits her in the end.
Paul Piffs Ted talk gave me a very different perspective on power and money and the ideologies of people in advantageous situations. One of the most eye opening of those was toward the end of the monopoly experiment when asking the players about what they did to win even though them winning was inevitable they talked about personal accomplishments rather than how by the flip of a coin they were destined to win. This relates to the American dream as everybody want to attain the most wealth and status. But at that same point given those advantages should we as humans not take a step back and look for other ways to use those resources rather than for ones personal benefit.