How Money Corrupts -- Thoughts & History on Mother 3's Tazmily
Updated: Nov 7
As the cliché says, money is, allegedly, the "root of all evil". I myself disagree with this saying, because I believe that people can be evil regardless of monetary gain. Some people may be evil because they may lack the empathy that can prevent their potential evil, while others may be evil because evil deeds might bring them fun, so they would find it rewarding in that sense.
However, I think it's clear that money can definitely corrupt, and by corruption I refer to moral deterioration. While there is no universal agreement in the philosophy of ethics, about what exactly is morality, I do believe that most of the world nowadays, does have some agreeable ideas for it, correct? Caring for other people's feelings, for example, can be seen as moral, even if morality itself isn't exactly "objective", given that it's a human construct.
Volunteering for the benefit of others, might be seen as moral as well. In short, contributing for others, as something that is above personal gain, can indeed be seen as moral. Even dictatorships, I believe, may have the same moral people I'm talking about, even if they are not in positions of political power.
If you wish to find a more concrete example, read the article I wrote on Gandhi, "The Gandhi Article", that I wrote from a request thanks to one of you.
There is fault in monetary gain, I think, but specifically in greed. If there is something specific that makes people corrupt, it isn't necessarily the need for money, but the temptation to have more of it, at the price of what I conveyed to be morality.
It can make people care little about others, because caring is an action that takes time. However, with that time, money can be made, instead, or at least, one's work towards it, can be made. Hence why some people may prefer looking for financial opportunities, than doing something for free.
In fact, I knew someone who preferred finding ways to make money, rather than resume chatting with me. I don't intend to reveal names, but in retrospect, I can kind of understand his reasoning, given the need for money over what some may consider as a "waste of time" in comparison to the pursuit of greater wealth.
I guess that people who actually work, and don't volunteer, may value their time over other people, as they can use their time for greater wealth, or in other words, to capitalize over financial opportunities and duties.
And as such, that was the commune that was Tazmily, from the video game known as Mother 3, which I talked about before, mainly in far-older articles. Tazmily is a community of volunteers that never needed money in order to function, before a certain development began.
They operated without money because they erased their memories from the past, and thus, never knew that money was necessary, as they never even thought of the concept before. Instead, they worked because they wanted to survive, obviously, and because they were loyal to their community. It had no specific leadership, and in fact was a classless society.
Have you ever walked into a hotel to rent a room for the night? In Tazmily's pre-developed existence, there was no need to pay for the room, because no one who worked there, knew what money was, and thus, did not know it was necessary for outsiders so much.
Do you see? The "need" for money might as well be subjective, because in essence, it is but a piece of paper, and nowadays, digital as well. It's just that the world taught itself that its needed, and thus, the global belief of its necessity, became a reality.
It's not to say that I don't need the money from welfare to survive; I need it because others see it as essential as well, and thus, a great dependency was created on it, as a means to be dependent on others, too -- those who pay, and those whose service they provide in exchange for cash.
Tazmily's naive existence became more and more "non-pure" when a strange man appeared, named Fassad. Fassad was an abusive man who pretended to genuinely desire the good of Tazmily's future. He basically offered them a great technological leap forward.
Since Tazmily's residents have forgotten of the fact that they erased their own memory due to a certain fate of destruction, which they survived, the vast majority of them accepted Fassad's deal.
With Fassad's "invasion", came his many strange henchmen; Army-like people with pig-shaped gas masks, who mostly wore pink uniforms. They make snorts like actual pigs, even though they are humans.
I do not know how to exactly perceive these uniformed people. They feel very uncanny because they indeed look a bit like WW2 soldiers, but they "celebrate" the idea of the pig as if it is a noble animal. All I can think about them is this: They are like "pigs to be slaughtered", as a certain saying goes, as if they lack humanity, and perhaps they also represent the slur of "capitalist pigs".
They are also fat and unfit, which is unexpected of them, and some carry pork snacks. It is very uncanny, as said before. They, as if, celebrate the notion of being dehumanized pigs. They are perhaps the most original concept I've seen in a piece of fiction.
Anyways, it seems that this dehumanized faction, dehumanized Tazmily as well. Not with a military strike, but with high-tech propaganda of materialistic dreams that aren't there. They built a railway, they introduced cars, "happy boxes" that resemble TVs, and so on and on.
Remember that they were very low-tech before, and perhaps never had electricity, either. Most importantly, the so-called Pigmasks introduced them with money.
As time went by, the citizens became alienated and reclusive. More residents joined, but they were left nameless, like your average neighbours in a metropolis. Before this leap, everyone knew everyone else, but with money, and with the things it can buy them, the residents didn't really have a reason to know each other that much.
Many of them were tired of work at the mines and factories, and spent much of their time after work, spending their salaries on a certain club whose nature I am uncertain of. They became numb, apathetic, and more indulgent in their recreational activities.
Tazmily's story as a populated town, ends when almost everyone leaves to a certain "Utopia" -- New Pork City, which seems to be a parody on New York City. It is in a way, a capitalist paradise, where many of the buildings there are just wooden boards.
The only residential area appears to be in the sewers, in poor, filthy apartments, and everything feels so pretentious, like it knows it offers you a dream that isn't there, and if there's a dream, it is only accessible to those who may not be poor at all.
Tazmily, in short, was an attempt of some survivors to start a new, after their former society collapsed due to its technological development (another reason is unknown to me).
It is a way to try doing things differently this time, and for that to work, they erased their memories, so they won't be tempted again, to repeat the same mistake: The mistake of chasing delusional dreams.
How ironic, that their own method, became their undoing. A fault of forgetting is to know certain things that were forgotten.
Mr. John Duran's Quote For The Ending
Mr. Nathan Lasher's Feedback:
Money is neutral. It itself is neither good nor evil. It is only a tool which can be used to facilitate good or evil. Find $100 on the ground. Pick it up, is your mind instantly on good or bad thoughts? No, you're just happy you just found it. Whether you are a good or bad person will determine which way you will lean towards. All money does is allow a person to do more evil or more good.
Shouldn’t morality be as simple as saying it is the act of bringing no overall negativity to anything material, living or nonliving, in the universe, including yourself? It's really simple seeing morality in this way.
If you aren’t hurting anyone in any way you are living a moral life. Starting here is something anyone can do. You don’t have to be Mother Teresa to live a moral life.
Doing a good act doesn’t necessarily mean a person is moral. “Good” acts can be done for selfish reasons. Being moral in the best way possible requires a person to use their intelligence to determine which acts they can do will do the most good.
The best advice I have for living a greed free life is to find a good reason behind everything you do.
When you realize money is only an asset, whose importance is only as great as we place on it, you realize it only serves a few minor purposes. To exchange your asset, money, for a different kind of asset, food, clothing, utility bill, you start to realize that the only reason you need money is [to exchange it for other assets].
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