Leave God out of It!


The investment bank, Goldman Sachs, draws its share of hatred and revulsion. Mostly (in)famously, it was described thus by Matt Taibbi:
“The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
A very graphic description indeed!

Like pretty much every other financial entity in the US, Goldman too received bailout money. Which, of course, added to the fury. It didn’t help that its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, made his (in)famous comment to a reporter while coming out a government hearing on the financial crisis saying that he was “off to do God’s work”. Outrageous though it sounds, this was Blankfein’s version of the context in which he made the remark, as described in William D. Cohan’s book, Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came To Rule The World:
“So I walked out and I was talking to a reporter, and the questions were running along the lines of ‘How much did your tie cost?’ and ‘Do you know how much a quart of milk costs?’ And I knew where the trend was going, and as I was leaving, we’d gotten into a back and forth on the themes he was projecting, and I was leaving, I said and meant in an ironic way, ‘Now I’m off to do God’s work.’ He laughed, I laughed, but guess what? He got the last laugh.”

Isn’t it true that most people get very irritated when others invoke God into the stuff they do? Like Andre Agassi’s irritation with Michael Chang in his autobiography titled Open:
“Everytime he beats someone, he points to the sky. He thanks God – credits God – for the win, which offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God should side against me, that God should be in Chang’s box, feels ludicrous and insulting.”
Which is what made Agassi’s win even more satisfying:
“I beat Chang and savor every blasphemous stroke.”
You can see how much Chang’s habit pissed off Agassi, because elsewhere in the book he writes on a different match:
“I beat Chang in the final at Cincinnati, praise God.”
And in yet another part of the book, when he isn’t feeling confident:
“So I’ll lose today. Congratulations, Chang. I hope you and your Messiah will be very happy.”

I guess nothing gets the other side as worked up as claiming that God is on your side, whether it is in finance or in sports… or in morality.

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarMarch 16, 2018 at 11:27 AM

    Good one.

    The truth is many of us use God to add weight to whatever we want to assert. God becomes an instrument of our own puffed up ego, nothing more nothing less!

    As the blog ends with "finance or in sports… or in morality", I feel like asking why 'politics' is missing here. Religion is a way of socio-political assertion and domination. The Muslims have overdone it to a point of vexing others beyond limit and we can continue with how every other religion did their socio-political exertions and muscle twisting. Nowhere it is possible to reach a state of truly 'keeping politics religious twist free".

    Finally, I can't agree more with the finish - "morality" issue. Society definitely needs people's behavior in some conformity to suit the overall picture. Religions try to influence in behavior and political legal system try their methods towards the need. While both are bound to have flaws and limitations, religion can go about it with disgusting rigidity from time to time.

    The core truth is: the problem is with the way the human mind is wired. It seems to dilly dally with God forever; in that, some want God and also want all people to believe the same way of one's belief. While some others reject God and, sure enough, want all people to follow suit. Nothing much is going to change, as far as the 'wiring' goes; unless evolution does some trick! I would welcome it, since it all looks so arbitrary, while the muscle power seems to decide on issues.

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