As I was working on some photos the other day, I was listening to an archive edition of “This American Life” called “The Invention of Money“. The theme of the show was “money is fiction” — money is only as valuable as we agree it is. When we fail to trust it or recognize its value, the system we have constructed around it falls apart.
The events in Egypt remind me that civilization is like money, an abstraction, not a thing, an agreement among us, not an edifice. Even in the cradle of civilization, the system falls apart when people stop trusting or accepting it.
Contemplating this can make one feel insecure. Maybe that is why the price of gold has risen from about $250 to $1350 per ounce in the last ten years. Some insecure people think gold is the thing we all agree on, forever and ever, and bid up the price accordingly. Good luck to them.
My bet is on the people who want civilization, not chaos. History favors them, slightly.
To me, this kind of stuff is encouraging, especially if it catalyzes similar uprisings in other Arab countries. With the advent of “the internet,” we have an unprecedented level of transparency and a kind of forced globalization for countries that are way behind the curve in terms of “civilization.” If a world government is one of the holy grails for our species, then the internet is one of its key building blocks.
I’m doubly encouraged by how relatively peaceful the protests have been, and by the level of intelligence and maturity of the quotations I’ve been reading by individual protesters. Let’s hope that this encouragement is not short-lived.
Agreed! (and thanks for visiting the blog db… your blog was in fact a source of inspiration… please return often)