Currency as Language
I am using Currency instead of Language, because the idea of medium of exchange, is far more interesting and suited to my writing here, as opposed to the specificity of money.
I have been thinking about money, and the reasons why it is so prevalent, not only for its presence, but for its symbolic use, and its ability to translate and impose a certain order of value(s). Added to this, it has the power of being easily understood, manipulated and exchanged, although its transparency can be challenged in current processes of digital transactions, like in high-frequency-trading. But overall, due to its consolidated presence as unmovable truth, thanks to the galvanising effect of mathematics and scientific numbers, money goes unquestioned as Reality, rather than a tool, or a form of representation. This is by all means, a form of currency that needs to be questioned not only for its use, but for its hidden logics.
To start with, money finds it difficult to accommodate difference. Money can't accept affection as a form of exchange. I know this sounds mad, but the fact that money can't buy all that we can get otherwise, gives this specific type of currency, a not-wanting-to connotation. Meaning, money buys unwillingness. This doesn't mean that money can't buy other, more tangible, things. Labour is constantly commodified by it, as it can commodify sex, or identity, or media, etc. In this sense money can buy what cannot be quantifiable, or easily monitored.
If you think of identity as the representation of a ways of living, this means that anyone with money can buy this identity, or form of representation. This is why fashion, or haircuts have such big impact on how people perceive us, since we associate different meaning to different forms. Not surprisingly, the more money you have, the more, and faster you can morph, or wear a different set of costumes, without necessarily having to change your ways, or ways of living. This is why design is to blame, when it talks about honesty, truth, sustainability, and all these words that have in the end, no correlation with the finished product, but rather with its forms of becoming and production. Truly following these words would mean changing our protocols and processes in achieving a specific set of aims.Otherwise this is just real-life puppeteering.
Still, this is one of the most astonishing qualities of money, for it has no persona or personality. It is by all means impersonal, non-contextual. It has the ability to disassociate itself from what it touches, providing a means of circulation that does change the terrain without leaving any sort of trail behind. Being able to tell the world that it speaks true its a lie, what it does best is to regiment and tightly control, by appealing to its scientific goddess of irrefutable truth.
All in all what we need to ask is, what is the Language of Currency? What does this language prioritise? How does it designate and mobilise Resources/Value? And why above all should we speak this Lingo?
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