It's Money That Matters?

I haven't read this book, and I probably won't.  The NPR program that's going to interview Mr. Goldstein says his thesis is that we've all "swallowed hard" and agreed that currency has value.

And that, of course, is the only reason it does.  Funnier still we've all agreed the digits in our bank accounts, themselves existing only in computer data bases, represent value and even property and ownership.  If we all decided tomorrow that wasn't true, it would all go "poof!" more absolutely and surely than a child's disbelief in Santa Claus.

Funny, huh?

Arch-materialists and atheists and religion-deniers of all stripes never deny the value of money.  Never.  They might not think much of it, from perches of comfort and convenience bought and paid for by this fiction we all agree is real.  They denounce as fiction what they don't agree is real:  God, spirit, soul.  But money?  That's meddling with primal forces.

We all knew what Ned Beatty meant when he shouted that at poor Howard Beale, and no one who watched that scene thought for a moment he was shouting about a fiction.  But money is just as fictional as Howard Beale or Batman or John Wayne.  It's "a made-up thing."  But we all agree on what it is, and that it is valuable, and that's enough.  Sorta like we all agree to tell our kids about Santa Claus, and are mildly scandalized by any parent with the temerity not to uphold the fable.  But an adult who denies the reality of money?  Who would even take them seriously?

How real is it, though? I've probably mentioned before, about a sci-fi apocalyptic TV series, where our heroes find themselves hiding from the monsters (vampires, if I remember) in an abandoned armored car, still full of paper bills.  They remark how this paper was once of great value; but now the only value in life is staying alive, and evading the monsters.  It would take a cataclysm on the order of a post-apocalyptic world to destroy the value of money; but it is still "a made-up thing."  And yet we all agree to the fiction.

And why?  The same reason we don't bring our brother who thinks he's a chicken to the doctor.  Because we need the eggs.

This is not an argument that "God" is as fictional a concept as "money."  Quite the opposite.  It's an argument that which fictional concept you can live with is a matter of choice, not of reason or logic or ratiocination or even blind faith.  Then again, who ever thinks to question the value of money?  And to those who do we always respond "Yeah, that's because you don't have any."  Everybody knows more money is better than less money.  Everybody knows money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around.  Everybody agrees "PFFFTTT!" on being poor.

Poverty sucks.  It's money that matters.

But money is purely a human-made fiction.  The God of Abraham is not a fiction; not a human creation; not a human desire given false life.  The God of Abraham doesn't really offer comfort or security or safety from enemies or sanctity and preservation from ill and evil.  Idols do that.  There's a reason the Israelites so denigrated idols:  they are human creations, they are the stuff of human desires.  They have no power, except the power we give them, and we give them power over us in hopes our lot improves from the relationship.  How does that not perfectly describe money?

The God of Abraham tells Abraham your descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky, as the sand on the shore.  What good is that to Abraham?  He'll never live to see it.  The God of Abraham tells Abraham to walk with God and go to a new place.  Why?  How dangerous is that gonna be?  The God of Abraham gives Abraham one son, late in life.  Abraham gets impatient and has Ishmael by his wife's servant.  What happened to the descendants as many as stars in the sky?  Family was a sign of wealth and blessing.  Abraham had one child, and God told him to take that child to Moriah, and offer him as sacrifice.

What kind of God of human desires is this?

The God of Abraham appears to Moses and says "Lead my people out of Egypt."  And Moses does, and then the people build a golden calf, and God says "That's it.  40 years in the wilderness for you."  And when they finally get where they're going, they get tired of judges ruling over them, settling disputes and keeping everything moving, and they demand a king like everybody else has.   And God tells them it's a terrible idea and they say "We don't care!" and God says "Fine," and they get David soon enough, but they end up with Solomon.  Whose wisdom and reputation are all purchased, at the cost, eventually, of Israel's freedom.

What kind of God of human desires is this?

It's because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not a god of human desires that Israel turns again to idols, turns away from the law of Moses, and finds itself in Babylon, in the Exile.

What kind of God of human desires is this?

And money?  What does money do for you?  Go to the grave with you?  End your days by your deathbed?  Offer you paradise?  Comfort you?  Buy you love?  Of course not.  It's a made-up thing.  Superman isn't coming to your rescue, either.  Batman ain't gonna help you out.  Tony Stark ain't comin' by for a beer and a chat about quantum mechanics.  They're made up; just like money.  But we insist upon the reality of money, and so it is real.  In all the current fiction that I call "Adonais" fiction (from the ST:OS episode, "Who Mourns For Adonais?"), where it's popular to portray gods as fictional characters or, as Neil Gaiman did, invent whole new gods (American  Gods), all based on the idea they "exist" because we agree they exist, nobody ever brings up money as a god.

But it is, of course.  It is the absolute god we all bow down to, worship, pursue, examine for what our future will be or how our present is going.  I've been in buildings clearly built as absolute temples of money:  physical manifestations of what this fiction can do and how important it is to believe.

And curiously, the alternative is:  what?  What is the opposite of believing this fiction?