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Quote by Mokokoma Mokhonoana

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Mokokoma Mokhonoana

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“The shift from precious metals to paper in retrospect clarifies that artifacts serving as money tokens are no more than representations of abstract exchange value—they are thus ultimately coveted for their potential use in social transaction, nor for some imagined, essential value intrinsic to the money tokens themselves. If it were not for international agreements such as those of Bretton Woods, gold could conceivably be as useless a medium of exchange in some cultural contexts as seashells are to modern Europeans. This understanding of money, however, simultaneously implies that there is no such thing as intrinsic value. If value ubiquitously pertains to social relations, any notion of intrinsic value is an illusion. Although the European plundering and hoarding of gold and silver, like the Melanesian preoccupation with kula and the Andean reverence for Spondylus, has certainly been founded on such essentialist conceptions of value, the recent representation of exchange value in the form of electronic digits on computer screens is a logical trajectory of the kind of transformation propagated by [Marco] Polo. It is difficult to imagine how money appearing as electronic information could be perceived as possessing intrinsic value. This suggests that electronic money, although currently maligned as the root of the financial crisis, could potentially help us rid ourselves of money fetishism. Paradoxically, the progressive detachment of money from matter, obvious in the transitions from metals through paper to electronics, is simultaneously a source of critique and a source of hope.”

MoneyValue2016Bretton WoodsThe Magic Of Money
Book:Global Magic: Technologies of Appropriation from Ancient Rome to Wall Street
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“Those who might be tempted to give way to despair should realize that nothing accomplished in this order can ever be lost, that confusion, error and darkness can win the day only apparently and in a purely ephemeral way, that all partial and transitory disequilibrium must perforce contribute towards the greater equilibrium of the whole, and that nothing can ultimately prevail against the power of truth.”

WorldInspirationTruthPurposeReligionOrderSpiritualityHopeGoalBalanceDespairTraditionModernity
Book:The Crisis of the Modern World
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“Games let us flirt with such seductive agencies in a protected context. Here is the hope: if you spend a lot of time engaged in aesthetic striving play, you will have plenty of practice losing yourself in, and then drawing back from, the pleasures of value clarity. You will be used to wearing your submersion a little lightly. Then when life hands you far more pressing agential modes, and value clarities with more seriousness and force behind them - when you face the calls of the crisp and clear value systems inherent in money, grades, Twitter likes, and research impact factors - you will have developed the right habits of lightness and control with your agency.”

ValuesGamesValueAgencyStriving
Book:Games: Agency As Art
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