"I give you great thanks. I cannot, indeed, understand the way you live, and your house is strange to me. You give me a bath such as the Emperor himself might envy, but no one attends me to it: a bed softer than sleep itself, but when I rise from it I find I must put on my own clothes with my own hands as if I were a peasant. I lie in a room with windows of pure crystal so that you can see the sky as clearly when they are shut as when they are open, and there is not wind enough within the room to blow out an unguarded taper; but I lie in it alone, with no more honour than a prisoner in a dungeon. Your people eat dry and tasteless flesh, but it is off plates as smooth as ivory and as round as the sun. In all the house there is warmth and softness and silence that might put a man in mind of paradise terrestrial; but no hangings, no beautified pavements, no musicians, no perfumes, no high seats, not a gleam of gold, not a hawk, not a hound. You seem to me to live neither like a rich man nor a poor one: neither like a lord nor a hermit."
I like this passage from That Hideous Strength: it illustrates the absolute and relative aspects of "rich" nicely. "Absolute:" surplus tasty food, useful medicines, comfort, amusements, recreation time. "Relative:" servants, people who envy you or honor you, more stuff than people you know. "When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on?"
"Relative" wealth: "To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n."
"Relative" wealth: Aesop: Avarice and Envy
Since money is a promise, how do you prove to yourself that you have money? Is it numbers on a page, or the stuff and services you get when the promises are redeemed (or dangled)?
For money I suppose you can also read "power," except that there's no balance sheet to measure power--but the action of it is similar. You get people to do what you want.
Inflation robs us all, but hits the "absolute" wealth harder--possibly one of the reasons the powers that be aren't generally worried about it.
Either category can make a needle's eye for us to go through, but I suspect the "relative" is more dangerous.
Someone else's culture shock can show how bizarre the mundane can be.
ReplyDeleteWe think there is something shameful, not honorable, about wanting to be considered better than others in that sort of hierarchical way. But that is very late Western European, or more especially North american of us. Merlin's attitude would be considered unremarkable in nearly every place and time.
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