Understand the Abstractness and Concreteness of Money

By Nomadsirius

Prologue.

Money governs our values and judgments, harshly testing our perception and weight of life.
Without a philosophical understanding of money, passion for money falls into pathological obsession and distorts into neurotic greed.
Based on the philosophy of money, if life is constantly filled with fantasy and investment, the journey of life as Homo Ludens, the playing man, begins.
Understanding money, which is both a concrete object and an abstract symbol, widely and deeply, is not easy, but it approaches money through the philosophy, symbols, wars, worlds, and aesthetics of money.
Based on the philosophy of money, we examine the concreteness and abstractness of money, focusing on substance rather than pretext, as the basis of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom.
With wisdom and reverence for both the concrete and abstract aspects of money, we affirm the beauty of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: YH Partners
• Release date: Apr 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9791192838359

Book preview

1. Discussing the philosophy of money.

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Understand the Abstractness and Concreteness of Money.

  ​The four rivers of Eden, the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, are the life-giving rivers where the four cardinal virtues of humanity—benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom—flow. 

These four cardinal virtues are not represented by the four views of people but by four creatures: the ox, the human, the lion, and the eagle, symbolizing base desires. 

Lucifer, who fell from the Seraphim, is also a primal desire. 

Appearing with the face of a cherubim, Lucifer, referred to as ox in Ezekiel 10:14, like the subunit cow of 'goods and chattels,' represents the attributes of all material things. 

The ox is the primal desire that governs the waters of the north. 

  The origin of good and evil is discussed in Genesis 3 of the Bible, which deals with the fall of man. 

Satan, the serpent, and Eve's external temptation lead Adam to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil by his own free will. 

The so-called doctrine of original sin, which views the misuse of moral freedom by angels striving to become like God as passed on to humans, is interpreted as the result. 

Each individual's self-crime, violating the law and conscience, adds to human sinfulness, plunging humanity into a state of sin. 

The concept of good and evil in the Bible is a mythological interpretation. 

The Garden of Eden is a symbol of naturalness where good and evil do not exist. 

As the number of human individuals increased and hunting skills developed, domestication of wild animals and slaughter for consumption became commonplace upon leaving the Garden of Eden. 

The accumulation of a primordial sense of sin in the subconscious leads Jewish and Islamic nomadic settlers to erase trauma through a sense of atonement and purification. 

Agricultural cultures in India and China, centered on the Korean Peninsula, have a relatively low sense of original sin due to their consumption of meat. 

The concept of good and evil, which changes according to the times, situations, and perspectives, is a concept unique to humans. 

There is no good or evil in nature, only desires and cravings. 

Understand the Abstractness and Concreteness of Money.

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  Cain becomes the first murderer in human history by killing his brother Abel. 

In Genesis chapter 4, there is no record of what Cain said to Abel. 

It is unknown what kind of conversation took place before Abel was killed. 

Rabbinic sages view sexual desire, the desire for sustenance, and the desire for identity and community as motives for the murder. 

Sexual desire is merely a debate over racial reproduction that revolves around one woman in this world. 

The scholars of the first-century Gnosticism considered Abel to be a slave of the material world and the Gnostics of the second century saw Abel as an example of the destruction of the material world by the demons. 

Cain's desire for sustenance erupted from a territorial dispute stemming from Cain owning real estate and Abel owning land. 

The desire for identity and community that was ignited during the process of building a temple on his olive grove reflects religious and cultural identity. 

Descendants of Cain, who pursued violent and secular beauty, are symbols of corruption. 

Lamech represents strength, Ada represents adornment, and Zillah represents frivolity, symbolizing the accumulation of wealth, conquest, oppression, and pleasure by building up sexuality and making iron weapons and musical instruments. 

  Hermann Hesse transcends the traditional Protestant paradigm. 

He approaches the mark of Cain from a new perspective. 

Through Demian, when we remove Cain's dark and negative marks, 

Cain coexists with light in the dark world. 

Cain stands against the Cherubim, blocking rationality with a flaming sword, and illuminates wisdom in desire. 

Nietzsche, too, through a genealogical methodology, transitions good and evil from moral values of goodness and badness by contrasting slave morality and master morality. 

Not from a Christian perspective, but from a concept of material obligation stemming from non-payment of debts, he derives the moral concept of sin. 

Evil negates life with a slave-like will and regresses, but good affirms life with a noble will and elevates it. 

Understand the Abstractness and Concreteness of Money.

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  Nietzsche believes that the primordial human had no sense of sin and was not considered to be punished for wrongdoing. 

He sees the concept of guilt as sprouting only when the awareness of responsibility itself emerges, forming a contractual relationship. 

For Nietzsche, sin is a material concept where the debtor owes a debt to the creditor. 

Since sin is a harm inflicted by the debtor through debt, the creditor inflicts suffering on the debtor to receive compensation. 

The creditor's loss and the debtor's suffering are equivalent. 

The sense of responsibility for the debt carved by suffering becomes the burden of conscience. 

  The debtor is mortgaged for everything to repay the debt. 

If they cannot directly compensate, they must endure an equivalent punishment. 

The creditor enjoys pleasure while being compensated for the loss. 

If the debtor cannot repay the debt, the creditor wields their rights mercilessly, imprinting responsibility on the debtor's memory through harsh and cruel but legal punishment. 

In a contractual relationship, the creditor holds a superior and sweet dominion. 

  The foundation of contract law is that blood must be shed, so the creditor is compensated for the debt through cruel torture. 

The debtor's suffering is so humanly pleasurable to the creditor that the creditor enjoys the debtor's pain. 

Being a superior pleasure, it is different from inferior revenge. 

In the pleasure of life, there is inherently a sense of pain. 

When free will gives meaning to suffering, cruelty is justified as the charm of a festival. 

The concept of free will, originating from the ancients and Christians, tempts boldly with autonomy over actions. 

Cruel punishment is a festival paid by free will.  

  The creditor, who evaluates and measures value, exchanges the value of things with the debtor on an equal footing. 

The justice of the creditor, who has reached an agreement with good will, begins with equal agreement. 

The superiority of the creditor leads to the use of coercive force to contract with the weaker, creating a distinction between the strong and the weak. 

Justice for the debtor begins with an inferior agreement. 

If the debtor attacks the community, the community expels him with cruel and merciless punishment. 

The community treats the debtor, who is the object of hatred for destroying the contract, as if they were a defeated enemy, depriving them of all benefits and comforts. 

  Active emotions are desires for domination and possession, so they resolve resentment through law, while reactive emotions, being resentment and envy, sanctify revenge as justice. 

The vitality of life is inherently destructive, so aggressive aggressiveness itself is not illegal. 

However, as creditors become wealthier, they become more humane, and the community also tolerates harm with compassionate mercy. 

The stronger the power of the community, the more lenient it is, protecting criminals by distinguishing between offenders and unlawful acts. 

To a community that exists beyond the law, the rule of law is only an exceptional means of supreme power. 

  The origin and purpose of the law are different. 

The desire for domination by a strong tribe engraves the purpose of the law, and punishment is the final application of the law. 

The procedure of punishment precedes the purpose as a continuous custom, positioning itself before the history of punishment. 

Punishment makes criminals cruel, and violent torture methods make guilt disappear. 

Criminals do not feel the burden of conscience. 

The execution of oppressive punishment arouses resistance as a target of criticism, reducing the utility of punishment. 

The meaning of punishment as a fluid expectation is inserted into the execution process. 

Meaning synthesizes various values within the procedure. 

The will to harmonize meaning anew for the prosperity of a strong tribe is a continuous action and reaction. 

  The state is an overwhelming dominant community. 

It tames humans through oppressive customs and regulations by constructing social barriers. 

It expels the instinct of freedom from the visible world. 

For the prosperity of the tribe, the state relies on oppressive force to magnificently harmonize vile power. 

Humans who have abused themselves for their own affirmation turn to the affirmation of beauty through abusive cruelty. 

A radical change occurs in humans whose inner world has collapsed, and a weak consciousness sprouts. 

When the pressure of the state drives humans to despair, their instinct for freedom turns inward. 

Humans emit the instinct of freedom as the burden of conscience and are born as beings full of future. 

However, the burden of conscience places the debtor and creditor at the origin as a disease. 

  The current generation is a tribal debtor to their ancestors, and powerful tribal creditors are objects of fear. 

As the fear of ancestors grows, the sense of sin reaches its peak. 

The sense of obligation becomes the burden of conscience, and pessimistic obligations turn into despair. 

Humans who have cruelly harmed themselves spend nights of torture and absurdity through confusion of will. 

Tribal obligations become a sense of sin towards the Christian God. 

As ancestors are transformed into gods in the darkness, the sense of obligation changes into a consciousness of the divine. 

When desperate obligations become the object of atonement, Christianity, inheriting the sense of obligation, resolves obligations through the sacrifice of Christ. 

Humans who established the ideal of the Christian God confirm their absolute worthlessness as divine gods and cry out for salvation from the mental asylum of the earth. 

While Christianity blooms with a sense of debt, the Greeks, who created noble gods, enjoy the freedom of the soul rather than the burden of conscience. 

The gods of healthier Greeks than the Christian God do not rage fiercely. 

  British philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994), originally from Austria, criticized closed dogmatism and assertions with his concept of fallibilism in The Open Society and Its Enemies. 

Through the concept of fallibilism, which is also known as the concept of refutation, 

Popper emphasizes that in an uncertain world, all knowledge and claims are provisional, revealing an attitude towards truth. 

Heisenberg also explains the principle of uncertainty, stating that the position or momentum of matter is uncertainly determined depending on the observer's measurement, due to inherent constraints. 

The principle of uncertainty asserts that due to inherent constraints, it is impossible to measure the position and velocity of atomic particles simultaneously. 

This principle, which has greatly contributed to quantum mechanical mechanisms, establishes a new theory that particle movements cannot be predicted accurately, shaking the foundation of causality in physics. 

Popper's fallibilism emphasizes the limits of knowledge and understanding, while Heisenberg's uncertainty principle shows the limits of the nature of natural phenomena. 

  Karl Popper takes a specific stance on the philosophy of free markets and money. 

He believes that a free market economy enhances economic efficiency, encourages innovation, guarantees individual freedom, and promotes social progress. 

He argues that while some limitations and regulations are necessary in capitalism, which distributes the cake unfairly, socialism, which distributes the cake fairly, suppresses the desire for the small cake itself, thereby hindering progress. 

Popper concretizes the value of money not just as a means of acquiring consumer goods or possessions but as a means of expressing individual choice and responsibility. 

George Soros, influenced by Karl Popper at the London School of Economics, helps students from Eastern Europe receive education and enhance their expertise through a scholarship program called the Open Society Fund, established in 1982. 

Born in Hungary, Soros promoted the spread of the Open Society in several Eastern European countries and took the lead in the