Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Selling Dreams
Am reading the latest Terry Pratchett book Making Money when I saw the following. It's a revelation by the main character, Moist von Lipwig.
It was a dream, but Moist was good at selling dreams. And if you could sell the dream to enough people, no one dared wake up.
Is human culture just the accumulated dreams of leaders, tricksters, and confidence men, whose dreams we have bought into and made our own and we dare not wake up for fear of losing the comforting illusions we've been taught to accept as reality? Illusions of justice, finance, economics, religion - most human culture, are just that, fantasies? They sell you dreams in public school, don't they? Work hard, study hard, tell the truth, obey your "wise" leaders and Life will work out. The whole point of Making Money is that money is a dream, a convenient fiction, but Douglas Adams has said the same thing.
It was a dream, but Moist was good at selling dreams. And if you could sell the dream to enough people, no one dared wake up.
Is human culture just the accumulated dreams of leaders, tricksters, and confidence men, whose dreams we have bought into and made our own and we dare not wake up for fear of losing the comforting illusions we've been taught to accept as reality? Illusions of justice, finance, economics, religion - most human culture, are just that, fantasies? They sell you dreams in public school, don't they? Work hard, study hard, tell the truth, obey your "wise" leaders and Life will work out. The whole point of Making Money is that money is a dream, a convenient fiction, but Douglas Adams has said the same thing.
Labels: selling illusions buying illusions
