Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/06739_Field_TCUM T304.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 938b | 16 lines

     Earlier in the book, Butler had ridiculed the cash-register
morality and religion of an industrialized world, under the guise
of the “Musical Banks,” with clergy in the role of cashiers. In the
present passage, he perceives money as “the sacrament of
having done for mankind that which mankind wanted.” Money,
he is saying, is the “outward and visible sign of an inward and
invisible grace.”

     Money as a social medium or extension of an inner wish
and motive creates social and spiritual values, as happens even
in fashions in women’s dress. A current ad underlines this
aspect of dress as currency (that is, as social sacrament or
outward and visible sign): “The important thing in today’s
world of fashion is to appear to be wearing a popular fabric.”
Conformity to this fashion literally gives currency  to a style or
fabric, creating a social medium that increases wealth and