Monday, March 9, 2009

Great Article on Economics and Dante

The true perk of Twitter is the info it gives me re: good new pieces to read.
The following is one such example.
I concur with the premise. What's even more amazing to me is that it is written by a Columbia College junior majoring in English called Lucy Tang.
Tip of the hat to you, Lucy!
As a matter of fact, we just talked about something similar in my medieval course today.
Dante, and the Middle Ages, are always relevant, folks. And I'm not just biased. I like to think I'm right. :)

"What Dante knew during the Medieval Ages still resonates strongly today. He finds usury distasteful because moneylenders generate money from money—not actual work. Like St. Thomas Aquinas once said, “It is in accordance with nature that money should increase from natural goods and not from money itself.” The crash was a huge wake-up call for former investment bankers—it essentially revealed to them that their life source had no grounding. Everything they dealt with dissipated within days.

Dante’s vocation as a poet, while considered laughable by many today, has a sense of enduring purpose. He can at least point to his poems and declare, “Here, I wrote this. These words are mine!” God, or nature, or maybe even DNA has endowed people with imagination and creative inspiration, and what could be more wonderful than revealing this innate potential?"

Read it all here.





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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I liked this. I find med. lit. most insightful.

Brikena Ribaj said...

What Dante knew during the Medieval Ages still resonates strongly today. He finds usury distasteful because moneylenders generate money from money—not actual work.

It' definitely a high-frequency concept.

Unknown said...

The medievals knew a thing or two!