Are banknotes the medium or the message?

There are dusty boxes sitting in basements all over the world holding relics from the recent past. Items such as music records, cassettes, CDs, and devices holding mp3s. VHS cassettes, DVDs and Laserdiscs. And banknotes or coins no longer in use, from far-off countries which may no longer even exist, and which were once given away as cereal prizes.

If we could go back in time to visit such primitive cultures of the past, we might be shocked to hear the plebeians describe artifacts such as records and cassettes as 'music'. We would look at them strangely and wonder how they could confuse the medium for the music. Surely it's obvious that a cassette is just a format that holds the songs. But then again - how else would you be able to play the songs? You need the format. Music as a commodity distributed by cassette.

And so it could be argued with VHS cassettes and films. And so it could be argued with gold and money, and ultimately banknotes and money.

We seem predisposed to conceive of concepts as having identifiable and quantifiable physical characteristics, that we can be easily blinded from seeing the true essence of what they represent. Like the insurance salesman who helpfully reminds us that we are in fact purchasing piece of mind.

So what is breaking us from this irresistible, innate attraction to the corporeal?

Technology.

Technology has allowed us to come to the realization that music is just music. Gone are the days of buying a format like a cassette for access to music. Now you just buy music. Or films. Or e-books. We've discovered their essence. And we are now understanding the essence of money, as a system of credit, after having passed through various stages of thinking about money as a physical commodity like gold, or as a fiat currency in physical form.

And while an understanding of money's essence is not necessarily a recent development, the underlying intuition of the concept is expanding quickly as people around the world, self-isolating during the Coronavirus pandemic, are convincing themselves that 'banknote distancing' now and in the future just makes good hygienic and logical sense. Gone are the days of obtaining banknotes to hold money, they may say. We'll just use electronic versions. After all, as a system of credit - that is their essence.

And so it may be that one day future generations will reflect on the fascinating subject of monetary history, and wonder how, relative to our progress on the audio and visual front - from phonographs to Spotify, from reel-to-reel to YouTube - it took us so long to make sense of the essence of cents. And the money we hold in our hands today will be in dusty basements and cereal boxes tomorrow.