Re: CHAT: the euro & 01.01.02

Quoting Padraic Brown <agricola@...>:

> > It's only the fanatical conservatism of the U.S. in such matters
> > that keeps them in being at all.</rant>
>
> Actually, it's more like "typical American unwillingness to
> change". I think there must also be a dash of "no leadership
> amongst the leaders" in Government - i.e., they don't want to do
> anything more than maintain status quo, regardless of ideological
> bent. The same thing keeps us from the sensible discontinuation
> of the rag dollar and the sensible introduction of $2, $5 and
> possibly $10 coins. We are the only industrial country left with
> such a low valued paper note.
That's probably true, but there are probably people who actually
*like* pennies.  I, personally, don't have a problem with them,
although I agree with John's assessment that they tend to get
collected in hoards and go to no use.  The fact is, people change
because they feel that it is in their selfinterest to change;
most people do not decide their ideals (about morals, about politics,
about aesthetics, about currency) first, and then act out on them,
but quite the reverse:  abstract systems follow standard practice,
and people justify what they want to be the case.  That's why, for
example, you have people up in arms in Britain about changing from
imperial measurements to metric ones, because for them using
imperial measurements is tied up with Britishness. Any attempt to
threaten the measurement system implicitly threatens their identity.
(To be fair, the UK government has been very heavy-handed about
forcing shopkeepers to use metric weights and measures, but that
doesn't change their underlying motivation.)

Most government reforms can be tied to the selfinterest of
some group or another; America is no different in this respect.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>

             "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
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