What determines the value of things? How are some people, ideas, materials, products or organisations thought more valuable than others?
What do our choices about the things we choose to value say about the people we are?
Write about your sense of value in relation to people, objects, ideas, principles or by category: for example, how do you value the arts, or government, technology, the financial system, consumer products, or global corporations?
What unexpected or challenging facts lie behind our value systems? What are the giveaway truths, opinions, facts and figures that show us and our value systems for what they are?
All contributions will be used to inform development of the public artwork, The Ladder, largescale digital projections of text and graphics by public artist Martin Firrell designed for the exterior of the world famous church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, London.
13 comments:
I feel that the most important things in my life are impossible to give a numerical value to. How can you value your own life, the lives of the people you love, and those great abstract ideas like freedom and justice? Surely those things are so valuable they are priceless.
And yet looking at this project I can see that life is valued at just over $300 - the price of a slave.
Then I think about the UK MPs who effectively stole money from the country they are supposed to be serving by 'fiddling' their expenses. How can you put a price on that betrayal? And how will we ever value public servants again?
I start to wonder if anything is really worth anything. And then come to the idea that thought is worth something. All thought has a value.
I read that by 2011, the British Government will spend more on debt repayments than on education.
I quoted a report that indicated Apple’s iPhone App Store generates about $200 million a month, or a run rate of some $2.4 billion a year. My post elicited some strong reactions from app developers and many commenters who took issue with the claims contained in the report.
According to App developer David Barnard, it takes about 400 sales per day to break into the top 100; and about 10,000 sales per day to hit the very top of the charts. Assume the average sales in the top 100 to be about 1,000 per day. If the average price for an app in the top 100 is $3.18, that’s about $116 million per year for the top 100 apps.
If you look at trafficking, particularly of young women, you can see what is, and is not valued, at one and the same time.
The total Value of our existence in this universe is exactly Zero.
Zero is the Value between those who regard life as priceless and those who regard life as worthless or less than Zero.
If Life has any real Value,why is war poverty greed hunger misery suffering and destruction making Life worthless?
Therefore the total Value of our existence in this universe is exactly Zero.
I value above all the effort of building for a society based on what people need not on the profits of a bloated few. To point us in that direction I value solidarity, internationalism, standing up and struggling. Not my words but Shelley says in poetry what I value to my bones: ' 'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'
Value is such a subjective term. Yes, I value life, liberty, freedom of expression, but they can't be weighed. You can't squeeze the juice out and see how much you get.
Sometimes, though, it's the tiniest things. I have an item that I value, that always makes my heart beat a little faster when I look at it. It's nothing grand, or expensive, or even particularly useful, but to me it's valuable. It's a tiny nail. The kind you use to hold down a carpet, or maybe secure a horseshoe. The reason I value it is because I watched it get made. I saw the blacksmith use his skills to create it, in just a few seconds, and I held it still warm from the forge.
Some people would probably think that had no value whatsoever, but I suppose the point I am making is this: value everything, from the greatest of aspirations down to the tiniest of items, because if you don't you might miss something spectacular in between.
It's hard to be objective about the value of anything in your own life. In the words of Joni Mitchell, often "you don't know what you've got till it's gone." But if I had to choose, my own freedom, health and independence are the things I currently value most. That may seem selfish, but it's my truth.
VALUE is determined by supply and demand in a Free Global Market economy
This Value is controlled and manipulated by Local and Global Investment Banks and Hedge Funds
who speculate on the Value or Loss of any derived and leveraged Value or Loss
Therefore material VALUE is determined by Greed and Fear in a controlled and manipulated market
True Value is determined
by Hope Courage and Love
A cynic knows the Price of Everything
and the Value of Nothing ~ Oscar Wilde
I try not to let what's on television determine my beliefs and values. I think it's important to form my own opinion, beliefs, and values without being influenced by tradition or by what is popular. Value for material things or valuing greed, power, and wealth are only destructive. Freedom, justice, and my autonomy are what I value the most because I know that many people don't know those things. It's a privilege to have them and I'll fight to keep them, and that's why I value them.
I believe that we have to believe that tomorrow will be better than today and that we cannot be necessarily defined by experience. The creation of art is a mythical journey from the day to day to the beautiful.
I value love, life, friends, family, touch, Shakespeare, theatre, books, art, nature, freedom of thought....
I discovered this site because today I watched "The question mark inside", the film about Martin Firrell's St Paul's project. It moved me to tears - there is always hope for humankind when such expression is possible. Thank you Martin.
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