A Cultural Examination of Wealth through Literary Art

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen

”If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one around to hear it,
does it still make a sound?”

Jesse Felder

In a series of four articles unfolding over the summer, my friend Anton, who lives in Oxford (UK) and works in the financial services sector, and I will examine the familiar term “wealth” and aim to gain a deeper understanding of its meaning.

Below is the third article in this series. In the previous two, we have attempted to define wealth using philosophical insights and to understand its essence by linking it to the nature of the human person.

Thank you all for reading them, submitting your questions, and sharing your points of view.

Today’s article will explore wealth from a cultural perspective through the lens of art and literature, specifically. As with the first two parts, Anton provided the text while I handled the editing.

If we are to take a purely metaphysical position, culture may be defined as what people do in time. However, if we try to be more precise, we will see that it is difficult to determine precisely what culture is. In part, this is because a culture contains tangible elements, such as buildings erected in a particular architectural style, paintings, books and songs, and intangible aspects like philosophical perspectives, political views, and moral considerations. Moreover, some of these aspects change as time passes, while others do not.

Therefore, rather than seeking a definition, it may be helpful to look for a mode of thinking about culture that helps to reveal part of what it is. The sculptor Alexander Stoddart articulated such a perspective well in a Ralston College interview. Stoddart sees culture as communion with the dead.

This is a beautiful way of thinking about culture because it enables us to understand an important truth- namely, that we are all one humanity; history has not ended for those who died long ago, while it keeps going for us today. Instead, history is going on for all – those alive and those resting. As such, culture can be understood to be a bridge between aeons through which generations of men and women lived, leaving – as we are leaving today too – their traces of how they lived and what they believed for posterity to contemplate and, hopefully, to understand. An essential part of this heritage that cultures leave behind is art.

Indeed, a powerful way to understand cultural landscapes is through artworks. Art serves an important function in the lives of individuals and of civilisations. On one hand, artwork enables people to express beliefs, values, aspirations, fears, socio-political relationships, and even economic and military events. In this sense, art’s function is some self-understanding, as the German philosopher Hegel argued in “Lectures on Aesthetics”. However, this is only part of the role that art has.

If they are truly works of art, they must lead us beyond ourselves. We can see this primarily in the sense of awe that they inspire in us: they invite us to meditate upon aspects of life other than ourselves. These different aspects can be a loved one, nature, our family and neighbours, or wealth and how it relates to others.

Of course, the world of art is very diverse. It includes poetry, paintings, music, literature, architecture, cinematography, and perhaps even clothing items. Wealth has been explored and represented in various ways across these art forms from ancient times to the present day. Let us go back to the edge of antiquity and take as an example Homer’s epic poems, “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” Both present wealth in multiple forms.

In “The Iliad”, two kingdoms go to war. The entire military and material might of these two realms is on full display, all their material wealth is on the line – and for what? For something of far more value than the Greek or the Trojan kingdom: for human relationships, ultimately for love. In this manner, Homer’s mythological poem tells us much about our understanding of wealth. We value material possessions but are ready to sacrifice them for the real wealth another person can give us through their love.

Moreover, throughout “The Iliad”, other forms of wealth appear. These include particular virtues, like honour, which the warriors significantly value, and that most constant and correct aspiration of all mankind: immortality. These notions do not reach their full philosophical potential because Homer did not have the theological insights or the metaphysical concepts we possess today. However, “The Iliad” contains them, reminding us that, since time immemorial, wealth has meant more than material possessions.

Similarly, in “The Odyssey”, the house of Odysseus is rich in possessions, but his wife and son are mourning because he was thought to be dead after he fought in the Trojan war. Once more, we see that wealth should include something more than material items, prestige, and political power, for Odysseus’ family was reputable and influential. Moreover, Odysseus struggles to return home to his family for a long time because that is what he values most; that is where his heart is and, therefore, where his treasure is.

Suppose we accept Stoddart’s view that culture is communion with the dead. In that case, we can bring forward the observations we have extracted from Homer’s work about wealth and apply them to our present day without losing their colour. Looking at the world around us, do we see anything fundamentally different? I would argue that we do not, yet much – so much – has changed since Homer wrote the poems.

One of the genuinely great insights from reading Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time”, aside from the interesting perspectives on memory and time and aside from the in-depth views of French society of the late 19th century – early 20th century, is the stark realisation that material wealth, even when surrounded by immense aesthetic beauty, is insufficient for the human heart.

In Proust’s work, all the luxury in the world becomes the mere floor of a large ballroom in which generations join in their own social and political dances, all, however, playing after the same tune – that of the pursuit of unchanging happiness, that is, of love. Fundamentally, nothing new was said by Proust other than what Homer said, and yet, how much has the world changed since the ancient Greek poet lived?

Of course, there is no shortage of books that deal with the theme of wealth. Throughout the ages, this subject has fascinated the minds of authors worldwide. Some of the titles that are worth mentioning include “Great Expectations”, “The Great Gatsby”, “War and Peace”, and “Middlemarch”. Nevertheless, the same dynamics will be found everywhere: wealth is never seen as complete or, in fact, beneficial when it is confined to material possessions; there ought to be (and there often is) something more valuable, namely, personal relationships.

Our culture today has nuances and, therefore, is somewhat different from what people have left behind. However, at its core, because what men and women seek does not change, our art will tell the same human story. If it is authentic art that we shall leave to posterity, it will place wealth within the same dynamics we have from Homer to Proust.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Feel free to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li. Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day and weekend!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
CEO & Head of Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 153
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li