American money, specifically the bills, are visually unappealing. This has always struck me as a little odd, since Americans tend to do the ceremonial and decorative aspects of public life quite nicely.
For example, the American flag is very nice; the national anthem is uplifting if overplayed and sung in a key that renders it often done badly. I guess it really is the thought that counts is what I think when I hear people mangle the Star Spangled Banner; American public architecture is, on average, much better than where I came from. I've rarely seen a New Zealand post office building that inspired, but some of the American post offices in small towns and large cities are fine examples of functional and beautiful public buildings.
Perhaps the unappealing money is part of the same trend that makes American stamps hit-or-miss. There are some great ones out there, but then there's the poorly done American flag stamp, and some other insipid ones that manage to poorly render inspiring artefacts like the Statue of Liberty.
But anyway, the bank notes. I'd occasionally wondered, as apparently foreigners from many countries do, what the visually impaired do to distinguish the bills all of the same size and all of the same basic color scheme. Clearly the truly blind don't care what the bills look like--perhaps only that they are of different shapes--but the partially sighted apparently find it functional to have bills of different colors.
In any case, the blind are a small minority in American life. Multi-colored currency with attractive, varied designs is a pleasant if minor way of enhancing everyone's life. A little bit of public artwork everytime you open your wallet. The best American bank note is the $2 bill, which along with its portrait of Jefferson has a rendition of the Declaration of Independence on the obverse. But when did you last get a $2 bill? This is way better than the succession of similar looking classical revival buildings on the flipside of most of the notes.
But things change slowly in public life in America. A country founded in a revolutionary moment now goes with the instinct to conserve what its founders might have the impulse to change were they around today. Clearly (clearly!) I'm not the person to lobby for changing the color of the money. Foreigner and all that. Yet even if I were, I can hear the attacks now. Do I not like George Washington? What do I have against the Lincoln Memorial? Etc etc ... Actually, I think Washington should stay. But Ulysses Grant on the $50! There must be better candidates, even from within the pantheon of 38 other presidents not already on the money.
Posted by eroberts at December 7, 2006 4:51 PM