The Bank of England’s latest move to swap out famous faces like Winston Churchill or Alan Turing for pictures of wildlife turned out to be more controversial than you’d expect.
It turns out this is more than just a matter of design, it's hit a certain cultural identity mood...
And all of a sudden banknotes are a political battle ground!
People who are upset about losing those historical figures see it as cutting away at national pride. For years, banknotes quietly doubled as little badges of honor, reminders of the thinkers, heroes, and innovators held up as "national treasures".
Swapping those figures out for wildlife loses all of that!
Supporters of the wildlife design say critics are missing the point. There are plenty of people who are concerned about species die off and protecting the wider environment.
And there's also the fact that the 'national treasure tradition' only really started a few decades ago, so it's a total social construction.
There's also the fact that the old consensus about who qualifies as a national icon isn’t holding together anymore. Once, everyone could rally around the same names, but these days, heroes for some are problematic for others. That’s partly down to the way we’ve started reassessing history, partly politics, partly the echo-chamber chaos of social media. Faced with disagreement, picking something as inoffensive as wildlife starts to look like a good move!
