Castles in the Air

I don't know whether there are any Spanish origins of that expression, "castles in the air", but we have been seeing plenty of them in Andalusia. These Muslim castles were built at the highest point in the town, which itself was usually founded at a high elevation and near water, for defensive purposes. You could see who was coming at you for miles around and have the advantage of height in self-defense.

Following the occupation of Wall Street on CNN, I thought about today's castles in the air. They are inside Manhattan skyscrapers, or on private Caribbean islands. The sultans and kings of today aren't formally acknowledged as anyone's rulers, but the power they wield and the disproportionate amount of the wealth they control compared to everyone else in the world they rule is probably not much different.

I recall, and probably am paraphrasing, a line from Henry David Thoreau: " We have built our castles in the air. Now let us put foundations under them." He was speaking about ideals and dreams for what the world should be like. His 19th century New England world was full of such ideals, and not a few utopian experiments.

The 10th century castles in the air the Moors built stood on a foundation of religious authority rooted in lineage from the prophet Muhammad, and the ability to both control and protect the feudal kingdom that surrounded the castle with military might.
The 21st century occupants of castles in the air live atop foundations that are considerably more abstract. They command no armies, and claim no lineage of authority. They become wealthy because they give the people what they want. The question that the people have to ask themselves, the foundational question that the Wall Street occupation is asking, is "How much do the people want the goods they have access to, and they way they access them? Do they want them so much that they are willing to settle for 1 per cent of the population living in their castles in the air? Is there another way?"