The United States and Israel are now in the second month of a war of choice with Iran. Amid the death and destruction experienced by those on the receiving end of this coming-out party for the newly renamed Department of War, we are also watching relations with international allies fray and bearing witness to our president trash-talking the Pope.
Yet none of this, it seems, matters quite as much as the price of a gallon of gas. International tensions rise, the price of oil spikes, and the fortunes of war suddenly hang in the balance. There’s a cease fire and talk of peace, the cost of filling up the F-150 drops, and things go back to normal.
Whether we like it or not, the price of gas serves as a strange but convenient metric, a kind of dashboard indicator for global conflict and the cost of waging war on the other side of the planet. And that is what makes gas prices such a disturbing but revealing measure. They make distant events feel immediate, but only by reducing human suffering to a line item on the credit-card statement.
Worse still, politicians have always known how to game this system, and empire has always had its consolations. For the Romans, it was bread and circuses. For us, it’s cheap gas, drive-thru snacks, and the fantasy that as long as regular stays under four dollars a gallon, the world itself must be under control.
I'm David Gunkel, and that's my perspective.
