Pungsnotded

What would Buckminster do?

September 24th, 2008

I came across this book at the library, and it really is chilling to think that all of this was written in the 1940’s. No More Secondhand Gods. We have come so far, but not really far at all.

“People of the United States,

(I believe the vast majority of them)

who are at present especially staked out

to be fooled in a big way,

which is vitally and mortally,

by all the warring or plotting factions

foreign and domestic,

are precisely those who alone remain unmoved.

It is these silent propagandees

who unerringly appraise

the pro- or anti-social values

of each world event;

of each communique;

and even of each personal happening

at other times trivial:

as these too may shade the outcome values

of man’s transition

from dominant self-deceit

to preponderant self-mastery;

from stomach rule to dictate of reason;

from politicians tricking

to scientific guidance

from a fear to a happy comprehensive motivation.

And because he is innately

aware of these things,

does man evade past snares-

steel himself against artful pathos;

welcome the speedy destruction

of those former barriers to world happiness

which have been humanly insuperable

without fracture

by any individual member of the old order,

from annihilist to deacon,

from clerk to Prime Minister,

no matter how distinguished by courage and integrity.”

R. Buckminster Fuller, April 9th, 1940

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized