What would Buckminster do?
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
Add comment September 24th, 2008