[FRIAM] Can you guess the source.

[David Mirly]

I'll play.

Theodore Kaczynski?

Now I have to go see if I am right.  It's scary playing this game and  
quite possibly making a fool of oneself.


On Apr 11, 2007, at 6:10 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

>
> I am curious to know if anybody in Friam-land will recognize the  
> following passage.  No Fair using google.
>
> It is NOT from the Gettysburg Address.
>
> "Our work is guided by the sense that we may be the last generation  
> in the experiment with living. But we are a minority--the vast  
> majority of our people regard the temporary equilibriums of our  
> society and world as eternally functional parts. In this is perhaps  
> the outstanding paradox; we ourselves are imbued with urgency, yet  
> the message of our society is that there is no viable alternative  
> to the present. Beneath the reassuring tones of the politicians,  
> beneath the common opinion that America will "muddle through,"  
> beneath the stagnation of those who have closed their minds to the  
> future, is the pervading feeling that there simply are no  
> alternatives, that our times have witnessed the exhaustion not only  
> of Utopias, but of any new departures as well. Feeling the press of  
> complexity upon the emptiness of life, people are fearful of the  
> thought that at any moment things might be thrust out of control.  
> They fear change itself, since change might smash whatever  
> invisible framework seems to hold back chaos for them now. For most  
> Americans, all crusades are suspect, threatening. The fact that  
> each individual sees apathy in his fellows perpetuates the common  
> reluctance to organize for change. The dominant institutions are  
> complex enough to blunt the minds of their potential critics, and  
> entrenched enough to swiftly dissipate or entirely repel the  
> energies of protest and reform, thus limiting human expectancies.  
> Then, too, we are a materially improved society, and by our own  
> improvements we seem to have weakened the case for further change."
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)
> Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University  
> (nthompson at clarku.edu)
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

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