[FRIAM] Can you guess the source.

[Gus Koehler]

Port Huron Statement

Gus Koehler, Ph.D.
President and Principal
Time Structures, Inc.
1545 University Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95825
916-564-8683, Fax: 916-564-7895
Cell: 916-716-1740
www.timestructures.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Merle Lefkoff
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 7:58 PM
To: nickthompson at earthlink.net; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source.

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
> <mailto:nick at redfish.com>)
> Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University 
> (nthompson at clarku.edu <mailto: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
I was teaching in the sixties to put myself through grad school.  This is
definitely from that period, probably SDS or one of those groups.  
Does anyone remember the Port Huron Statement?  I'm reaching here, and I
don't remember the date.  Hell, most of you probably weren't even BORN yet!

Merle

Merle Lefkoff
Change Factors
Santa Fe, N.M.

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