[FRIAM] Kissing Kissinger

[Steve Smith]

Holy Moley!

The references to Kissenger et. al.'s "The Age of AI: and our Human 
Future" here lead me to find his  1950 Senior Thesis at Harvard (scanned 
copy of the typewritten original 
<https://ia903000.us.archive.org/23/items/HenryAKissingerTheMeaningOfHistoryReflectionsOnSpenglerToynbeeAndKant/Henry%20A%20Kissinger%20-%20The%20Meaning%20of%20History_%20Reflections%20on%20Spengler%2C%20Toynbee%2C%20and%20Kant.pdf>).

    https://ia903000.us.archive.org/23/items/HenryAKissingerTheMeaningOfHistoryReflectionsOnSpenglerToynbeeAndKant/Henry%20A%20Kissinger%20-%20The%20Meaning%20of%20History_%20Reflections%20on%20Spengler%2C%20Toynbee%2C%20and%20Kant.pdf

I am only 20 something pages into this 400 page tome and definitely over 
my head in several ways.   His language reads a little *overly* flowery 
and technically specific, and yet that may just be a result of the *era* 
and it's topic as an analysis of three writer's take on history itself 
(Spengler, Toynbee, Kant). I have tried resolving several obscure terms 
such as "genus Culture", references to which I can only find in archaic 
botanical texts?   I have not read Spengler and only skimmed Toynbee and 
the Kant I read is now 40 years past, so of course I don't have much 
more than an effing clue of what he is effing on about here, yet it is 
fascinating nevertheless.

Even reading the typewritten type carries a sort of spectre of the time 
and place this was generated.   It adds significance that I gifted my 
last working typewriter (at times I have had as many as 5 or 6 which 
could be made to work with a little care in use) to one of our 
house-sitters while we travel.   She may well be typing on it as I type 
this.  The unevenness of a manual typewriter, the waviness of the line 
and the uneveness of the impression reflects in some way the mechanical 
device but also the operator.   My instinct is that Kissinger did not 
type this final manuscript himself if in fact he even typed any of it.   
It has the evenness (relative, given the limits of the type of device) 
of an accomplished typist, typing in a workman-like way.  The digital 
copy (pdf) appears to be a scan of a photocopy to boot, adding contrast 
enhancement and some subsequent elision of bits by thresholding.

I was tempted to cut-n-paste a few choice lines (images, not txt) and 
comment on them, but realize that perhaps nobody else here cares and it 
would just be a manual exercise for myself to no point otherwise.   OCR 
is good enough these days to make it possible to render it as txt, etc.  
but since I am bogged down in the text itself and distracted by trying 
to graze through Jenny's library here in Weesp, while quaffing the 
entireity of one of her favorite tomes (a biography of Gregory Bateson), 
I will leave it now and see if anyone else delves deep enough into the 
source material to spark a conversation here that I can join or simply 
enjoy.

So many books, so little time!  If I had more time I would learn to 
speedread so I can have more time to read more.



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