I have been thinking about Mumford as well. Here are some of his quotes. http://www.memorablequotations.com/mumford.htm
"Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival: people who find themselves unable to register an effective political protest against extermination do so by a biological act. The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity. We have created an industrial order geared to automatism, where feeble-mindedness, native or acquired, is necessary for docile productivity in the factory; and where a pervasive neurosis is the final gift of the meaningless life that issues forth at the other end. The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf. Sport in the sense of a mass-spectacle, with death to add to the underlying excitement, comes into existence when a population has been drilled and regimented and depressed to such an extent that it needs at least a vicarious participation in difficult feats of strength or skill or heroism in order to sustain its waning life-sense. However far modern science and technics have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson: Nothing is impossible. By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed. War is the supreme drama of a completely mechanized society. " -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Straker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 4, 2003 12:43 PM To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Futurework] There ain't no hydrogen > Gee, isn't it easier to try to break or drastically reduce our addiction to > fossil fuels?? > > arthur More to the ultimate point, we ought to try to break or drastically reduce our addiction to ENERGY altogether!!! I like Lovins's approach, which I take to be: what energy you do need, obtain in the most sensible (cheapest, least damaging, etc.) way and engage seriously in a *political* exercise about what you/we actually *need*; that is, get involved in a discussion about needs and wants and be sure to include what sorts of social arrangements seem the best. In other words, AL would very much endorse the wide-ranging discussion that goes on here at FW, from nuts & bolts to visionary politics & "philosophy". I am suddenly reminded of the wonderful discussion about energy & civilization which occurs in the last chapter of Lewis Mumford's *classic* TECHNICS AND CIVILIZATION. The book is still in print and still widely used, I think. I wonder if any of it has been excerpted and can be found on-line. best wishes, Stephen Straker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Vancouver, B.C. [Outgoing mail scanned by Norton AntiVirus] _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
