* a publication dedicated to superseding pre-fabricated ideologies
* for those who `think too much' and have a `bad attitude'
contents:
Beyond Radicalism, by Lawrence E. Christopher
Time Wars, Jeremy Rifkin's book reviewed by Rick Harrison
Life Without Principle, by Henry David Thoreau
Research for Whose Benefit? by Masanobu Fukuoka
an alembic trigram: using the flow
``This Troylus in teres gan distille,
As licour out of alambic, fulle fast.''
- Chaucer, 1374
_The_Alembic_ is a magazine of thoughts and speculations simultaneously
distributed on paper and as a computer textfile which you can download
from the more enlightened electronic bulletin boards. _The_Alembic_ is
made possible entirely by donations of articles, publicity, money and
distributive technology. Written and financial contributions should be
directed to Rick Harrison, Box 547014, Orlando FL 32854 USA. Copyright
1989 Tangerine Network. Commercial use of this material is forbidden.
Editor's note: The electronic version of _The_Alembic_ continues to be
released right on schedule, appearing at its distribution points shortly
after the equinoxes and solstices. Printing and mailing the paper
version on time has turned out to be impossible (not to mention more
time-consuming, more troublesome, and more expensive). Last year I got
a mass mailing from an anarchist microfiche publisher in Australia
commenting on how thoughtless alternative press readers are in
their demand for paper versions of small publications. At the time I
thought he was nuts but I realize now he's right! In addition to killing
trees and exposing print-shop workers to chemical and physical hazards,
the use of the paper-and-ink medium extracts an inordinate amount of
time and money from the editors and publishers of obscure journals.
Ultimately, of course, it would be nice to replace all ``media'' with
real communication, i.e. face-to-face interaction in real communities.
by Lawrence E. Christopher
copyright 1989 by Lawrence E. Christopher.
Reprinted from _Light_&_Liberty_, P. O. Box 33, Woodstock NY 12498.
Imagine that the world is enclosed in a web made of an imperceptibly
fine fabric. Your slightest motion is subtly guided by the pattern of
the web, which is so thin and delicate that it could be destroyed with
one stroke of a pocket knife. However, most of its captives are not
even aware of its existence, so they continue to be confined by it.
Others see the web, but believe it to be indestructible. They, too, are
never able to break free of it. This is essentially the way in which the
mass media and political system control the thought processes of people
living in modern industrial society.
Consider the worldview implied in any newspaper article or tele-
vision news broadcast. I am not speaking of lies and biases here. I am
speaking, rather, of the _context_ into which _all_ sides of every
public issue are placed. The moment you read or hear terms like "the
economy," "the nation," or "society," the essence of the indoctrination
has been effected. What is subsequently said _about_ these entities is
secondary. If you accept these entities as objectively existing aspects
of ultimate reality rather than as purely subjective (though widely
accepted) ideas which _you_ are free to accept or reject, then you've
been taken in already, regardless of what opinions you form regarding
the issue at hand.
My objective in this essay is to suggest a method of breaking this
web, which is in fact made of nothing but thought. I am going to focus
largely on the issue of why most radical strategies fail in this regard.
As has been suggested, there are two ways in which the aforementioned
web can ensnare one. The first, which is what keeps the majority of
people captive, is simply to not recognize its existence. This lack of
awareness on the part of the masses has been pointed out innumerable
times by intellectuals throughout the ages. That is why I want to focus
on the second, more subtle way this web has of captivating one. This
entails the victim recognizing the existence of the web, and becoming so
frightened or angry about it that he attributes far too much power to
it. This is the trap radicals frequently fall into. They fail to see
what a simple matter it is to eradicate this web.
Almost as soon as I began thinking about societal issues, I defined
myself as a radical. My opinions on various issues changed as my
ideological position on the political spectrum shifted, but what
remained was the conviction that society was controlled by a power elite
who ruled over a sheeplike population with force, fraud and indoctrina-
tion. This basic belief remained the focal point of my thinking as I
went through the stages of defining myself as a populist, a libertarian
and an anarchist.
I have not rejected the premises upon which my radicalism was
grounded. More than ever, it seems apparent that we live in a world
which is dominated by forces that are antithetical to any meaningful
concepts of peace, liberty, or justice. Yet, I have concluded that
traditional radical strategies are ultimately a futile pursuit.
I will begin with the assertion that the motivating force underlying
all radical thought and action is the desire to exercise _free_will_.
Human consciousness innately yearns to realize its full potential; to
inhabit a reality of its own creation rather than one externally imposed
upon it. Political institutions are often obstructions in our quest for
this freedom. To the extent that we are free of conditioning, we resent
these institutions imposing their structures upon our consciousness.
There is disagreement among radicals as to the best means of achieving
freedom; for example, whether by utilizing the political system in order
to gain control over it (as in forming an alternative party), by
peaceful protest, or by violent revolution. Radicals also disagree over
what _constitutes_ liberty and justice; i.e. what kind of social system
should replace the present one. Yet, all radicals agree that society in
its present form stifles liberty and should be either fundamentally
changed or abolished altogether.
Paradoxically, in their very attempt to assert free will, radicals
implicitly hold an assumption which is antithetical to the very concept.
The essence of the problem lies in the fact that true power and energy
lie in _consciousness_. This includes the power of leaders and social
institutions. The power which they wield is almost entirely in the
realm of thought. It only extends into physical reality to the extent
that people believe that it does. When, as radicals, we _believe_ that
political institutions prevent us from being free, we are contributing
to their power just as surely as are the obedient citizens who support
the status quo. THe only difference is that the latter are contributing
to what they perceive as a benign entity, while the former are contrib-
uting to one they believe is malevolent.
Action is taken with the assumption that in order to bring about a
desired consequence 'y', action 'x' must be carried out. If, as
radicals, our 'y' is freedom and our 'x' is, say, revolution, then we
are granting that 'y' is _contingent_. We cannot be free until the
revolution takes place. We are placing a limitation upon our free will,
assuming that, for us to exercise it, external conditions must first be
changed. Consider how much power we are thereby granting our enemies!
We are conceding that they have the capacity to prevent us from existing
as free individuals. Despite the fact that all radical theories place an
emphasis on freedom and empowerment, there is always the built-in
limitation that our liberation is dependent upon the transformation of
an entire society.
It can be argued that it is objectively the case that our government
can take away our freedom. It can impose laws on us, imprison us, kill
us if it chooses. Here it must be stated that this essay is presupposing
a certain view of human nature. I am assuming that the exercising of
free will is an essential condition for a meaningful life; that fully
realizing our freedom is ultimately more important than any physical
circumstances we may be in. I should also mention that it is my belief
that we are ultimately responsible for every circumstance in which we
find ourselves. Although this is not a necessary presupposition for the
rest of my argument, if you fundamentally disagree with this meta-
physical position, it would be difficult to completely agree with my
conclusions.
True freedom entails realizing what freedom is. Without this, no
external conditions can enable one to attain freedom. One can have more
true freedom in a prison cell than in a luxury penthouse apartment
(although, all else being equal, the latter is still preferable to the
former). Governments, of course, do not realize this. Leaders believe
that they can take away your freedom. They believe that if they
accumulate enough wealth and annex enough territory they can thereby
control the lives and destinies of other people. "Leaders" are entirely
ignorant regarding the nature of freedom and power. They desperately
want to feel powerful and they attempt to achieve this by manipulating
external conditions. They do not realize that the only authentic power
lies within.
Two people can exist in virtually identical physical circumstances
and yet perceive and interpret these circumstances in completely
different ways. Evidence of this is widespread in any large city that
contains a variety of ethnic and economic subcultures. For example, the
government of the United States labels all people living within a
certain geographical territory "Americans," and most people accept this
definition. Yet, in truth, white collar middle class people living in
"America" have more in common in regard to lifestyle, values and
overall perception of reality with white collar middle class people
living in, say, England or France, than any such middle class people
have in common with, say, drug dealers in New York City (who in turn
have more in common with South AMerican and Asian drug dealers than
with most of their "fellow citizens.") There are many ways of categoriz-
ing people; they are grand conceptual schemes which structure reality in
a particular way. There are others -- races, religions, economic classes
and ideologies being the most commonly used.
Once it is established that no particular method of categorizing or
structuring human beings has any objective validity, it is easier to
see a way to free oneself from any such category. There is a basic
reason why political movements and revolutions so seldom result in
fundamental long term change. Radical ideologies teach us to define
ourselves and our reality in a way diametrically opposed to that of our
opponents. This, however, prevents us from ever becoming truly free from
those we least esteem. To define oneself against some principle 'x'
forever enslaves one to 'x'. For example, a Satanist is inextricably
bound to the concept of the Christian god. Likewise, communists define
their reality based on their opposition to capitalism, and anarchists
must always have the belief system of government to oppose. In this way,
the political system and its transgressions against liberty are more a
part of the radical's reality than they are of the ordinary citizen's.
Of course, the mindset of the ordinary citizen, who simply defines
reality in _accordance_ with the reigning political structure, is hardly
conducive to freedom. There is, fortunately, an alternative to both: a
belief system which is entirely independent and self generated. This is
a point which requires elaboration.
Believing that I live in a reality constructed by my own conscious-
ness does not imply a schizophrenic state that ignores the existence of
others and their beliefs. It does not entail feeling bound to perceiving
reality the same way that others do. It is possible to recognize the
beliefs of others and the ways in which those beliefs influence you,
while at the same time maintaining your own independence from those
beliefs.
The only way we can live by values that differ from those which the
political system and media represent is for us to live and work from a
standpoint completely independent of these institutions. If politics is
a destructive force, then we will never improve things by working within
a political framework. An entirely different paradigm is called for, one
which does not depend on the "establishment" paradigm at all.
Living in the realm of a particular paradigm, or set of values, does
not imply that there is no contact with other paradigms. Hence, living
in an apolitical paradigm might at times involve confrontations with
the mainstream paradigm. For example, consider war resistance. If we
vote for political candidates who promise to end the war, we are working
within the political, mainstream framework. If we overthrow the
government and put a new, "peaceful" one in its place, we are still
working from the framework of our opponents; we would be seizing _their_
institution, the one that caused the war in the first place, with the
intention of using it for our own ends.
There are ways of resisting political oppression which do not
themselves assume a political framework. Avoiding income taxes, refusing
to be drafted, boycotting corporations which produce weapons for the
military: all of these actions are independent of the political
paradigm. That is, they recognize the existence of the political
paradigm and they are not inhabiting it. On the contrary: they
constitute a refusal to participate in it.
The essence of this strategy is for each individual to remain at all
times aware of his basic sovereignty regardless of societal conditions.
As much as possible, people should create and live in the society they
want, rather than passively accepting the one imposed on them by the
mainstream media and political system. Whenever one is threatened by
another's belief system in a way that cannot be avoided, then action
is required; this action should not, however, entail accepting to any
degree the conceptual framework of the offender.
This can perhaps be seen more readily if we consider the mindset of
a street gang. A gang has "turf" which is won and defended by violent
means. Willingness to commit violent and aggressive acts is the way
status is attained within the gang. If such a gang existed in the
neighborhood in which you lived, preventing you from safely walking the
streets, you would have a variety of possible responses to choose from.
One response would be to submit to the gang's rule. Perhaps if you paid
them a certain amount of "protection" money, they would allow you to
walk the streets unharmed. This would be conforming to the gang's view
of reality. It would be conceding that the gang indeed controls the
neighborhood and that you are compelled to conform to its demands
(although, in reality, one could conceivably pay the protection money
without psychologically accepting the gang's view of reality, just as
one may pay taxes without accepting the government's claim to legit-
imacy; for the sake of simplicity I am assuming in this example that
one's actions are completely in accord with one's belief system).
Another response might be to form a gang of your own; your gang
could then atempt to take over the "turf" for yourselves. This would
also be completely accepting the (original) gang's worldview. You would
be, like the gang, defining the neighborhood as turf to be won and
defended with violence. Calling upon law enforcement authorities for
help would be another variation of this "rival gang" alternative, for
here, too, we have a group with coercive rules, demands for payment, and
violent retribution against those who do not conform.
A third possibility would be to not accept the gang's view of
reality at all. For example, you could organize, rather than a rival
gang, a group of fellow neighborhood residents who may carry weapons,
but who would only use violence in self defense. In this case, you
would not be trying to win turf; you would be attempting to live in a
reality in which streets city streets are not considered "turf" at all.
This would be the only alternative which fully rejects the offender's
view of reality.
{Editor's note: the author has failed to mention the possibility
of moving to a better neighborhood where people behave differently.}
The above analysis can be applied to more organized forms of
coercion, such as nation states. If we regard governments as
destructive, we should not in any manner accept the government's
worldview. We should not try to take over the government, or form
a government of our own. We should not even let ourselves become
preoccupied with the idea of eliminating governments from the planet.
We would do far better if we simply made the decision to live in a
government-less reality, albeit one which may at times have to interact
with others to whom the government's definition of reality is relevant.
Such interaction, however, can be kept to a minimum. For example, in
the above example, the neighborhood patrol would not _seek_ confronta-
tions with the gang. More importantly, it would essentially disband
once the threat had passed. If America had remained true to the military
strategy it adhered to during the revolution, the military as we know it
today would not exist. There would only be a _potential_ citizens' army,
ready to fight when necessary, but not forming an entrenched institution
seeking world domination.
Freedom from those with intentions we do not share entails escaping
not only their overt rules but also from the entire conceptual frame-
work in which they reside. Although I entitled this essay "Beyond
Radicalism," what I am really advocating is a truer, more radical
radicalism. A radicalism that has outgrown the desire to rebel for
rebellion's sake; one which recognizes that human nature has the
potential for grander things than brooding over and complaining about
the behavior of the least enlightened members of our species.
_Time_Wars_
copyright 1987 by Jeremy Rifkin
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster
isbn 0-671-67158-8
``Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.''
-Darth Vader in _Star_Wars_
``Clocks for some reason or other always seem to be marching, and, as
with armies, marching is never to anything but doom.''
-Alan Watts
In his book _Time_Wars_, contemporary philosopher Jeremy Rifkin
asserts that the battle for control over the expenditure and perception
of time is ``the primary conflict in human history.'' The calendar, the
clock, the schedule and finally the computer have given those in power
tighter and tighter control over how the average person uses his time.
``We're a nation obsessed with efficiency,'' Rifkin said in a
mid-1989 appearance on Larry King's radio show. ``In fact, I think if
you look at it anthropologically, this culture is more obsessed with
labor-saving, time-saving technology than any other culture in history.
And ironically, we feel we have less free time than any culture in
history. And in real terms that's true because, with all of our labor-
saving, time-saving technologies -- the cellular phone, the fax machine
-- the amount of activity continues to increase as a result of these
new tools and so we can never catch up.
``The fax machine just gives you more material that has to be faxed,
and then you have to pay more attention to it. If you have a message
machine, you have to listen to all those messages every night when you
come home. The fact is, most people feel that their lives are increas-
ingly frantic, frenetic, that they're losing a sense of relationship,
of a sense of bonding and community, and people feel stretched to the
limit. Most people I know are experiencing information overload, they're
experiencing burn-out in their day to day lives, and they're about ready
to look for new alternatives.''
Rifkin's assertion that technological devices which are supposed to
save labor actually lead to increasing enslavement corresponds to
comments made in Bob Black's essay ``The Abolition of Work.'' Black
observed, ``I don't want robot slaves to do everything; I want to do
things myself. There is, I think, a place for labor-saving technology,
but a modest place. The historical and pre-historical record is not
encouraging. When productive technology went from hunting-gathering to
agriculture and on to industry, work increased while skills and self-
determination diminished. The further evolution of industrialism has
accentuated what Harry Braverman called the degradation of work.
Intelligent observers have always been aware of this. John Stuart Mill
wrote that all the labor-saving inventions ever devised haven't saved a
moment's labor. The enthusiastic technophiles -- Saint-Simon, Comte,
Lenin, B.F. Skinner -- have always been unabashed authoritarians also;
which is to say, technocrats. We should be more than sceptical about
the promises of the computer mystics. _They_ work like dogs; chances
are, if they have their way, so will the rest of us.''
``The average medieval serf,'' Rifkin says, ``had 185 days off per
year on the Christian calendar. That's 185 days with no work -- feast
days, holy days. The average American has 19 hours less leisure time
per month than we had ten years ago. So I'm not sure that we're really
progressing when it comes to enjoyment of life.'' Consider that twenty
years ago it was possible for a husband to buy a house on his wages
alone, and now in most households both husband and wife are working.
The amount of time which the average individual has free to use as he
pleases is definitely decreasing.
We are reminded of a passage from Benjamin Hoff's classic of
Taoist propaganda, _The_Tao_of_Pooh_:
In China, there is the Teahouse. In France, there is the Sidewalk
Cafe. Practically every civilized country in the world has some
sort of equivalent -- a place where people can go to eat, relax,
and talk things over without worrying about what time it is, and
without having to leave as soon as the food is eaten... What's the
message of the Hamburger Stand? Quite obviously, it's: ``You don't
count; hurry up.''
Not only that, but as everyone knows by now, the horrible
Hamburger Stand is an insult to the customer's health as well.
Unfortunately, this is not the only example supported by the
Saving Time mentality. We could also list the Supermarket, the
Microwave Oven, the Nuclear Power Plant, the Poisonous Chemicals...
Practically speaking, if timesaving devices really saved time,
there would be more time available to us now than ever before in
history. But, strangely enough, we seem to have less time than
even a few years ago. It's really great fun to go someplace where
there are no timesaving devices because, when you do, you find
that you have _lots_of_time_. Elsewhere, you're too busy working
to pay for machines to save you time so you won't have to work
so hard.
``As we increase the pace, we're increasing the impatience in our
culture,'' Rifkin said in his radio interview. ``Many people have a hard
time with simple things like social discourse now, because they're used
to the nanosecond culture. What happens when a society starts organizing
time below the realm of experience? You can't experience a nanosecond,
yet computer time is based on a billionth of a second. When we get to
that point, we have to re-assess exactly where we're going.''
In his book, Rifkin elaborates on this by describing ways in which
people who spend an unhealthy amount of time with computers react to
their fellow humans:
In clinical case studies, psychologists have observed that
computer compulsives are much more intolerant of behavior
that is at all ambiguous, digressive, or tangential. In their
interaction with spouses, family, and acquaintances, they are
often terse, preferring simple yes-no responses. They are
impatient with open-ended conversations and are uncomfortable
with individuals who are reflective or meditative. Computer
compulsives demand brevity and view social discourse in
instrumental terms, interacting with others only as a means
of collecting and exchanging useful information.
Perhaps you can think of some illustration of this from your own
life. I am reminded of an exchange of messages I had on a computer
network with a would-be defender of the Libertarian Party. My messages
were usually well thought out, often enhanced by quotations from
Thoreau, Black and other philosophers, and were usually longer than the
average messages in the networks. The Libertarian's replies were brief,
were seldom backed up by references to other thinkers, and he objected
when I used metaphors, complaining that they were `reification.'
Eventually the chain of messages ended abruptly when he vituperated
something like, ``I believe in the right of private property. You don't.
I'm not going to waste my time talking to you any more.'' Shortly after
that, the same Libertarian received a similar message from another
computer user, who summarily dismissed the Libertarian's ideas as
``a bunch of crap.''
Both of these characters appeared to be operating in a vacuum,
rigidly clinging to opinions that were neither supported by research nor
by personal experience, making bold, blanket pronouncements about
serious social issues seemed absurdly unconnected to reality, and
perhaps this is not surprising since they spend so much time in the
simulated universe presented on the computer screen. The Libertarian
works as a computer programmer, and I suppose his objection to the use
of analogy and metaphor was based on the inability of computers and
their disciples to understand anything that can't be directly digitized.
Another participant in the electronic conference blasted writers who
use poetic devices and extensive vocabularies, claiming that eloquence
is a form of obfuscation or obscurantism! Rifkin is right: technophiles
like their communication to be terse, lifeless and utilitarian.
In the computer message-exchange networks, if an idea cannot be
expressed in 200 words or less, it will probably be skipped over by the
majority of readers. A week or a month after a message is posted, it is
automatically erased, and even if the ``thread'' of discussion con-
tinues, it becomes impossible for the participants (or newcomers) to
refer back to what has been said previously. If a participant's computer
breaks down or he becomes ill, the thread will probably be completely
gone by the time he returns. Responding to a message that is more than a
week old has brought ridicule to some users: ``Where have you been, in
a time warp or something? I posted that message weeks ago.'' This is the
culture, or rather non-culture, which is developing among most avid
computer users: messages must be replied to immediately, even complex
ideas must be boiled down to a few words, and after the discussion is
over, it evaporates into oblivion, leaving the participants and humanity
at large with nothing to show for it.
Another example cited in _Time_Wars_:
Harriet Cuffaro offers another illustration of the different
sense of temporal entrainment that ensues in computer
learning, as opposed to experiential learning in a
non-simulated environment. She uses the example of parking
a car. If a child uses blocks as play pieces to park a car,
his or her temporal skills will develop quite differently
than if the child uses computer symbols. With the blocks,
``the child's eye-hand coordination must also contend with
the qualitative, with the texture of the surface on which
the car is moved, and with the fit between garage opening
and car width.'' Cuffaro points out that ``such complexities
do not exist on two-dimensional screens.'' Parking a car on
the computer screen is pure action in a vacuum, ``motion
without context.''
This motion without context is accompanied by emotion without
context. One box of illusions, the computer, works hand in hand with its
counterpart, the television, to plunge a person into a simulated life.
Protected from true adventure, the future worker can only watch
adventure shows on TV or play adventure games on the computer. Rigidly-
held, vehemently-expressed opinions are formed on the basis of
`information' obtained from the old idiot box and the new. I am reminded
of the anarchist slogan, `the society which makes true adventure
impossible makes its own destruction the only possible adventure.''
The artificial time perspective promulgated by digital watches and
omnipresent computers is, as demonstrated above, having an impact on
the way people behave. The question to consider, then, is `who benefits
from this separation of humans from organic rhythms and natural temporal
cycles?' The answer appears to be, the ruling class: those who control
the productive activity of the world economy.
To be a night watchman, an assembly line worker, or a dishwasher,
an employee has to be able to tolerate vast stretches of boredom. The
jobs of the future, however, are going to require a faster pace, and
tomorrow's workers will find their every action closely monitored by
computer. This is extremely stressful and offensive to most adults, but
perhaps today's computer-indoctrinated children and adolescents are
being molded into the ideal employees of tomorrow. The transition from
organic agricultural time to tightly-controlled industrial scheduling
was also accomplished through indoctrination of the young, as Rifkin
observes:
For the most part, the new class of owners was unsuccessful
in converting farmers and tradesmen into disciplined factory
workers. They were too settled into the temporal orthodoxy
of an earlier epoch. But it soon became apparent that their
children, still temporally unformed, provided a much more
convenient labor pool for the new industrial technology.
Child labor was cheap and could be easily molded to the
tempral demands of the clock and the work schedule. By
spiriting children away at the tender age of five to seven
to work up to sixteen hours a day inside dimly lit and
poorly ventilated factories, the owners insured themselves
a captive and manipulable work force that could be thoroughly
indoctrinated into the new time frame.
That's what life was like in the days of laissez-faire capitalism.
The computer-accelerated, impatient children of today may have a similar
fate in store for them. Already we are getting glimpses of what the
future workplace, designed by technocrats, will be like:
In Kansas a repair service company keeps a complete computer
tally of the number of phone calls its workers handle and
the amount of information collected with each call. Says
one disgruntled employee, ``If you get a call from a friendly
person who wants to chat, you have to hurry the caller off
because it would count against you. It makes my job very
unpleasant.''
According to Dr. Alan Westin, author of a 1987 report
published by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA)
entitled _The_Electronic_Supervisor_, between 20 and 35
percent of all clerical workers in the United States are
now being monitored by sophisticated computer systems.
The OTA report warns of an Orwellian future of ``electronic
sweatshops'' with workers doing ``boring, repetitious,
fast-paced work that requires constant alertness and
attention to detail''; where ``the supervisor isn't even
human'' but an ``unwinking computer taskmaster.''
In an effort to speed up the processing of information,
some visual display units are now being programmed so that
if the operator does not respond to the data on the screen
within seventeen seconds, it disappears. Medical researchers
report that operators exhibit increasing stress as the time
approaches for the image to disappear on the screen: ``From
the eleventh second they begin to perspire, then the heart
rate goes up. Consequently they experience enormous fatigue.''
Perhaps the well-indoctrinated worker of the future, after spending
his entire childhood playing video games and otherwise responding to
the super-normal pace of computers, will not react so poorly to such a
work environment. Perhaps the ruling class will once again succeed in
creating a proletariat that is largely integrated into the productive
technology that enriches the few.
In opposition to this anti-human quickening of the workplace and
the replacement of real activity with simulated experiences, Rifkin
believes a widespread social movement will arise to challenge the
onslaught of artificial time. Just as the notion of ``bigger is
better,'' advocated by supporters of centralization and mass production,
was debunked by the idea of ``small is beautiful,'' advocated by those
who appreciate diversity and craftsmanship, so too will there be a
``slow is beautiful'' movement, according to Rifkin. He describes this
forthcoming clash of ideologies this way:
The ecological temporal orientation gives rise to a
stewardship vision of the future. Its advocates would like
to establish a new partnership with the rest of the living
kingdom. At the heart of this new covenant vision is a
commitment to develop an economic and technological
infrastructure that is compatible with the sequences,
durations, rhythms, and synergistic relationships that
punctuate the natural production and recycling activities
of the earth's ecosystems. Proponents believe that social
and economic tempos must be reintegrated with the natural
tempos of the environment if the ecosystem is to heal
itself and become a vibrant, living organism once again.
The artificial temporal orientation gives rise to a high-
technology simulated vision of the future. In this time
world, an ever more complex and sophisticated labyrinth
of fabricated rhythms will increasingly replace our long-
standing reliance and dependency on the slower rhythms
of the natural environment. Advocates of the artificial
temporal orientation envision an environment regulated by
the sequences, durations, rhythms, and synergistic
interactions of computers, robotics, genetic engineering,
and space technologies...
Consider the much-misused word `freedom.' What does it really mean,
if not the ability of the individual to control what she does with the
irreplaceable hours, minutes and seconds of her own life? This is the
object of the real struggle for real freedom, and Rifkin's _Time_Wars_
is an important document of the emerging consciousness of this new
movement.
excerpts from "Life Without Principle"
by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
{Editor's note: Thoreau's "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience" have been
widely published and studied, but this essay is not so well known. It
has been carefully swept under the rug by those who edit the classics.}
...Since _you_ are my readers, and I have not been much of a
traveller, I will not talk about people a thousand miles off, but come
as near home as I can. As the time is short, I will leave out all the
flattery, and retain all the criticism.
Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.
This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am
awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It inter-
rupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see
mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I
cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly
ruled for dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in
the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a
man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for
life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly
because he was thus incapacitated for -- business! I think that there is
nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to
life itself, than this incessant business.
There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the out-
skirts of our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill
along the edge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to
keep him out of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks digging
there with him. The result will be that he will perhaps get some more
money to hoard, and leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do
this, most will commend me as an industrious and hard-working man; but
if I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real
profit, though but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as
an idler. Nevertheless, as I do not need the police of meaningless labor
to regulate me, and do not see anything absolutely praiseworthy in this
fellow's undertaking any more than in many an enterprise of our own or
foreign governments, however amusing it may be to him or them, I prefer
to finish my education at a different school.
If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is
in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day
as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before
her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if
a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!
Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in
throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely
that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed
now.
...The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead
downward. To have done anything by which you earned money _merely_ is
to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the
wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If
you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which
is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will
most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid
for being something less than a man. The state does not commonly reward
a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have
to celibrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of
wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge
that very pipe. As for my own business, even that kind of surveying
which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They
would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay,
not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of
surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land,
not which is most correct. I once invented a rule for measuring cord-
wood, and tried to introduce it in Boston; but the measurer there told
me that the sellers did not wish to have their wood measured correctly,
-- that he was already too accurate for them, and therefore they
commonly got their wood measured in Charlestown before crossing the
bridge.
The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get a
"good job," but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary
sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that
they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a
livelihood merely, but for scientific or even moral ends. Do not hire
a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for the love
of it.
The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise
money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to
hire a man who is minding _his_own_ business. An efficient and valuable
man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The
inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are
forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they
were rarely disappointed.
Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom.
I feel that my connection with and obligation to society are still very
slight and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood,
and by which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to my
contemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not
often reminded that they are a necessity. So far I am successful. But
I foresee that if my wants hsould be much increased, the labor required
to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my
forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure
that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that
I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to
suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time
well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the
greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are
self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his
poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it
makes. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a
hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard,
is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied.
It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be remembered
written on the subject of getting a living; how to make getting a
living not merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and
glorious; for if _getting_ a living is not so, then living is not. One
would think, from looking at literature, that this question had never
disturbed a solitary individual's musings. Is it that men are too much
disgusted with their experience to speak of it? The lesson of value
which money teaches, which the Author of the Universe has taken so much
pains to teach us, we are inclined to skip altogether. As for the means
of living, it is wonderful how indifferent men of all classes are about
it, even reformers, so called, -- whether they inherit, or earn, or
steal it. I think that Society has done nothing for us in this respect,
or at least has undone what she has done. Cold and hunger seem more
friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and
advise to ward them off.
The title _wise_ is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can
one be a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than
other men? -- if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle?
Does Wisdom work in a tread-mill? or does she teach how to succeed
_by_her_example_? Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied
to life? Is she merely the miller who grinds the finest logic? Is it
pertinent to ask if Plato got his _living_ in a better way or more
successfully than his contemporaries, -- or did he succumb to the
difficulties of life like other men? Did he seem to prevail over some
of them merely by indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it
easier to live, because his aunt remembered him in her will? The ways
in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere makeshifts,
and a shirking of the real business of life, -- chiefly because they
do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.
The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely
of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation
to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready
to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others
less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is
called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the
immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The
philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the
dust of a puffball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, by
stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could
command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not
pay _such_ a price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did not make this
world in jest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a
handful of pennies to see mankind scramble for them. The world's
raffle! A subsistence in the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled
for! What a comment, what a satire, on our institutions!
...It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few
moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.
The highest advice I have heard on these subjects was groveling. The
burden of it was, -- It is not worth your while to undertake to reform
the world in this particular. Do not ask how your bread is buttered;
it will make you sick, if you do, -- and the like. A man had better
starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his
bread. If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated
one, then he is but one of the devil's angels. As we grow old, we live
more coarsely, we relax a little in our disciplines, and, to some
extent, cease to obey our finest instincts. But we should be fastidious
to the extreme of sanity, disregarding the gibes of those who are more
unfortunate than ourselves.
In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and
absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted
its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether
the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it. Why must we
daub the heavens as well as the earth? ...I hardly know an intellectual
man, even, who is so broad and liberal that you can think aloud in his
society. Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand
against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, -- that
is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things. They will
continually thrust their own low roof, with its narrow skylight,
between you and the sky, when it is the unobstructed heavens you would
view. Get out of the way with your cobwebs; wash your windows, I say!
To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a
world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter
and study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for
the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but
we do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the
lowest primitive rock. Our sills are rotten. What stuff is the man made
of who is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and subtilest
truth? I often accuse my finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity;
for, while there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not
teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes
do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is
commonly mutual, however; for we do not habitually demand any more of
each other.
...We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not
read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most
part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has
seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion
as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the
post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away
with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspond-
ence, has not heard from himself this long while.
I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I
have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not
dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees
say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more
than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.
We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in
our day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial, -- considering
what one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be
so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our
genius. It is the stalest repition. You are often tempted to ask why
such stress is laid on a particular experience which you have had, --
that, after twenty-five years, you should meet Hobbins, Registrar of
deeds, again on the sidewalk. Have you not budged an inch then? Such
is the daily news. Its facts appear to float on the atmosphere,
insignificant as the sporules of fungi, and impinge on some neglected
thallus, or surface of our minds, which affords a basis for them, and
hence a parasitic growth. We should wash ourselves clean of such news.
Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no
character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least
curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would
not run round a corner to see the world blow up. ...
Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how
near I had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial
affair, -- the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how
willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, -- to permit
idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on
ground which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public
arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table
chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, --
an hypaethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods? I find it
so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant,
that I hesitate to burden my attention with those which are insignifi-
cant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most
part, the news in newspapers and conversation. It is important to
preserve the mind's chastity in this respect. Think of admitting the
details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to
stalk profanely through their very _sanctum_sanctorum_ for an hour, ay,
for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind's inmost apartment,
as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us, -- the very
street itself, with all its travel, and bustle, and filth, had passed
through our thoughts' shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral
suicide? When I have been compelled to sit spectator and auditor in a
court-room for some hours, and have seen my neighbors, who were not
compelled, stealing in from time to time, and tiptoeing about with
washed hands and faces, it has appeared to my mind's eye that, when
they took off their hats, their ears suddenly expanded into vast
hoppers for sound, between which even their narrow heads were crowded.
Like the vanes of windmills, they caught the broad but shallow stream
of sound, which, after a few titillating gyrations in their coggy
brains, passed out the other side. I wondered if, when they got home,
they were as careful to wash their ears as before their hands and
faces. It has seemed to me, at such a time, that the auditors and the
witnesses, the judge and the criminal at the bar, -- if I may presume
him guilty before he is convicted, -- were all equally criminal, and
a thunderbolt might be expected to descend and consume them all
together.
By all kinds of traps and signboards, threatening the extreme
penalty of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground
which can be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse
than useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that
it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town
sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the
attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale
revelation of the barroom and the police court. The same ear is fitted
to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer
determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe
that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to
trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with
triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were, --
its foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll
over; and if you would know what will make the most durable pavement,
surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only
to look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this
treatment so long.
If we have thus desecrated ourselves, -- as who has not? -- the
remedy will be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and
make once more a fane of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is,
ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are,
and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their
attention. Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Conventionalities
are at length as bad as impurities. Even the facts of science may dust
the mind by their dryness, unless they are in a sense effaced each
morning, or rather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living
truth.
...I saw, the other day, a vessel which had been wrecked, and many
lives lost, and her cargo of rags, juniper berries, and bitter almonds
were strewn along the shore. It seemed hardly worth the while to tempt
the dangers of the sea between Leghorn and New York for the sake of a
cargo of juniper berries and bitter almonds. America sending to the
Old World for her bitters! Is not the sea-brine, is not shipwreck,
bitter enough to make the cup of life go down here? Yet such, to a great
extent, is our boasted commerce; and there are those who style them-
selves statesmen and philosophers who are so blind as to think that
progress and civilization depend on precisely this kind of interchange
and activity, -- the activity of flies about a molasses-hogshead. Very
well, observes one, if men were oysters. And very well, answer I, if
men were mosquitoes.
Lieutenant Herndon, whom our government sent to explore the
Amazon, and, it is said, to extend the area of slavery, observed that
there was wanting there "an industrious and active population, who
know what the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to
draw out the great resources of the country." But what are the
"artificial wants" to be encouraged? Not the love of luxuries, like
the tobacoo and slaves of, I believe, his native Virginia, nor the ice
and granite and other material wealth of our native New England; nor
are "the great resources of a country" that fertility or barrenness of
soil which produces these. The chief want, in every State that I have
been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants. This
alone draws out "the great resources" of Nature, and at last taxes her
beyond her resources; for man naturally dies out of her. When we want
culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums,
then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the
result, or staple production, is not slaves, nor operatives, but men,
-- those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers and
redeemers.
In short, as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the
wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution
springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at
length blows it down.
What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial
and inhuman, that practically I have never fairly recognized that it
concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their
columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this,
one would say, is all that saves it; but as I love literature and to
some extent the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate.
I do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. I have not got to
answer for having read a single President's Message. A strange age of
the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging
to a private man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! ...
Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as
politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of
human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the
corresponding functions of the physical body. They are _infra_-human,
a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of
them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the
process of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia,
as it is called. It is as if a thinker submitted himself to be rasped
by the great gizzard of creation. Poitics is, as it were, the gizzard
of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are
its two opposite halves, -- sometimes split into quarters, it may be,
which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but states, have thus
a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what
sort of eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but
also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering, of that which we should
never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why
should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams,
but sometimes as EUpeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever-
glorious morning? I do not make an exorbitant demand, surely.
Reprinted from _The_One-Straw_Revolution_ c 1978 by Masanobu Fukuoka
Permission granted by Rodale Press, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098.
When I first began direct-seeding rice and winter grain, I was
planning to harvest with a hand sickle and so I thought it would be
more convenient to set the seeds out in regular rows. After many
attempts, dabbling about as an amateur, I produced a handmade seeding
tool. Thinking that this tool might be of practical use to other farm-
ers, I brought it to the man at the testing center. He told me that
since we were in an age of large-sized machinery he could not be
bothered with my ``contraption.''
Next I went to a manufacturer of agricultural equipment. I was told
here that such a simple machine, no matter how much you tried to make of
it, could not be sold for more than $3.50 apiece. ``If we made a gadget
like that, the farmers might start thinking they didn't need the
tractors we sell for thousands of dollars.'' He said that nowadays the
idea is to invent rice planting machines quickly, sell them head over
heels for as long as possible, then introduce something newer. Instead
of small tractors, they wanted to change over to larger-sized models,
and my device was, to them, a step backward. To meet the demands of the
times, resources are poured into furthering useless research, and to
this day my patent remains on the shelf.
It is the same with fertilizer and chemicals. Instead of developing
fertilizer with the farmer in mind, the emphasis is on developing some-
thing new, anything at all, in order to make money. After the tech-
nicians leave their jobs at the testing centers, they move right over
to work for the large chemical companies.
Recently I was talking with Mr. Asada, a technical official in the
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and he told me an interesting
story. The vegetables grown in hothouses are extremely unsavory. Hear-
ing that the eggplants shipped out in winter have no vitamins and the
cucumbers no flavor, he researched the matter and found the reason:
certain of the sun's rays could not penetrate the vinyl and glass
enclosures in which the vegetables were being grown. His investigation
moved over to the lighting system inside the hothouses.
The fundamental question here is whether or not it is necessary for
human beings to eat eggplants and cucumbers during the winter. But,
this point aside, the only reason they are grown during the winter is
that they can be sold then at a good price. Somebody develops a means
to grow them, and after some time passes, it is found that these
vegetables have no nutritional value. Next, the technician thinks that
if the nutrients are being lost, a way must be found to prevent that
loss. Because the trouble is thought to be with the lighting system,
he begins to research light rays. He thinks everything will be all right
if he can produce a hothouse eggplant with vitamins in it. I was told
that there are some technicians who devote their entire lives to this
kind of research.
Naturally, since such great efforts and resources have gone into
producing this eggplant, and the vegetable is said to be high in
nutritional value, it is tagged at an even higher price and sells well.
``If it is profitable, and if you can sell it, there can't be anything
wrong with it.''
No matter how hard people try, they cannot improve upon naturally
grown fruits and vegetables. Produce grown in an unnatural way satisfies
people's fleeting desires but weakens the human body and alters the
body chemistry so that it is dependent on such foods. When this happens,
vitamin supplements and medicines become necessary. This situation only
creates hardships for the farmer and suffering for the consumer.
Retorts
audience contributions to the distillation process
Dear Rick:
I weary of working-classicists like Ralph Dumain deducing class
from consciousness and ethnicity from attitude without positioning
_themselves_ in the social grids they regard -- with seeming equanimity
-- as determinative. If all views are ``socially determined,'' so are
Dumain's and they must, pending arrival of his genealogy, resume and
income tax returns, be filed away for future (p)reference. On a polit-
ical scene where publishers owning a business bought with inherited
wealth impersonate ``dissident office workers'' I have learned not to
take class rhetoric as any evidence of class status; if anything the
correlation is negative.
Ayn Rand, whom Dumain carelessly calls a ``fascist'' -- indicating
his own befuddlement with the political jargon he spouts -- agrees with
him that ``having no philosophy is impossible.'' Few intellectuals and
fewer workers agree. If anything, in this epoch of shreds and patches,
having _any_ philosophy is impossible. The philosophers, says Marx,
have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it, to change it
so radically that philosophy and other contemplative modes are realized
and suppressed. Philosophy is contemplative capitalism, the abstract
self-consciousness of the specialists in thought (formerly priests)
whom the social division of labor have assigned a privileged position
in every class society since Sumer and Egypt. No wonder Dumain defends
``education.''
Emending the title of my essay ``Feminism as Fascism'' to refer to
``radical'' feminism, suggested by Dumain, I actually did when I
published a revised version of this 1983 text three years ago. Next
revision, though, I plan to restore the original title but incorporate
some differentiation of my target from mainstream feminism which is
merely liberalism, an ideology I've assailed often enough elsewhere.
I don't plan to make refined distinctions between these equally obnox--
ious variants so long as they discreetly downplay or disregard their own
differences in thrall to some hazy feeling of ``sisterhood'' whose
content, when it has any, is just anti-male resentment and whose real
impetus is probably just avoidance of boat-rocking.
I'm puzzled by Dumain's caterwauling against my ``keeping company
with anarchist riffraff'' -- the sort of anarchists I _part_ company
with are the ones who think they have the kind of ``systematic phil-
osophy'' Dumain, unlike most people, can't live without. I publicly
broke ties with all avowedly anarchist publications and organizations
in 1985. Now I deal with everybody non-ideologically and on a case by
case basis. Labelling and self-labelling aren't very important to me,
although people to whom they _are_ very important -- like Dumain, who
coyly conceals his label -- tend to be my idea of ``riffraff.'' Anarch-
ism like Marxism is food for thought. Let's chow down and, like Popeye,
eat all the worms and spit out the germs.
``People constantly change as they acquire new knowledge and discover
new alternatives. But each person changes in harmony with his own
nature, in keeping with his own desires for change and growth, in ways
that make sense to _him_. Recognize each person you deal with as a
different, distinct, individual entity, and you won't have identity
problems.''
-Harry Browne
_How_I_Found_Freedom_in_an_Unfree_World_
``What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we
will walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which,
if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not
indifferent to us which way we will walk. There is a right way; but we
are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one.''
-Henry David Thoreau
_Walking_
``Using the topography and geography of an area to protect yourself
requires harmony with your surroundings.''
-Ragnar Benson
_The_Survival_Retreat_
