Donald Trump and Mr. Microsoft could follow in Carnegie's footsteps by giving US$2 billion to establish a new Alexandrian Library on the site of the former World Temple To Mammon (the lower Manhatten World Trade Center site).
This library would have as its mission to digitize the great works of culture on perishable media, to collect virtual tours of the immovable great works of culture, to be a repository for substantial cultural achievements in digital media and to foster substantive cultural dialog "without borders", to provide access to all these resources to anyone with a modem, and to set a new standard for survivability by having multiply redundant distributed mirroring sites, access links both fiber-optic and via satellite, etc. Building on SGML [the standard for computer information structuring which Microsoft helped mutilate into XML...], this library would be immune to just about anything except a very large rogue asteroid or the concerted efforts of a paranoiac Deity [The Tower of Babel, rebuilt with extremely strong yet flexible semiotic reinforcing rods unavailable to the master craftspersons who conceived of the first version]. Perhaps it could be called something like the Dialogium, and it would be dedicated to trying to reverse humanity from regressing into a New Dark Age, or even being scattered over the face of the earth as a babel(sic) of ethni[-]cities [see, e.g., HGWells' 1938(?) film "The Shape of Things to Come"]. For what is a city? A city is a place where master craftspersons can elaborate their skills beyond what the parochial village can support for the mere reproduction of individual and species life. It is the place where a person, even if he or she is no longer a small child, in walking theough it -- looking at the various master craftspersons at their work --, may see something that inspires him or her to *want* to do it for all their life -- desire, not need --, and get funding to do it. [ref.: Louis I Kahn] Since Louis Kahn is no longer with us (I believe due to America's failure to appropriately take care of such a living national treasure), his student Mario Botta would be a logical choice to at least begin coordinating the design for this institution, which hopefully would bring about a renewal of the spirit of the Enlightenment in our chronologically post-modern age of "the last man" (as Albrecht Wellmer has argued: Because it is self-critical, modernity is in a deep sense unsurpassible because it is the process of ever-self-renewing self-overcoming and self-surpassing). It won't happen, but at least nobody can say that the idea did not appear on the earth -- a point of light flickering on and then fading away in the darkness [ref.: Ivan Morris, _The World of the Shining Prince_: http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/essays.html#genji ] Credo quia absurdum (--Jan Szczepahski, after Tertullian) \brad mccormick Lawrence DeBivort wrote: > > Hear, hear! Not to mention Carnegie's libraries: he felt that a good > library was the key to a community's ability to flourish, so offered, if I > remember this correctly, a library (building, books and all) to every town > of over 5,000 people in the USA. And you can still see them at work and > paying social dividends to this day. A wonderful project, by any standard > > Thanks for the distinction, Brad. > > Lawry > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Brad > > McCormick, Ed.D. > > Sent: Saturday, July 06, 2002 9:56 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: The Annals of Philantropy > > > > > > I'm listening to a program about Andrew Carnegie on A&E. > > > > They just said that when Carnegie became aware that > > WWI was about to break out, he went to the German Kaiser > > and offered him a blank check if the Kaiser would not > > go to war. The Kaiser replied that he admired Carnegie's > > gesture, but he had to obey the will of his people. > > > > If we have to have Robber Barons, let them be > > Andrew Carnegies and not Kenneth Lays. > > > > \brad mccormick > > > > -- > > Let your light so shine before men, > > that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) > > > > Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) > > > > <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > > Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ > > -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
