Quoting Case <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > [Case] > While looking for a tasty E.O. Wilson quote to jab at you I ran across this > one from Woodrow Wilson. IT was published in 1897 in Atlantic Monthly while > Wilson was a professor at either Bryn Mawr College or Wesleyan University. > > Maybe it is not germaine to the current discussion but I thought you might > like it. Pirsig talks a lot about Wilson in Chapter 22. There is a kind of > harmony here between Pirsig's Giant and Wilson's city. Wilson also expresses > a longing for "betterness" but uneasiness over the agrarian to industrial > transformation. > > This is Wilson speaking from before the turn of the 20th century. Just > another liberal academic glad handing at parties in the days of William > James. Wilson was 16 years away from the Oval Office at the time. The full > text of his article is available from Project Gutenberg here: > > http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/nbhmn10.txt > > "Once--it is a thought which troubles us--once it was a simple enough matter > to be a human being, but now it is deeply difficult; because life was once > simple, but is now complex, confused, multifarious. Haste, anxiety, > preoccupation, the need to specialize and make machines of ourselves, have > transformed the once simple world, and we are apprised that it will not be > without effort that we shall keep the broad human traits which have so far > made the earth habitable. We have seen our modern life accumulate, hot and > restless, in great cities--and we cannot say that the change is not natural: > we see in it, on the contrary, the fulfillment of an inevitable law of > change, which is no doubt a law of growth, and not of decay. And yet we look > upon the portentous thing with a great distaste, and doubt with what altered > passions we shall come out of it. The huge, rushing, aggregate life of a > great city--the crushing crowds in the streets, where friends seldom meet > and there are few greetings; the thunderous noise of trade and industry that > speaks of nothing but gain and competition, and a consuming fever that > checks the natural courses of the kindly blood; no leisure anywhere, no > quiet, no restful ease, no wise repose--all this shocks us. It is inhumane. > It does not seem human. How much more likely does it appear that we shall > find men sane and human about a country fireside, upon the streets of quiet > villages, where all are neighbors, where groups of friends gather easily, > and a constant sympathy makes the very air seem native! Why should not the > city seem infinitely more human than the hamlet? Why should not human traits > the more abound where human beings teem millions strong? > > Because the city curtails man of his wholeness, specializes him, quickens > some powers, stunts others, gives him a sharp edge, and a temper like that > of steel, makes him unfit for nothing so much as to sit still." > > -Woodrow Wilson - 1897
Not sure what Wilson's quote has to do with anything other than he doesn't like big city life. Personally I avoid crowds at every opportunity having on one occasion witnessed mob psychology first hand. Anyway, Wilson's ideas could engender a discussion of many directions, none of which I choose to take at this time other than to observe that some people thrive on city life while others like monasteries. To each his own . . . that's what liberty is all about. Platt ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
