Barry says, "Rachel asks us to "start working to manage" the introduction
of these technologies. Are we ready to simply introduce? What does
introduce mean, after all? I'm one to think that this list, as a superb
example, is the kind of stew pot we need more of. Let's grow the kitchen.
Everyone should be able to throw in their ingredients. Tasting spoons all
around! Let's continue to concoct, allowing those with special tastes or
immediate hungers to draw out what is needed while leaving the pot to
simmer and "collect itself"."
Among the destroyed or dying cultures around the planet are examples of a
few, I think I have heard, who are able to synthesize the new into their
cultural stream of consciousness. Aberrations? Hope? Is selectivity
possible?
*** end quote ***
I lived for a number of years in French West Africa in the mid to late
70's, and as an avid outdoors person, I went to a lot of remote corners of
the Ivory Coast, my home base.
Too many times I had the experience of walking 20-50 miles from the
nearest road, and stumbling onto a village. In one case I remember well,
the patriarch was a survivor of a German POW camp from World War II. That
is another story. All these very remote villages had one thing in common.
They had battery-operated stereo systems and in a few cases, televisions.
I saw similar situations in Guatemala a few years earlier. I have heard
similar stories about Mexico where a village of cinder blocks and tin
roofs would have a TV and -- these days -- a dish. I fear we may be too
late, but it is a worthy task.
-- Rol Fessenden LL Bean 76234.3636@compuserve.com