[MD] Oneness, Dualism & Intellect

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Case <Case at iSpots.com>:

> [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 



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