[12863] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: FYI France -- BNF Strike, the results
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vigdor Schreibman)
Mon Apr 19 20:10:11 1999
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 13:55:09 -0600
From: Vigdor Schreibman <fins98@worldnet.att.net>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
But this _is_ how these things are done. Even the "corporate"
types who read this will admit that private firms look a lot less
efficient from the inside than out, and not just in France. And
the BNF after all _is_ a giant, public, and ancient institution:
Yale University's Bart Giamatti used to complain of having to
"run a 20th century enterprise using 16th century methods".
Public institution governance does require patience.
Mr. Giamatti, alas, overestimates our 20th-century competence,
nor is mere "patience" the issue.
The politics of our time are carried out in English prose, linear in
structure similar to the first record of the democratic assembly that
ancient Homer wrote about in his epic poem, The Iliad (circa 850 BC).
Yet it is well known that the human mind does not operate in linear
mode,
but holistically, as I described in a column on, "Thought patterns of
civic
society"!
http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/News_Columns/Fins-NC6-01.txt
Try to picture, in linear mode, the design of an automobile, an
airplane, or skyscraper, in any but holistic forms. It is laughable
to contemplate such complexities in linear forms, yet virtually
all our social intercourse, including our library systems, have
steadfastly rejected adapting to such realities. Power alone
drives human interaction, except where competence is genuinely
desired. That is why, perhaps, some have realized that human
integration is more difficult than war itself. Of course, as complexity
in human relations increases in this way, the degree of failure will
also
increase and a general breakdown will start to appear.
When all hope of continuing the existing scheme of things has failed,
a critical mass of society may then seek to find the courage and
intelligence
to adopt better ways, which are available or obtainable, assuming there
is
anything left of our civilization. Opportunity to improve our
situation, it
appears, is progressively largest when we are manifestly drowning in
failure.
All that is needed is the collective will to achieve human betterment.
Do you get it?
Vigdor Schreibman -- FINS
Communicating the emerging philosophy of the Global Information Age.
Phone: (202)547-8715; Email: fins98@worldnet.att.net; Browse
Fins Information Age Library at URL: http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/.
