3rd
June 25. Last week on the forums, freecookies posted this 1941 essay, Who goes Nazi? The author spent a lot of time in Europe watching nations and people turn Nazi, and here she goes through Americans (and one German) at a party, one by one, sketching their personalities. Even if it wasn’t about who goes Nazi, it would be worth reading just for the complexity of the characters and the glimpse of American culture 68 years ago. But the conclusion is also valuable:
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t — whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern — go Nazi.
This reminds me of how fire spreads: in a forest where everything is alive, a fire can’t even get started. When the ratio of deadness to aliveness gets high enough, there’s a tipping point at which a spark will turn into a spreading fire. And if the ratio of deadness to aliveness is even higher, then there’s another tipping point at which the fire grows so hot that it consumes everything
CITY OF BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL
Citizen > Consumer. Why does this feel like a welcome surprise to me? It should be a given…
Simple machine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (via stumblinghorse)
“simple machines do not create energy, only transform it.” see also: The I Ching
Now if thoughts should arise in your mind that this country or that country is peaceful or fortunate or that money is easy to get there, discard them, my friend, and do not dwell on them whatsoever. For you know that the whole world everywhere is plagued by one problem or another….Whether by cold, heat, disease, or danger, people are always being oppressed; nowhere in this world is a refuge. There is no country where fear does not exist, where people are not in terror of old age, sickness, and death.
Source: Translated from The Saundarananda of Asvaghosa, ed. E.H. Johnston (reprint edition, Delhi: Montilal Banarsidass, 1975), pp.111.