To know a thing by its parts is science, to feel it as a whole is art.
-- Lewis Mumford (1895-1990)

⬆ #Quotes #LewisMumford #Art #Science

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Panopainting #Protest #MarchForOurLives #Florida

The future of our civilization depends upon our ability to select and control our heritage from the past, to alter our present attitudes and habits, and to project fresh forms into which our energies may be freely poured.
-- Lewis Mumford (1895-1990)

⬆ #Quotes #LewisMumford #Civilization #TheFuture

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #BWCA #Canoe #Minnesota

> .. the absurdity of using the machine to explain the autonomous processes of organization and growth and reproduction comes out.. in the story #FrankOConnor tells of his mother’s effort to explain to him.. how babies are conceived, without going into embarrassing.. intimacies “mummies had an engine in their tummies and daddies had a starting handle that made it work, and once it started it went on until it made a baby.”.. [A] "natural,’.. mechanical.. ‘objective’ [explanation].
#LewisMumford

> ... [If] we now overvalue the machine, is it not because the mechanistic doctrine which has made us competent to design machines and control them also promises to give the scientist an equal hold over the living organisms he unfeelingly identifies with machines? In a world of machines, or of creatures that can be reduced to machines, technocrats would indeed be gods.
#LewisMumford in #MythOfTheMachine: #PentagonOfPower on #AI #ChatBot #ChatGPT #OverClaims and hype, but in 1970: same pattern

> ... [If after] four centuries.. we now overvalue the machine, is it not because the mechanistic doctrine which has made us competent to design machines and control them also promises to give the scientist an equal hold over the living organisms he unfeelingly identifies with machines? In a world of machines, or of creatures that can be reduced to machines, #technocrats would.. be gods. --- #LewisMumford, #MythOfTheMachine: #PentagonOfPower. p 72
1970 #Mumford on #Tech #RichGuy #AIHype

On p. 179
> .. the unity it[paideia] seeks must be sought in experience, and it demands a readiness to interchange roles, even at the sacrifice of expertness, for the sake of the greater gain to learning and life. #LewisMumford #TransformationsOfMan

got me thinking of #Laetitia@Work

> Learning something new means you can’t be productive. Conversely, if you’re productive, it’s because you’re not learning anything new. ^1 #Vitaud #LaëtitiaVitaud

^1 https://laetitiaatwork.substack.com/p/5-reasons-why-i-dont-want-to-be-productive

Since finding the _Towards Liberal Education_ (1948-1962) collection I've been trying to read some of the writers of the most memorable essays. #LewisMumford is mentioned by Neil Postman and Nicolas Carr so I binged his work, some of the smaller books. I haven't really read the big #MythOfTheMachine books but reading that captions of the photos has been rewarding. It feels like he's talking about AI and Satellites: recent #TechExhibitionism. Compare #CharlesBlondin with #vonWeizsacker

Winona LaDuke's tone, chiding a little boy, in her open letter to Shopping-Car-Space-Guy (SNS-buyer) seems appropriate. An illustration and it's description, an astronaut as capsule-mane, came to mind from Lewis Mumford's #MythOfTheMachine #PentagonOfPower(1971)

#Mumford #LewisMumford #MythOfTheMachine #PentagonOfPower #SpaceGuy #Astrounauts #ElonMusk

_Towards Liberal Education_, (TLA) a collection of writings, was in the library. It's calming to read it, usually, like Mathew Arnold on the influence of reading "the ancients." #TLA started in 1948. I write in books as I read so I ordered books on-line. I have 3 editions, all different that the library's 3rd ed. But that book ends with _The #BasisOfRenewal_ and got me into #LewisMumford, #TheConditionOfMan and this #TransformationsOfMan pp178-180, (#TransMan?) #Mumford #人間過去現在未来 p.206~ #人類変身歴

_Towards Liberal Education_, (TLA) a collection of writings, was in the library. It's calming to read it, usually, like Mathew Arnold on the influence of reading "the ancients." #TLA started in 1948. I write in books as I read so I ordered books on-line. I have 3 editions, all different that the library's 3rd ed. But that book ends with _The #BasisOfRenewal_ and got me into #LewisMumford, #TheConditionOfMan and this #TransformationsOfMan, (#TransMan?) #Mumford #人間過去現在未来 #人類変身歴

There is a great old book of essay #TowardsLiberalEducation that got started in 1945 I think. The first editions ended with #LewisMumford's The #BasisOfRenewal a chapter from his book The #ConditionOfMan. (I wonder if some of the 60s activism was set up by good reading like this from the 40's on?) Mumford says how #JSMill's #SteadyState economy should have used terms like #DynamiEquilibrium instead: like for beaches and living organisms I guess. #SteadyStateEconomy .

> When Japan's #Hayabusa2 spacecraft slung its treasure chest of asteroid samples toward Earth in December 2020, the scientists and engineers guiding the samples home erupted into a round of applause. After an eight-year mission to the 4.6-billion-year-old #asteroid #Ryugu, pieces of the ancient rock were finally on their way to Earth.
https://www.cnet.com/science/space/hayabusa2s-ancient-asteroid-samples-are-the-most-pristine-ever-seen-why-thats-a-big-deal/
I bet #Chomsky or #LewisMumford could explain how something like this is smarter than putting a boy on Mars.

Hm, #LewisMumford mit seinen #Megamaschinen will ich ja auch noch lesen. Sachbuchklassiker und Bildungslücke!

Lewis Mumford on the Interstate Highway System in 1958

In 1958, Mumford saw the damage that highways -- especially the new interstate system -- would inflict on American cities. He tried to warn us....

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/DavidZipper/status/1520395455707951106

HN discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31230550

#LewisMumford #Highways #Cars #Transporation #Congestion #Sustainability

> .. this is not just moving from one kind of consumerism to another. This is a kind of spiritual renewal and also a material renewal, that—in which we turn ourselves toward an economy that’s sustainable, that’s life-giving, both for humanity and the rest of the world.
#LewisMumford writes of a new #LifeEconomy ,and that with #surplus we get the #obligation to #create no to #consume #TheBasisOfRenewal

It's hard not to keep thinking about his book, _The Prospects of Industrial Civilization_ by #BertrandRussel and #DoraRussel. What they call "trivial pursuits and passivity" #LewisMumford called "semi-mental distraction"... and they are writing 50 or 60 years before proprietary SNSs, unless we can see commercial mainstream media as some sort of centralized SNS...

https://libgen.is/search.php?req=The+Prospects+of+Industrial+Civilization&open=0&res=25&view=simple&phrase=1&column=title

#Oligarchy #Dictatorship #IndustrialCivilization

Beautiful Spring Day! Nice to have the windows open and to goof around outside. The chickens are enjoying the day with dirt baths too.
The kind of day when you feel "the wind that awakened the stars blowing through" your blood and you are happy not to be an astronaut of TopGun fighter pilot.
https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=ACD9DC15E5826E741CC52888B1BF8404
#LewisMumford #PentagonOfPower #MachineMyth #astronaut baby #TopGun #FighterPilot

Nuclear Waste and Literature! Moby Dick's Ahab! in 1957!!!
原発と文学、 白鯨のエイバブ
#LMToM #LewisMumford #TransformationsOfMan #人間過去現在未来

> Though the words blood and soil have been degraded in our time by degraded men, their concrete realities pervade the archaic tradition and come down to us today even in the inflated stereotypes of patriotism and nationalism.
Terrible that #ForsaKeN #Nazi #AzovBattalion coopted #RedAndBlack for #BloodAndSoil. #YetAnotetherExample #YAE of #CorruptioOptimiPessima #COPessima. #AmReading #LewisMumford in #TransformationOfMan to see why it irritates me so much. #TToM #人間の変成 #人間過去現在未来 #マンフォード

I should get used to using Hubzilla Wiki pages to use photo albums, with some concentrated practice it should become second nature. It's probably taking so long because of experience with similar markdown formats, and with bbcode in Hubzilla, and I don't have enough experience to switch among the various dialects.
https://tiksi.net/wiki/bsmall2/LewisMumford/ConductOfLife
#Hubzilla #Wiki start for #LewisMumford books in #Japanese #Translation working towards a #LiberalEducation or #Humanities approach for #FreedomLearning