tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30321121.post8753305736734683440..comments2024-03-18T21:52:53.357+05:30Comments on Cuckoo's call: Lewis Mumfordramahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07762427741454619332noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30321121.post-54616946863055358242006-11-12T22:30:00.000+05:302006-11-12T22:30:00.000+05:30Dear Rama,
I think it is quite marvellous to me...Dear Rama, <br /><br />I think it is quite marvellous to meet with you, here in this cyber-reality, deeply connected in mind and soul by our common interest in that great man Lewis Mumford.<br />Thank you for your excellent summary of Mumford’s life and career, and the lovely colour photograph, which I hadn’t seen before.<br />We both share, I think, the same bafflement with the world’s ignorance of Mumford’s existence, and I keep wondering how it came about. My own discovery of Mumford serves as a case in point. <br />From an early age (I’m now 51) I was interested in history, technology, science and art, and was forever trying to find the common ground that might define us ultimately as humans. My academic career only went so far as studying English literature and modern linguistics, at University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and Reading (UK), but my professional life took me deep into the world of information technology via the localization connection, ie. making software available in different languages through translation. Apart from this rather esoteric connection with information technology, I also had a deep love and interest in machines, in pure technics (I keep using this Mumford term), especially those ultimate movement experience machines called motorcycles, and basically anything on wheels. <br />I recognized early on in my life the deep, dark, inexplicable urge and obsession of making the machine on wheels go fast round a circuit, and from an early age walked around on racing circuits of Europe, watching the drivers and riders. And of course reading tons and tons of articles about them in the better British magazines. And of course I practiced some myself, by owning a motorcycle myself. <br /><br />I guess, coming to arrive at that common ground is what I have been driven by all my life, and the arrival of Lewis Mumford into my thinking life, as late as 1992, was a turning point. Before I knew about Lewis Mumford I had been searching for ‘gurus’ who could serve as my guide in my specific quest, and the one that stood out before Mumford was Aldous Huxley, but in the late 80s he had kind of petered out as an inspirational source. <br />I came across Mumford in a Dutch collection of essays about philosophers of technology, and I knew immediately that I had found a successor to Huxley. <br />Except Mumford proved to be much more than that. <br />I can’t by any means claim to be a Mumford expert, but I have read Technics & Civilization, and The Myth of the Machine part I, and part II, the Pentagon of Power, very thoroughly, as well as Donald Miller’s biography, and LM’s own My Works and Days. Mumford’s bibliographies and indexes to his books are works of art in themselves, and they often led me to follow up through the works of others writers. For example, Lynn White’s Medieval Technology and Social Change, a jewell of a book, bursting with revelations and insights. <br /><br />Being able to organize the Mumford Centenary and deliver your personal homage must have been a great event for you. <br /><br />I keep wondering why his influence is so little recognized. <br /><br />I remember a TV program of which I only saw the last 3 minutes, in which an American woman was fulminating about how the French philosopher Foucault (I think the programme was dedicated to Foucault’s death, then) had completely plagiarized the philosophical underpinnings and ideas of Lewis Mumford’s work to make it the basis of his own philosophy, without ever once referring to Lewis Mumford. I did not recognize the woman, and the program moved on without showing any credits.<br />I believe, similarly, Jacques Ellul never refers to Mumford, when the reverse is true, Mumford does refer to Ellul here and there. ‘Travesty of justice’ springs to mind.<br />There is something deeply wrong here, possibly caused by our modern thinking allowing itself to be defined only in the context of closed paradigms (thanks to Kuhn), without a willingness and openness towards being questioned and crossed over into more fields than just the one specialized one. For the latter attitude I think we need to revisit Popper. <br /><br />Recently I read an obituary of Murray Bookchin, who seems to have truly followed a Mumfordian tradition, and I had also never heard of him. <br />Link to his Obit, see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1839260,00.html <br /><br />Our worlds are so far apart, and yet so close. May the powers that be be struck by awareness, and may we, mere mortals, find a way of achieving it.<br />All the best,<br />Janjfreijserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13973076443317250632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30321121.post-68712356074482077622006-10-20T11:44:00.000+05:302006-10-20T11:44:00.000+05:30I'd also like to mention his vision of "America" -...I'd also like to mention his vision of "America" - as a heroic land of freedom, but one tragically dominated by the ghosts of the Old World. ramaramahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07762427741454619332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30321121.post-58692725426245847012006-10-20T11:23:00.000+05:302006-10-20T11:23:00.000+05:30Thank you friends! Through his diverse interests a...Thank you friends! Through his diverse interests and concerns, activist temperament, and long life - Mumford served as a BRIDGE, between disciplines and generations. He was a true "public intellectual". In the 1980s, Mumford was still alive, and widely recognised and referred to -but, as my Time magazine link indicates, he was active in the 1930s! His 3 autobiographical volumes ("My Works and Days", "Findings and Keepings" & Sketches from Life") make for fascinating reading, and endear him to the reader. I recall his account of his friendship and falling out with Frank Lloyd Wright, which is most educative. Best, ramaramahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07762427741454619332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30321121.post-84569014297551268192006-10-20T02:40:00.000+05:302006-10-20T02:40:00.000+05:30An excellent article on a little known and worldly...An excellent article on a little known and worldly man, in the best sense. His influence is everywhere, though many do not realize it. Thank you for posting it.<br /><br />Ya Haqq!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30321121.post-78227497615794804632006-10-19T23:21:00.000+05:302006-10-19T23:21:00.000+05:30one more time, i am indebted to you. this is the f...one more time, i am indebted to you. this is the first time i heard about mumford. now i will try to know more.ghetufoolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10180437940833356902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30321121.post-78607269832203961942006-10-19T22:43:00.000+05:302006-10-19T22:43:00.000+05:30This was a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing...This was a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing! c",)Irenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11510297318390124951noreply@blogger.com