to: ellipsis ...
from: jcj
19 June 1996
subject: letter nineteen S
attachments: trying to design the future
: utopia and numeroso in the
experimental city
dear ellipsis and everyone
Well, here I am beyond the turning point and
nothing seems to have changed. Yet my mind is
singing to those words spoken by Utopia and also
to what Krishna said. Each person as magician,
artist, scientist, politician, media star and
everything else, all the roles of privilege and
those of wisdom, power and prestige, are to be
shared by every person. For that is the ultimate
purpose of the computernet as I see it.
Yes, I find myself much drawn to Utopia's vision,
to the notion of everyone at last sharing not the
character of servant, or of slave or of consumer
(the names to me are exchangeable) but the
character of the elite, of the so-called gifted,
the powerful, the successful, the distant ones who
rule the world, and the people of legend ... But,
after some great transformation in the scheme of
things human, to reach the point where everyone is
truly sharing in everything as dependent/independent
beings in the power of every
one.
And how is that to be, for it sounds like the
grossest or naivest bit of wishful thinking that
I've heard? Or even like destructive chaos.
Well the essential proviso, it seems to me
immediately, is to believe those words of ancient
wisdom from the Gita and make everything to be
depending on benign self-rule and non-possessive
love, as Krishna's words imply.
But that sounds impossible too.
Just think of the Holocaust and of what happened
to Yugoslavia and the belief in people falls flat
and brings us to that deadly teaching of each
child as born to sin. But I don't believe it,
never did, whatever the atrocities, for there's
more in life than good and bad. Those are
certainly the wrong categories, not any basis for
constructive thought. And here he looks over his
shoulder for any sign of Edwina.
So now in this second part of this journey what is
to come?
'Trying to design the future' was my first
attempt, written a long time ago (and I don't like
it so much now) but it led to new developments
both in myself and in the world. It was perhaps
the first step that led me to 'designing worlds'.
'Utopia and Numeroso in the experimental city' was
the next. And my current step is this.
with the hopes of things unknown
jcj