[Foundation-l] Clifford Geertz

[Cormac Lawler]

On 11/2/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Clifford Geertz, the great American anthropologist, died a couple of days
> ago. There's this quote from his obituary at the IAS* which struck me as
> being relevant to our projects:
>
> In *Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author* (1988), Geertz stated,
> "The next necessary thing...is neither the construction of a universal
> Esperanto-like
> culture...nor the invention of some vast technology of human management. It
> is to enlarge the possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite
> different from one another in interest, outlook, wealth, and power, and yet
> contained in a world where tumbled as they are into endless connection, it
> is increasingly difficult to get out of each other's way."
>
> Though through the mechanism of a technology that wasn't imagined through
> most of Dr. Geertz's lifetime, it seems to me that's what we're doing:
> enlarging the possibility of intelligent discourse between people. It's a
> worthy goal.
>
> -- phoebe
>
> * http://www.ias.edu/Newsroom/announcements/Uploads/view.php?cmd=view&id=354


Thanks very much for passing this on Phoebe - and I heartily concur
with this goal. I'm saddened though to hear of Dr Geertz's death - I
hadn't heard. He was and is a beacon of light to anyone who wants to
understand human nature and society.

Cormac