In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.- Eric Hoffer, born on this dare in 1902
(Bear this in mind the next time you hear someone from old media complaining about new media.)
I recently read a fascinating book about why Neanderthals went extinct. The author, Clive Finlayson, divides people into "conservatives" and "innovators." The conservatives craft everything they do around the world never changing. They are supremely equipped for what IS. The innovators, who often are marginalized for various reasons, learn to live in "fringe" habitats. They adapt to new things and they are the ones most likely to survive when big changes occur. Hence, homo sapiens made it and Neanderthals did not.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting thought when you consider how much debate there is these days regarding "change" and what to do about it. "Climate change," for instance, which is aredundant phrase, since is what climate does. We seem to have lost touch with the notion that we ourselves are a constituent of nature, that what we do is as "natural" as anything any other species does. I'm not sure I quite accept Finlayson's terminology. I would differentiate between the adapters and the complacent.
ReplyDeleteSynchronistically I picked up a Hoffer first edition hardcover today. He's always been one of my favorite writers, a genuine modern public intellectual.
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