106420601308613158

I think the ideas of both Buckminster Fuller and of Marshall McLuhan about the world as a single place are essential to the possibility of our solving problems now. And will always be at the basis of a good life, if we have one, on this earth. In other words, seeing the earth not as a plurality of sovereignties, as Bucky said, but as a single place. For me, it became clear when I went to Oahu in Hawaii…

When I went to Hawaii, I noticed that between Honolulu on the southern side of Oahu, and the sections of Hawaii on the north side of Oahu, there was a tunnel, and at the top of the tunnel there were crenellations as on a medieval castle. And I asked what they were for. And I was told that formerly the people to the north or to the south used those crenellations to protect themselves while shooting poisoned arrows at the people on the other side. Now they share the same utilities, and that they were ever at war with one another is laughable. This then, I, brought me to thinking of Bucky’s map of the of the world which shows that the whole earth is a single island and that were we to do as they now do in Hawaii, share the utilities with all the other people on the planet, anything like war would be out of the question. It seems already, with our recent news, that war is becoming increasingly questionable. But still we don’t have the, the sharing of utilities. And I think we have many corners of the earth that the powerful nations give little thought to.

. . .

[A]ny future that we have will be based on his ideas and those of Marshall McLuhan, because they’re ideas which see the life of all of us on earth as being one life to the problems attacking which must be solved. One of the things that interests me at the moment about Bucky was his concern not with politics but with economics. He said that the best newspaper to read in New York was not the Times, but the Wall Street Journal. And if we connect that with the fact that the only people who are really acting in a global way are the industries, whose advances are retailed to us in the Wall Street Journal, we see what he was talking about. What we would like is that kind of energy without the greed that is associated with it. And I think that, that absence of greed and the presence of complete generosity is what Bucky had.